of my and my husbands relationship with his brother and his wife. We are civil we engage when we have too and really we don't see each other bar family occasions with other members of the family around. They live on my husbands family farm and inherited quite a large fortune. We live over 6 hours away and live in a city, both work and my husband travels a lot for work. We have a special needs child who requires treatment abroad so we have spent quite a lot of time in the USA. Both sets of families have children around the same age. More recently my children have heard through other people - its a small world - not nice comments about us. As luck would have it my dd even met someone in her school that knew her cousin recently and her cousin told this girl not nice things about my dd and us, saying we were snobs, thought we were better than we are etc etc. (Ironic considering in monetary terms they are flying it).This set off a series of teasing for my dd at school. Now I honestly dont care what they think of us, because I know in my heart of hearts we have always tryed to be nice, kind to their kids, never forgetting presents from abroad, birthdays, christmas etc. But now that my kids are getting older they see these cousins are really not nice and its effecting family occasions and also its impacting one of my kids in a school that is over 6 hours away from them. My dd really was upset today about the way her cousins treat them and speak about us when really in all reality they don't even know them or us properly. I really feel its gone on long enough the undercurrents of their behaviour and kids learn from example and really my sil has never even been really genuine when we do meet. Its always asking where we get stuff, how much was stuff where are we going??. I know it all sounds so petty and in fact I need to be a grown up here and I just feel enough is enough. My husband wants to say something to his brother to tell him but I know it would kick off a backlash for my husband. Plus my husband is upset with their relationship for years and the way he has been treated. The rest of the family (I always think) and of course I could be wrong, think they are saints and so nice. So if he says something they could turn on my husband and it would upset my mil who is oblivious to it all and never stops praising them. Although I do think sometimes its a case of "they couldn't be that perfect." We see a very different side to this couple and now their kids. I am wondering should I approach them as the mother of kids who are upset and my husband and say actually please cop on, life is short, if you have aproblem with us, tell us and please ask your kids to stop badmouthing our kids to people as we have actually heard it back yes even 6 hours away! Thank you sorry for the venting!