Grandparent favouritism is upsetting me.

[Liverpoolgirl50]

My husband and I have a lovely 15mo DD. His sister also has a DS who is 2.5.

My MIL very obviously favours her daughters DS and it’s really hurtful. She spends more time with him, more money on him and overall just never stops banging on about it all. He is pretty much surgically attached to her and he cries when his mum tries to take him away. He wants nothing to do with his mum or dad when we are in a group, it’s all nana all the time, and she encourages it.

Now this was never an issue, because we maybe see them twice a month, (we live about 30 min away and his sister lives down the road from them), but we are currently on holiday with them all and my DD wants a cuddle with her etc but she refuses to put him down or let go of his hand in order to spend time with her - which upsets her. Which in turn upsets me, because I don’t ever want her to question whether she’s good enough.

My husband agrees that it’s irritating but thinks I’m over thinking it and that it’s his mum that will lose out on a relationship with her, but I’d rather he said something. Am I in the wrong? I don’t know why it hurts me so much, but it does. I want her to adore our DD just as much as her DGS.

You won’t change her.

Does she do the competitive parenting thing where you say ‘DD started walking today’ and she says Oh DGS walked at 4 months …

It would upset me too! No idea why grandparents would ever do this, it's awful!
Yes your DH should say something imo ( I would probably let her have it both barrels) am surprised your SIL isn't pissed off with the situation.

I'm a GP and I would never do this. It can be a balancing act sometimes to keep everyone happy, but I would never show such blatant favouritism

Sadly it appears your MIL is enabling a co dependent relationship with her other GC. She obviously has issues like self esteem whereas she encourages the child to be like a limpet, and possibly MIL likes that. I think its disgusting.
I am very close to my oldest GC, he us autistic and like a limpet, i cuddle with him but i need space too...personal space and boundaries, we have to teach kids sometimes to self soothe or divert their attention.
I treat my grandkids equally, present buying..if I buy oldest one i make up for it with youngest GC.
Kids feel that favouritism very early. Youve every right to be pissed off.
If your DC is showing signs of recognizing this, you've probably got to limit contact to when other GC isn't there...and explain why.
Tbh i think the issue is grandma not grandchild, she has facilitated this clinginess to benefit her low self esteem.

Don't go on holiday with her again

100% this.

It sounds as though she’s provided a lot of care for her grandson since he was tiny and sees him nearly every day. She’s probably closer to her daughter too.

Of course they have a stronger relationship- almost as though she’s a second mum to him.

It will be a different grandparent relationship if she only sees your dd every month or so.
I’d prefer this for my daughter to be honest! It’s always easier to parent on your terms rather than trying to negotiate boundaries with a grandmother who wants to take on a parenting role (?)
It sounds a bit suffocating and not great for a child to be taught theyre centre of a grandmother’s world.

Try not to take it personally. It must be a bit irritating if it’s in your face but you and dh can provide all the love and attention your dd needs.

Once the grandchildren are older they will hopefully play together independently.

If Christmas presents from the gps continue to show favouritism once they’re all old enough to understand then that should be addressed in the future.

Id be thinking twice about holidaying with them all though.
I prefer my mil in small doses 😂

Do not go on holiday with them ever again.

Distance yourselves a lot more from his parents, such favouritism should not be at all tolerated.

The relationship between them sounds quite unhealthy. It’s odd that he cries if his mum tries to take him.

Hes 2.5 years so not a baby, it sounds like he’s being smothered and babied by nanna if he’s constantly on her lap.

I don’t think I’d want this for my child to be honest.

Thank you everyone. It’s been a very long day and I wasn’t sure if I was just knackered and overly emotional!

They do have an unhealthy relationship and it’s not something I want for my daughter. I love the fact she will go to anyone in his family quite happily, and enjoys her time equally with them. Unfortunately she does also want nana and has started to get jealous of her cousin, which I imagine will probably get worse as she gets older.

I have said to my husband this is the last big family holiday we are doing - even just for my mental health! We are on day 4 of 7 and I’m ready to go home for sure.

Also my SIL does enjoy the fact he’s like that with her because she has a permanent baby sitter when we are all out. For example we all went swimming today, she messed around in the lazy river with her other half whilst we splashed around in toddler hell!

Urgh the family dynamics sound a bit messed up with your in laws! I’m sorry you’re only on day 4! Could you do some things separately? 😫

All I can suggest is to arrange to meet up with nanna after the holiday away from sil and Co and try to establish a relationship that way?

You could speak one to one with mil and tell her you d love for her to have a close bond with dd- maybe a day out just your family and mil?

I wouldn’t raise any of this on holiday though it’ll probably just cause tension!

Families eh? 🙄 if you dig deeper with dh, it may be that his sister was the favourite when they were children and a bit spoilt.

My mil did this too. It is upsetting but you won’t be able to change her as PP have said. Your DH is right, she will lose out because of this. We eventually went NC then LC with our in-laws mainly because my MIL constantly favoured her other DGS and our DC had begun to notice.

fast forward 20 years and neither of my DS’s had any relationship with her, or suffered much of a bereavement when she died - she wasn’t in their lives and they didn’t know her. Her loss.

My MIL was the same with her own children. Favouring her DD over her other DC so she naturally transferred that affection to her DD’s child. My DH was never fussed about the way he was with her, but he dropped contact with his mum when he realised she was going to do that with our boys too. It’s shit, I’m sorry, but she’s the one losing out on them.

Your MIL is out of order, poor DD. My mum looked after my DS1 way more than any of her other (4) grandkids so she did/does have a closer relationship with him as she just sees him more often but she makes an effort with all the kids and is very careful about giving them equal attention as far as possible when we are all together which is how it should be.

Have you mentioned it to her?

Why on earth should it be OP mentioning it to her? There absolutely no way she can compete with SIL… it’s lose lose and MIL / SIL will just say she’s jealous

OP as someone who identifies with how you feel I think you need to tell your DH to grow a pair. What a total cop out just allowing it to happen because he can’t be bothered with the conflict. Maybe she will be the one who loses out, but frankly I think some forewarning wouldn’t go amiss.

That said, it sounds like you actually see each other quite a lot. My ILs are about 20 mins away and we see them maybe once every six weeks or so, sometimes more sometimes less. Tbh whilst I’d like the kids to be close to them it’s just not that straightforward, they’re so set in their ways.

We have similar situation in my family. My Mum is only interested in my brother's children. She does regular childcare for them after she refused my sister and I with our kids and spends every family gathering looking after them while my bro and SIL kick back and relax. They go to the same school so my kids have to see their Gran pick up their cousins every week but never them. It's heartbreaking and I don't think I will ever get over it.

So heartbreaking. Im sorry, for you and your kids, you all deserve better.
Im same situation. I had to NC with my mum. For my sake and my grandkids sake i had to, her favouritism is horrendous, and always favours the boys...i didn't want the cycle to be repeated with my grandkids (her great grandkids).

My ex MIL was like this. When she died she left a heap of money and all her jewelry to her favourite GC and cut all the others out completely.

And what has you being a GP got to do with it?

I think @Justcallmebebes means they're a grandparent. Not a general practitioner of medicine.

GP is grandparent in this context, I’d think.

Although of course one would hope a GP of medicine also wouldn't favour one of their toddler patients over the others and carry said toddler around on their hip

This is a really healthy framing and very useful.

My mil shows fucking appalling favouritism to my bil. Like literally thousands of pounds per year. DH gets a jumper bil gets an iPhone etc.
It's galling BUT it's DH's mum and frankly he is out of the fog while bil is fully enmeshed and codependent (& that is while living in a dif country,?!?)

That is not what I want for my DH and accepting /knowing that helps me manage her / overlook her shitheadery.

The holiday was bonkers. Make sure you sadly never Agree have enough annual leave for another.

Other thoughts:

I'd also start inviting the Gps to you so you get 1:1 time if that's what you want.

Your DH also has the option of teaming up with his DSis (if she's any way normal) and presenting a United front to MIL i.e " DB is up this weekend you hardly ever see him and GD so I'll leave you to it and see you next week".

Could have written this about my in laws. They are all for my BILs children. They do the school pick ups (won’t go on the list for school pick ups in an emergency and when I ended up in A&E was really annoyed she had to pick DC up from school as a one off), feeds BILs kids 5 nights a week after pick ups and they all go for a family meal where she cooks for them all and we’re not invited. BILs kids also stay over 3 nights a week and go out every weekend with them. MIL is too busy to see mine and won’t babysit while me and my husband work and she takes them away twice a year (we don’t even get an invite but they get annoyed both my parents take us away 🙈)

it’s honestly been so sad for the favouritism but I’m also so lucky for both my sets of parents because I have 2 kids who adore and it shows

we’ve had 5 years of arguing with her about it because I’ve known DC will start to ask when he gets older and we’ve had the same conversation over and over with her where she’s promised she’ll change and she doesn’t (my husband doesn’t do confrontation but gets just as frustrated by it all)

honestly it’s so hard. Recently my 5YO has realised that she doesn’t see him but sees her other ones but we just remind him of the people in his life who are there. For my own sanity I now won’t see her without DH because I feel so much resentment towards them. We had the conversation at Christmas over her seeing them. She saw them for a couple of hours over Christmas but haven’t heard off her since and when DH has text she’s been too busy (she came once for half a hour since Christmas)