Anyone else's kids get treated differently?

[whenyouwish]

Has anyone ever made a relationship work when you've got awful inlaws.
I absolutely hate my husbands mum and dad. It's not even for anything major. I'm polite to their face and see them once a month but I'm constantly seething with how they treat my kids so differently to their other grandkids and I can't get over it.
It makes me turn into a proper mummy lion and I don't know if I'm being irrational.
They see the other grandkids a few times a week, go to their house, look after them most weekends, buy them presents, take them places. This is plastered all over social media. My husband takes my kids over there once a week, but if he didn't then they wouldn't bother to come and see them.
It's got to the stage now where my daughters cousins brag about where they've been taken and what they've been bought. They've even ushered us out of the house quickly in order to take the other 2 grandkids out for the afternoon and it's really starting to upset my daughter in particular as she's older.
They have the other 2 for sleepovers, circus trips, trips to the fair, park, outings, clothes shopping and never invite my kids.
My daughter is a really really good kid. She's no trouble whatsoever, so it's not that she's badly behaved (also have a baby so can understand that the baby may not be invited as too small). The in laws pay for my nieces ballet lessons but not my daughters. We all have the same circumstances, live the same distance away, us and my bil and sil have the same working arrangements and income so can't work out why my kids are treated so poorly in comparison. My husband wants to keep the peace so won't say anything to them and this is making me want to end the relationship as its effecting me so much and I just seethe on a daily basis because of it. I probably am jealous but I'm more gutted that they don't seem to like my kids? I know I'm biased but they're lovely kids. Any advice?

However, as a grandparent myself I feel I would treat all my grandchildren equally in spite of their parents behaviour

You like to think that, but really its not possible. If you never see one set, how can you treat them the same as the ones you do see? Send a sweet in the post every time you give the ones you see a biscuit? It's not possible.

Because my theory is that if you've arranged to take 2 grandkids to the circus then you would invite the other one too, especially with her being close in age and getting on very well with her cousins.
Or you do like my mum does, if she contributes to something for my kids financially then she puts the same amount in the other kids bank accounts. Or she'll say "I've had wish's kids twice this week so I'll offer to have the other grandkids for the same amount of time".
There's ways and means of making it fair. Even if they thought the other grandkids were getting dumped on them and they didn't particularly want to look after them then surely you would think, ok I've had this set of grandkids for a morning so to make it fair we should take the other set of grandkids to the park for an hour.
It's just them not even offering that annoys me.
My grandmother died last year and I was devastated and that was the one and only time they've ever offered to have my kids in 6 years, yet they have the other grandkids numerous times a week.

Another example, we all went out as a family on the one and only occasion when everyone was invited. We went to a theme park which also had animals. Parent in laws paid for the trip, its only happened once and never happened again since.
One of the favoured grandkids didn't want to go and see the farm animals inside because they're "stinky" and she didn't like the smell. Cue the grandparents saying that we wouldn't go and visit those animals as favoured grandchild didn't like them.
So my kids missed out on half of the farm animals as the favoured grandchild didn't want to go inside. As they paid for the trip we couldn't really say anything, but to be honest I think it's more my husbands responsibility than mine to say anything to his parents.
It's just crazy how much the others are favoured.

Toosexy. You can't keep setting your child up for a fall. People get fed up of seeing the other side favoured and stop engaging. I'm not bothered about the things Sil's kids get, I would like PILs to be intetested in DS and what he does rather than everything be about and related to Sil's two. It's soul destroying.

Same set up in my family. I would also say the first grandchild is favoured. I even found that was the case having two children i.e everyone made a fuss of number one, far less than number two. Then grandparents were too busy/exhausted to be so involved with subsequent grandchildren. My exmil used to say she was too old to look after our dc (very rare request) but there was only a year between my eldest and sil's youngest and exmil was a fit late 50s grandma at the time.

Far less with child no 2 I mean.

You like to think that, but really its not possible. If you never see one set, how can you treat them the same as the ones you do see? Send a sweet in the post every time you give the ones you see a biscuit? It's not possible.

It is completely possible to treat them with the same degree of love. If you love them all the same, you can make them feel that. We live away from both sets of grandparents. Of course both saw other grandchildren much more than ours and possibly were closer to them on a day to day level but our children knew they were utterly loved by their grandparents and it wouldn't occur to them for a second that they were less favoured.

My mum would give money to my nieces when she saw them for sunday dinner - and would send lovely letters to my children with the same money for them. My MIL spends much more time with the cousins but is completely engaged with my children too. It isn't the sweets and biscuits it is the feeling of interest and engagement.

Given how much resentment you are feeling about this, I'd try to DH be a way to sit down with your PILs, without the children present and try to raise it.

If you can manage it quietly and calmly of course.

It really should be your DH but if he is wimping out I'd tackle it personally.

Take it from the point of view that your DD has noticed the disaparity and have some good examples.

Btw I should have said, one set of my own GPs did this to us. It didn't do us any harm but it did mean we were much closer to our other GPs.

My parents are scrupulously fair to all their DGC as a result.

They are constantly asking for babysitting, whereas I want to spend time with my kids. They dump their kids with the grandparents for stupid people reasons like they want to do some cleaning or shopping in peace. So inevitably the grandkids are dumped there a few times a week so maybe that's why they're favoured

Kinda sympathised until I read this. Judgemental much?
As if they're not going to pick up on your attitude.

So you don't ask? You just expect them to be mindreaders? Maybe they realise that you actually 'want to spend time with your kids'

My PIL favoured my SILs children big time. couldn't find it in me to be overly bothered. My kids take their cues from me so they never seemed overly bothered either

My DH has grown up with a similar situation with his GP, who always seemed to favour his cousins, from an outsiders view his GP both worked full time when he and BIL were little, but retired to look after his cousins who are younger. DH now has a close relationship with his GP as an adult and they have said that they now regret not being as involved with him as his cousins when they were young, saying they don't really know why it happened that way.

I will be interested to see how the next generation plays out. We don't have kids yet but currently MIL visits BIL and her GC who don't live locally every week, yet despite living close to us and driving past many times a week only sees us every few months. FIL has said he "resents" the time his current GC take up butDH seems to think he will dote on our kids when we have them and be keen to babysit

I don't think I'm judgmental. Just fed up which is obviously going to make my attitude towards the whole situation bad. I've never projected anything onto my kids, my pil's or the cousins. I just keep my mouth shut and let their dad take them over there once a week whilst I quietly seethe about it.
And I'm sorry but it's true re them dumping their kids onto them. Every other day they are there so my bil and sil can do a grocery shop, go for a walk in peace, have a nail appointment etc etc. Personally I didn't have kids so I could get rid of them at every possibly opportunity, but they've often said they find their kids stressful and brag about their child free afternoons every week. So my kids are missing out on basically everything because my bil and sil can't be bothered to look after their own children.
Ultimately my kids are very close to my mum who does a lot for them and offers to take them lots of nice places so they're not missing out so I'm just going to try and ignore it.

It is completely possible to treat them with the same degree of love. If you love them all the same, you can make them feel that

Of course you can't, if you never see them! How can you?

It could be that OP has given them the impression that they don't want the involvement. And if she really thinks that the other parents are just dumping the kids on the GP's constantly, where is the thought for the poor put upon old pair? No, it's not poor them, its poor me, the people I hate won't take my kids to the circus as well!

I never said that the grandparents are unhappy they're having grandkids dumped upon them. If anything I think it's the other way round and they love it. But my point was that even if they felt they were having kids dumped upon them then surely you'd make it fair by offering to have the other kids at another point.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this won't we.
But yes, the reason I hate them is because my daughter is constantly asking why granny takes her cousins out and not her, and asks why granny buys her cousins new ballet dresses but not her, and asks why granny takes them away overnight but not her. I just think doing that to a child, especially your own grandchild is horrific.
I didn't hate them before this started happening, I've never refused to let them see my kids, in fact I'm the one pushing for a relationship by sending them over their once a week, but this is just the way it is I guess.

But my point was that even if they felt they were having kids dumped upon them then surely you'd make it fair by offering to have the other kids at another point

If they felt overloaded and unfairly used for childcare they should offer to have even more children to look after?
Yes, we will have to agree to disagree there, because that is a ludicrous suggestion.

Many years ago my MIL favoured one of her GCs, above all the others. I did tackle her one day when she did and said something unforgivable.
The result was she went NC with us the other GCs and their parents. The favoured GC was showered with adulation over and above her siblings!
MIL passed away an embittered lonely old woman.

It is completely possible to treat them with the same degree of love. If you love them all the same, you can make them feel that

Of course you can't, if you never see them! How can you?

Well, using my own MIL and parents as examples, you send little notes to your gc who don't live near you saying things like you heard they scored a goal so here a dollar to celebrate. You come to visit. When you visit you are clearly delighted to be with them and enjoy yourself hugely. you express every interest in everything they are doing. You have their photos up in your house. You tell them that every night you say a prayer for ... and you list off all your grandchildren with special adjectives for each one. You talk to them on the phone. You radiate how much you love them every time you see them. you send them messages when you are talking to their parents on the phone. It is perfectly doable.

Not when their parents hate you, it isn't.