A question for grandmothers and mils...

[louloutheshamed]

My parents have some good friends who have just found out they are going to be grandparents but they aren't perhaps as thrilled as they would be as their son has not been in the relationship for very long and isn't married. They seem to be looking to my parents for advice on becoming grandparents etc and my mum was talking today about how she is going to tell them how much becoming a grandmother has enriched her life and how besotted she is with my two ds.

Anyway as we were talking she said some things that surprised me though they were lovely.

She said she thinks of my ds1 and 2 as just as much 'hers' as me and my brother and sister, and that she loves them just the same amount.

She also says she loves the way her family has been enriched by her 2 son in laws and daughter in law and she loves them as if they are her own children. She said, for example, that she loves my dh as much as she loves my brother.

This surprised me. I really dont think my mil loves me as much as her 3 ds!! But then I don't think of her as a mother either, and I wouldn't say I love her in the same way as I do my own mother at all.

is my mum unusual in this respect?

I wonder if your mum is a true "people" person? So she finds any "reasonable" personal relationship with someone enriching and rewarding?

I love my grandchild as much as my daughter, but sorry I like my soninlaw but he does not come close to my grandchild or children. Sorry blood is thicker than water.

I totally agree with your DM as regards your DC's. I love my DGD as much as l love my own DC's-l am totally besotted. However as much as my SIL (son in law) is a really nice guy and l am very fond of him l wouldn't say l love him any near as much as l love the others.

I love my DC with all my heart and my DGC to the moon and back. The joy they have bought is immeasurable. To me its not about blood as 4 of my 6 DC are step its about love. I was there when my nearly 14 year old DGD was born and I will never forget those first precious moments.

I love my DILS and SILS because they have been part of giving me wonderful DGC and making my DC happy. They are have different wonderful attributes and just enlarge our family. I think love elastic and life is more fulfilling the more of it I share.

I love my DGC as much as my DCs.
I respect and like my Son in laws, I always make an effort to be on good terms. They are the fathers of my DGC.
They will always be in my life even though one is soon to be an X SonIL

I love my dgc as much as I love my dc too. I love and respect my dil and sil too. With regard to dd's dc I find it amazing to think that, because a girl is born with all the eggs she will ever have, the eggs which became my dgs's were once in me. That is just wonderful.
My dil is Turkish and the family lives in Turkey and I am so grateful that her family are so loving and accepting of all of us.
I always say of being a gm that it fills a space you didn't know was empty. It is the most privileged of relationships after motherhood.

I too love my three GC as much as I love my own children, I cannt imagine my life without them. The downside is that I now worry about them going out at night as I Did my own children! They are a real blessing, I am so lucky

I love my grandchildren as much as I love my children too.

I also love my son-in-law - he is a good man who adores our DD. A hard working guy who is a great dad too.

I love my 3 grandsons as much as I love my sons [but more history in terms of years with my sons obviously].

I love my 2 dil's, they love my sons and bore my grandchildren and risked their own well being doing so. Both great women.

My sons are my blood though and so I have special love and bonds with them. [That won't be broken, no matter what].

Someone has really upset me [I was in tears tonight] and my son, dil and 2 grandsons were wonderful to me [and a new picture from the 6 year old to make nanny feel better.....].

Your DM sounds lovely. I know that my DM loves my DH and DD very much.

I was unprepared for the overwhelming feeling that I got from having DGC's. I didn't know that you could feel this for someone that you didn't actually give birth to. However , much as I like and respect my SIL and DIL I could never feel this way about them.

We became grandparents for the first time last week and I can see what your mum means.

When we met our grandchild it was like meeting our own flesh and blood and there was instant love. We obviously love our own children and this new baby is very much an extension of that. Holding the baby took us straight back to when our own were born. It was lovely.

I am very fond of our son in law too and he is definitely a part of the family now, but I wouldn't say that I love him in the same way that I love my own. I would kill for my children and now my grandchild, but not sure I feel that visceral about the in laws.

Oh and I would also like to echo what mummylin said. We drove away from the hospital and just knew that we had added another little person to the "worry" list. Oh well.

I adore the bones of my granchildren, I was there when they were born and the priviledge of that was wonderful. I love my dd's partner too (they aren't married), a nd though he isn't 'mine', I suppose I love him like a stepmother loves her stepchildren. We grew pretty close in that maternity room, he's a good lad. The heart is an ever expanding organ isn't it? Always room for another.

Ah some lovely replies

I have to say that seeing my dcs develop a relationship with their grandparents has been one of the unexpected joys of becoming a mum. They love each other so much.

My mum says she loves my dc (her dgc) in the same way she loves me. She also told me she was initially scared of the strength of her feelings for them - she hadn't expected it to be so intense. And now of course she has to spend the rest of her life worrying about them too...

My mil said a similar thing to me the other day.

She told me that she thought of me as a daughter and loved me and dd as if we were her own children. However she has known me nearly my entire life so I didn't think of it as weird.

My stepdad loves my dd more than me, by the time he came on the scene I was old enough that I didn't really need him and he never thought of himself as a father. But he is a wonderful grandparent to dd and absolutely dotes on her.

I was talking to my mum the other day about having a favourite child and she told me (hopefully as a joke) that her favourite child was my dd because she is nicer than me and my brother.

I really think it depends on the family! My in laws love my dc but to the point they actually want to bring them up. I can promise you they do not think of me or there other DIL as anything other than the people their sons married who they have to get on with. I know I get in the way of them having their dc where they want them.

I think it all depends on how controlling your in laws are. Mine are sadly very controlling, jealous and basically bored people. Mil has no problem telling me where I'm going wrong and fil has a horrible habit of explaining to us how it will be! He doesn't like me because I'm too independent and therefore don't 'need them'. We pay very little attention to them but don't interfere with their relationship with the children. In a crisis they are rubbish because they can't deal with change, have lived a very sheltered life and are actually not very resilient people. If things aren't perfect they sulk. Feel sorry for themselves and can't pick themselves up again. They are exhausting!

My parents are the opposite. Stay out the way unless needed and certainly don't interfere. They have their own full and active lives and encourage us to get on with ours. They adapt to change, we've have a lot of knocks and yet still come out laughing. We see life as precious and focus on what we have not what's missing.