‘THE’ children

[pancakesallday]

AIBU? This is really bothering. MIL calling SIL’s kids ‘the children’ when talking to me.

‘This weekend I’m having the children’. ‘The children had their Easter play’.

It makes me feel like mine are second class grandchildren.

Or am I just being grumpy?

She’s usually ok with me although she is the queen of backhanded remarks.

MissyB1
My Irish Granny called all her Grandkids “the Childer” ( that’s not a typo, childer must have been an Irish thing). Anyway whichever set of Grandkids they were all called that.

Ah this made me smile, my granny said that too (and yes we’re Irish!) and I can hear her voice saying it, thanks for that!

I'm really unsure as to what the problem is here. I think you need to add context to try and help people understand.

I've gathered from reading your posts that you have 2 SILs, does she call the other SIL's children something different?

How would you describe those children?

Is there a routine to her looking after her grandchildren during the week?

My MiL never met my children - she died before they were born, but she did make it explicitly clear to me, that her (only) daughter's (future) children would be loved more than her first grandchild and I found this upsetting. Still, I can't see an issue with saying "I'm looking after the children". Does she have THOSE children more than the rest? Is there missing context here?

It's obviously something that's really annoyed you but I think there's something else adding to the reason.

Your DH can ask for help. Why should you?

Also if you confront her about this will she like your kids more? Will she look after them more? No. You would have simply created an antagonistic situation with someone who will be in your life for a long time.

Sometimes we have to accept that people don’t behave how we want them to be. That is fine and we move on. This is really about your DH’s relationship with his mum versus his sisters. And if she doesn’t have a close relationship with her grandchildren, so be it. Surely you are not judging the worth of your children by how often your MIL looks after them. Let it go!

I was trying to work out what was wrong with her saying that until I realised it's been twisted in to a hidden meaning that your children don't matter.

Absolute batshit.
God people look for literally anything from literally anyone to be offended by.
I'd fucking exaggerate it now just to annoy you.

How petty. Actually winner of mumsnet for this weekend. Unbelievably pathetic.

What’s the problem? They are children? Don’t understand the issue.

My mums cousin has two sons and always would sign off Christmas cards with “love from Pete, Christine and the boys”

Same way you know she’s talking about your SIL’s children, presumably.

Could it just be habit? So if a friend were to call her and ask her to lunch, she might say “I can’t today, I’ve got the children” rather than going into detail over which set of grandchildren she has with her? Or maybe she talks about her time with the grandkids a lot to her friends, and it’s always “the children did this”.

I presume SIL is her daughter and you are married to her son? If so, it’s hardly surprising that she is closer to her daughter and daughter’s children, it just tends to be the way it goes. What was your husband/partner’s relationship like with his mum before you got together? Did he visit her often? Call her regularly? As frequently as the daughter? What was it like after you got together? I’m going to assume that he didn’t put the time and effort into his adult relationship with his mum, and so you’re seeing the natural consequences of that now.

I’d assume she just means “the (relevant) children” ie the ones she happens to be talking about. Bit unclear but not something to be annoyed about.

YABU, non issue.

This would piss me right off! My ex MIL used to do the same, refer to her daughter's offspring as 'the kids' like they were the only ones that mattered. Mine were called bingbong dh's kids to everyone else! Even to the point that I once picked my children up from her house (I'd been at wotk and exDH had gone to A&E, she didn't do child care for us, only sil) and dh's auntie had popped round with her grandchildren earlier. Apparently they were hoping 'the kids' were there but they weren't!! When I said that 'the kids', meaning our children, WERE there, she said, no, sils kids! My children were there to hear that they were unimportant in her eyes.

@pancakesallday You seem determined to avoid the question of how your MIL refers to your children when speaking to your SIL when you’re not around.

No she hasn't, as she rightly pointed out, how would she or anyone else know the answer to that?

I imagine it’s usually so much easier to be around and do things for and with your DD and their children than with your DS and DIL and that will obviously have a knock on effect with grandchildren. If she doesn’t use the same phrasing with all grandkids it’s probably related to this and spending more time with them.

Honestly, you have little to worry about.

I think that would sound stilted and odd tbh OP.

It's obvious when she is talking to you whose children she is meaning: you know she isn't talking about yours.

I think, being blunt, this is an issue of insecurity on your part, not really anything too wrong in your MIL's behaviour.

In fairness she might not know - and it would sound pathetic for her to ask because, truly OP, without a massive backdrop drip-feed, this is a non-issue.

If she’s got 3 sets of grandkids ‘the children’ is really quite fuck off all you second hand grandkids! My kids are a bit lower priority grandkids but my mil would never do this, for 2 or less she’d use the kids names, for 3 she’d say whose children.

So many things in my life I realise now I should have been offended by. My FIL used to refer to his many grandchildren as “X’s lot” where X was the parent that was his own child. So my children were “my dp’s name’s lot”. I wasn’t named at all! How disrespectful-I should have gone NC.

What does other sil think? We do let off pressure with another bil and sil couple sometimes, about the special grandkids 😂

That’s exactly the point. She has no idea whether her MIL refers to her children the same way she refers to her SIL’s children. Which is to say, her whole issue is based on nothing whatsoever.

YABU. My parents look after their grandchildren and collectively they’re just “the kids” - when they’re talking to each child they just refer to them as the kids. You need to grow up and get a life.

What does she call your children to your sil?

I think this is just a part of the whole picture, which is you and she are not close so it seems barbed.

I should have gone NC.

Is this tongue in cheek?! (It genuinely gets hard to tell on some of these IL threads)

I recognise exactly this - "X&Y's kids" and "the (real) grandchildren".

But I'm petty, so I just find every opportunity to refer to my own parents as "the (real) grandparents" 🤷‍♀️