I have NC for this.
DS is 5 and the youngest of six GC. He's a lovely little chap, happy, polite, generally well behaved etc. (Not me being PFB - I know I'm lucky - just hoping I'll be as lucky when he hits his teens is anyone that lucky?!).
I have often wondered if he is treated differently to the other GC in the family and having recently spent Christmas with the ILs I think he really is.
The other GC got two or three quite expensive Christmas presents each from the GP - DS got one joint present from the ILs - all of them, DHs two brothers and his parents. It's a nice present, admittedly, but cost the same as one of the presents the others got, and they also got seperate presents from their Uncles.
I know Christmas isn't about money, but when a child gets one present to everyone else getting five I just think it's unfair - it's not about monetary value - he doesn't see money, he sees parcels. Particularly as we were at the GPs for Christmas and he got to see the others presents and hear them say "This one is from Granny and Grampsy, and this one is from Uncle X and Auntie XX, and this one was from Granny and Grampsy too."
For his birthday DS got a £10 note in his card - nice to have a present - but the other GC got actual parcels, in the plural. And again, costing significantly more (by significantly I mean £50-£60 each).
In addition the GP often buy all the GC (except DS) books or pyjamas or whatever and say they will do the same for DS, but then nothing ever materialises. So many things have been promised over the years and not appeared. When I was pregnant with DS DH and I made a list of the things we needed to buy, and various family members offered to buy us things, including the ILs who even discussed specific brands and colours of the items etc with us. We then didn't buy or budget for those things which was unfortunate as we then had to buy them ourselves as they never materialised, and after the indepth discussions over a number of days involving the ILs doing a ton of research and bringing information round, were never mentioned again. This has happened more than once in the last five years, but after the first instance I haven't expected to get the things they say they are buying us - and so far I've been right. On the flip side the GPs bought quite a lot of the baby equipment for DH's brothers children and regularly buy bits for the other GC.
Until Christmas this year DS was too young to really notice the difference, but now he is starting to pick up on it. He does spend time with the ILs, and they are good with him when he is there, but when he comes home saying "Granny and Grampsy said they will buy me X,Y,Z" and it doesn't appear he doesn't really understand why. He has also asked me why cousin A got such and such a thing from Granny and Grampsy and he didn't.
At some point he is going to notice just how differently they treat him compared to his cousins, and he is potentially going to be really hurt by it. I am not sure why they do this, other than they treat DH differently to his brothers (they still get presents from their parents for Christmas and birthdays - DH hasn't got anything in years - not even a card, and it hurts him more than he would ever admit to).
I don't want DS to go through the same hurt as DH - what on earth can I do about it though? DS has a good relationship with his GPs and wider family, he loves them and likes seeing them and we want to maintain the relationships, but now he is starting to pick up on the fact that he is treated differently. At the moment he isn't really old enough to realise that he's being treated differently in a negative way, but he will do soon enough, and I want to try to do something so that it's sorted before he is able to understand and be hurt by it.
What would you do?
Thanks if you got this far - it's a little epic, but I've been sitting on it for nearly six years.