Just need a rant: When grandparents favour one set over the other...

[mummabubs]

I know this topic has been done to death 🤦🏻‍♀️ I just feel so let down by my in-laws. Always got on fine with them all before we had children, then over the five years since it's become increasingly overt just how favoured my SiL's children are over ours. They literally get double the Christmas presents that ours do (I don't want the gifts or the tat to be fair but our son has started to pick up on his cousins getting more than him which makes me feel sad). There's always a big deal made of how amazing my SiL's children are and how they can do no wrong. This week was our yongest's first birthday. Literally didn't hear a peep from DH's family. Nothing. When it was my niece's birthday last month there was a huge song and dance about it in the family WhatsApp group and a mildly vom-inducing Facebook gush from my MiL about how proud she was of my niece and how her birth had 'gifted my MiL the privilege of being a grandparent, which is the best club in the world'.

I think deep down I didn't expect them to acknowledge our child's birthday as they didn't acknowledge her brother's most recent birthday either, but I still feel disappointed. I know ultimately they will be the ones to miss out as our DC will distance from them all as they grow older (they already are in some ways) and they are lucky to have my parents and siblings who are very loving towards them. Just stings when we're all together and my kids are basically ignored/ treated unfairly. Sorry, just needed a space to rant! For anyone else who is in this position, you're not alone 🍸

That’s really shit, sorry. I’m guessing SIL is the favourite child?

Just back off and leave them to it

leave the nauseating WhatsApp groups, hide them on Facebook and let them get on with it

no gifts at all, no contact, nothing.

drop the rope

and IF they notice, tell them. Say it was the last straw that both your children were ignored and you’re moving on without these people in your life because it’s upsetting your ds and that you’re drawing a line

It's one thing (bad enough) having favourites but quite another to totally ignore your GC birthdays! That's really, bad, I'm so sorry OP.

It is more their loss than your children's. I would protect your children from it as much as you can. Avoid being there when their cousins get gifts, don't stay around too much if the cousins are being gushed about, just don't spend too much time with them generally. They will know they are the centre of your world, and that your family love them to bits.

I know a family where this is very much the case. The young adult cousins (who aren't the favouites) were hurt by it when they were younger but now find it more amusing and play 'favourite GC' bingo when they visit, then exchange stories behind GP backs and have a laugh. They're able to do that because they know they are loved and are special themselves, and that this is an issue with their GP, not them.

By 'they' I meant your children, will know they are the centre of your world. Should have proof-read.

I would get my OH to pull them up about it. Absolutely get this out in the open and see what they say.

That's what's so funny. SiL actually has a really strained relationship with her parents as she feels she was rejected throughout her childhood and that my DH was the favoured one!

I've definitely backed off in the last year or so. I stopped buying their gifts (as I had been doing it all for 8 years prior to that) and DH isn't as timely with it all so I initially wondered if it was a retaliation for me doing that. We also moved away from our hometown and this has never gone down well with my MiL, I think they all use the distance as an excuse to not bother keeping in touch or being close, but my family live the same distance away and it hadn't stopped them from getting to know their grandchildren and being involved in their lives. I used to send photos to them all regularly but I felt too hurt when on my in-laws side the pictures would go ignored, then SiL would respond by posting photos of her girls and praise would immediately be heaped upon them.

What @MzHz says.
As you point out, your DCs are going to notice the favouritism that you already do when the two sets of DCs are together. I would not put my children in a position where they are, effectively, being snubbed.
At the very least, stop visiting the GPs when SIL and her brood are there. Can you arrange for the cousins to see each other without the GPs present?
I wouldn't want anything to do with DH's miserable parentscany more, and would leave it to your DH to visit them on his own.

I would just avoid them as much as possible. I know it's tricky but I wouldn't want my children to feel the way they are clearly starting to feel.

Fuck em
just get on with your life and only contact them if necessary

My mothers parents where like this with myself and my 3 brothers
growing up,my cousins where doted on,had sleepovers,pets at theirs,treats,praise,endless presents etc
i remember the year she walked in holding bags of really big and expensive Easter eggs,it was made clear they where too good for us to eat,they where for the golden children-we got the cheapest nastiest eggs I’ve ever had the bad luck to eat
same at Christmas/birthdays-we got almost naff all but it was rubbed in our faces that the others got loads
If we did something good (say at school) it was never mentioned but our cousins got all the praise for every little thing

anyway,we all grew up-I had a baby and didn’t want them near her-they where not going to treat her how they treated me
i got endless crap about not putting the effort in to see them so they could show her off to their friends
tough luck
none of us wanted to know them at this point,they wailed and howled about ungrateful we where-they where family,did we not know this?!

my grandmother was dying and we all got shoved into the room to see her to say goodbye
we just didn’t care-and all four of us where vocal about it-my cousins where crying and sobbing-we just stood there,rolling our eyes
none of us went to the funeral
my grandfather died 18 months later-he was found dead in bed
we just shrugged and went about our day-again we didn’t go to the funeral

even to this day all 4 of us are unemotional about them-we simply don’t care

they reaped what they sowed

What is your DH saying about all this?

Very sad, we have a similar situation. My darling Mum passed away. She was a doting Granny. That made it worse that the Granny my kids have doesn't give a toss. I was so upset about it op, it felt like it made my grief worse. And then I realised that I couldn't change my mil. I just had to accept it. And I gave up.
She has now given up her pretence on having any interest in the kids and never speaks to me. Odd, sad woman. She gives money, which perhaps is her form.of love. What's really sad is rhe kids probably don't care about her now either.

If they have ignored their dgc birthdays (your dc) then you just need to ask them what the fuck they think they are doing. If it is as blatant as you make out why don't you confront them?

Taking your issues out on young children, as your MIL is doing, is unforgivable. I’d be telling my DH that that’s what his mum
is doing, if he hasn’t figured it out already.

Mixed. A few weeks ago he got very drunk with a friend at our house and I had to listen to him loudly waxing lyrical at 3am about how disappointed he is in his family, especially his parents for showing so much more interest and doing so much more for his sister's kids than for ours. He's never really said this to me so in the moment I felt like at least maybe he felt the same and was just ashamed to talk about it.

However I've just tried to bring up today and he's shut down the convo straight away saying he doesn't know why I'm surprised by this, apparently they've always been like this (they bloody haven't) and he's not going to be bothered by any of it. (His parents didn't teach him how to manage difficult conversations growing up, the narrative was that they don't talk about anything that might upset MiL).

Sorry for the mass reply, but to all the people who essentially said "fuck em", thank you :) I think I needed to hear it. My own grandparent experience was I had one set I was very close to (despite being 1hr+ away from me) and another set down the road who were completely emotionally unavailable and disinterested due to alcoholism. I think part of me has just been desperate for my kids not to feel abandoned or rejected as I sometimes did, but then when I think back as an adult in the end I just accepted I had one set of grandparents who I was very lucky to have in my life and I just sort of let go of the others. I'm sure my kids will be OK long term and it will be my in-laws who miss out on spending any time with them. They don't know it yet, but I'm now refusing to go to Christmas there this year. I'm not doing a 2.5 hour journey for them to be essentially ignored again. Sod that.

I have this with the mother in law, she only likes the girl grandchildren. We do actually have a girl too, but she hasn't bothered with us since the first boy, so she hasn't noticed 😂

All her grandchildren are from her boys, her beloved 4 th child the much wanted girl hasn't had children, isn't in a relationship and is early 40's, so it's not looking likely really .

That's interesting as I've definitely noticed a split between my nieces and my son. Initially I wasn't sure whether it was a boy / girl divide. I just keep telling myself the best thing I can do is to learn from all of this if I ever become a grandparent and to consciously cherish all grandchildren equally.

Growing up my grandparents on my father side, have a favourite my cousin, once for Christmas my brothers and I had a board game as present to share when my cousin and her brother had a present each. Rarely I got a present only for me and more than often if I had been given a present, i will have to give it to my cousin if she broke hers which happen very often, she was a destroyer

For my communion, they gave me a cheap watch that they got as a gift in a catalog and a used pair of earrings, they rarely bought me anything new.

My mother had to give up working when she had kids, as no one to mind us despite my grand parents (father side) living in the same town. When my aunt (my mother's sister married my father's brother) had her daughter, straight away the grandparents offer to mind her kid despite her not working. My mother was quite upset about it as she would have love to keep her job.

On my mother's side, my grandfather did not have any favorite but my grandmother only boys were the favourites, they did not have to lift one fingers, the girls had to do everything, she was really old style.

It doesn't affect you no matter what when someone show favouritism for no apparent reason, it does affect your self-esteem to not being treated the same.