My husband and I have 3 children and my husband’s sister has one. Our children are the oldest of the grandchildren and if my kids do anything or accomplish anything my MIL has to bring in my sister in laws child. Every time we see her she only talks about our niece and not about our kids.
We all have a family group chat with extended family and if we post a photo of one of our kids awards or something the MIL has to make it about my SIL child.
My kids are sick of hearing about how their cousin is and how clever she is ect. My youngest goes to the same school as her cousin (this is the last year as off to high school for my child next year) and gets fed up with the cousin thinking she is better than the others.
MIL lives about 2 hours from us and will come to town to see my SIL child but won’t drive the 5 minutes from my SIL house to see her other grandchildren.
My husband gets frustrated but won’t say anything as he doesn’t want to cause conflict. I’m just sick of our kids thinking they are second best to their cousin.
5 Replies
My mother was doing similar. Brother & fam don't live locally so my parents were all over their kids & constantly bringing them up over my kids' achievements. I'd also lived with this personally as my brother is the golden child.
One day I turned up & brother & fam were coming to visit/stay. My mother had made special cupcakes with his kids' names on them & mine (younger but still noticed) didn't get anything.
Anyway, I asked where my kids cupcakes were. I told her outright she can start treating my kids equally or she wont see them at all. That shocked her & she's very careful now. I absolutely would have followed through as it's horrific being pushed aside & always having to hear how wonderful everyone else is & being ignored yourself.
I have to be extra careful as the tide has turned - she now favours my kids as the others are teens & uninterested & mine still love seeing her & live close by. I'm also preferred, and even my father speaks well to me now, as it's come out who helps in an emergency....
I have no issue with my brother, who has never even noticed, but I won't stand for favouritism either way.
My ex MIL did this, same school as well and she would come to awards etc for the kids cousin but not for them. Even my neice thought my kids had different grandparents saying to my youngest "You should ask your nan to get you one" after showing off something my ex mil had bought her. The whole thing is really sad. I distanced myself and after I split from my ex I moved away and changed schools so they couldn't have the difference in treatment rubbed in their face. I totally understand grandparents having better bonds with different kids but there's no excuse at all for treating kids so differently that even they notice it. My own mum treats all her grandkids the same and she has 17 of them, it can be done. Dont ignore it, its really damaging. Bring it up with her and your husband and ask why she does that. I wish I had done more but I just let it happen.
I could have written this myself, only that it was my own mother. Its hard and very hurtful but no amount of raising it made her change her bahaviour. She was a narcissist, saw nothing wrong with her behaviour and turned it back on me to say I was being ridiculous, jealous etc. The hurt and anger ate at me and I carried that with me.
Once my children could notice the favouritism and ask me why they didnt get visits etc, I had to make it stop and take back the control of my families happiness. I put distance between us, inviting her to the family events I chose. I got counselling and learned to expect her behaviour but not react to it. It helped. I know Im a good mum and I know my kids deserved better. Good luck! Families can suck!
I've ceased contact with my inlaws. For this and many other reasons and I don't feel one iota of guilt about it. Some things you can brush off but when the children themselves start noticing, that's a problem. My story is a long one so I won't go into the details but the favouritism was rife and I wasn't putting my children through that anymore. Sometimes the best thing you can do is cut them off 💯
My MiL and both SiLs hated me from day dot!
Calling me fat to my face was one of the minor things they did (I wore a size 8, MiL wore a size 14).
When children came along, she fawned over ours until the SiLs had children, then ours were forgotten.
No Birthday invites were accepted, she didn’t even give them a card.
We saw her at Easter and Xmas day, both flying visits where she would drop and go.
Our youngest even had a fantasy grandma who lived in the forest and grew pretty flowers (my mum passed away when I was a child).
When the oldest SiL got married, half of our kids didn’t attend and none of our grandchildren went as we were specifically told that children weren’t welcome!
SiL posted on social media that it was about time one of mums kids got married (we had been married 25 years by then).
When MiL was diagnosed with terminal cancer, despite her poor treatment of us we fought for her to be given proper palliative care.
When she passed away one of the SiLs decided that none of us were family now that “her” mother was dead and we’ve had 0 contact since.
Half of our kids didn’t go to MiLs service and said “we barely knew the woman”, that was their choice to make.