Do Grandparents Treat Your Children Differently

seven-day-weekend

xbrenx wrote: »

I only wanted to comment on this bit... please don't put off moving abroad because you don't want to upset family. You only get one life, live it for yourselves
If nothing else, you'll give the rest of the family somewhere to go for holidays.

Agree absolutely.

seven-day-weekend

swingaloo wrote: »

Maybe I will put the cat among the pigeons here, but here goes-


I look after 2 sets of grandkids.


I set age 9 and 11, one set age 7 and 10. All girls.


I love having the first 2 but don't enjoy looking after the other 2 because of issues with the eldest of the girls. (child R)


Both sets of girls are very well behaved on the surface and as far as the parents are concerned they are angels. Child Rs parents will repeatedly say how well behaved, polite and helpful she is.


Her mum says she is very polite, however when in a shop she will not ask for anything directly but will look pointedly, make a big thing of licking her lips and say 'Mmmmm those look very nice' dropping a hint. On occasion she will look straight at me and say 'I would buy one of those if mummy had given me any money to spend' but she hasn't. Followed by 'Aren't my manners good, I havnt asked for anything have I'.


In a caf! she will choose the most expensive drink on the menu. She will wait while granddad is in the middle of watching something then get the Tv guide and request very politely that she watches something on another channel.


She will pass remarks in the street such as 'I think that lady is very fat but I wouldnt say it to her as it would be rude'.


She can be very selfish with her younger sister but always has a reason 'Ive taken this off her because she may break it and its very special to me because such-a-body bought it for me' then 5 minutes later its thrown on the floor and trodden on by her.


If the girls get told off for anything she will make a big thing of apologising then smirk at the others as she turns away.


I dont like to say this but I simply do not like this child as much as the others. yes she is polite and well behaved but in a very manipulative way.

I knew a boy like this many years ago.

Very dutiful and helpful towards his disabled mother, and on the surface of it the ideal son. But very manipulative. Very spiteful towards his younger brother (but again in a manipulative and 'dutiful' way), his mother never noticed, and he could never wait to put his brother down and get him into trouble. All the time with a smile on his face showing his mother what a model son he was, and only doing his duty. I never liked him.

Years later,after his actions towards his own family had caused even his mum to see past the facade, his mum she said to me, 'you know X (her boyfriend at the time) said Y was a little $h!T' what did I think, and I said that yes, I agreed with X. She said she saw none of it, she only ever saw the dutiful and caring son, and I said that was what he wanted you to see.


He has many children by two wives but they all live in a different country. The younger son has none. So she does not get a chance to treat them differently.

jackyann

I think that sometimes - for obvious reasons - 2 aspects of grandparenting get confused.
OP writes as if (and this may not be so) as if childcare is the main reason for spending time with grandparents.
It's not so obvious as to how the grandparents / other daughter see the time the other grandchildren spend there.
I suspect the different handling has 2 main components: how comfortable they are with the arrangement, and how well they know the children.

amistupid

We've only got one grandchild.

A year ago, when my daughter returned to work after maternity leave, me and the OH started minding him, he was only six months old.

We look after him from 8.00 am until 5.30 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, His other grandma, who's much older than us, has him on Wednesdays.

At first I was worried about taking on such a huge commitment but we've found caring for him has been an absolute pleasure and enriched our lives enormously.

I'm sure there's already a special bond between us.

KxMx

I know my grandparents loved me/bother and cousins all the same, and i've never felt they played "favourites" but there was different treatment.

In the UK we are 3 girls and 1 boy. Granddad bought something in boy's (second born grandchild) name and then when it was sold for a profit gave the money to him. My female cousins and I got nothing. I have no doubt he loved us all the same but had a very old fashioned attitude towards boys being highly prized.

In the US at the time was 2 girls one boy. Brother & I lived in same town as grandparents. They never took us anywhere special but would travel to see younger cousin then take her out to theme parks, zoo etc.

I was old enough at the time to ask my Dad after we returned to the UK and apparently there were plans to take us to a water park- but funny how in 2 years that was never mentioned and apparently the timing meant it would have happened if we'd not returned to the UK!

Brickwall

My brother was always the apple of mums eye until the day she died.

I had one daughter, when she was about 6 my brother met someone with two kids, a boy the same age as my daughter and a daughter a couple of years younger. He started taking them to my parents house, my mum started putting them before her own granddaughter, my dad dad wasn't having it, it caused a lot of rows between them. My mum said that my daughter needed to "share" her nan!
Every time my daughter had a birthday party my mum was inviting them, even tho we never had anything to do with each other. Once, my brother was telling my daughter and her friend how lovely looking this girl was, isn't her hair lovely, isn't she cute. I felt like they were being forced onto me. To try and keep some sort of relationship going between my daughter and brother, they had been close, I asked him to come for his dinner on a Wednesday evening, two weeks later he said he couldn't come any more cause her daughter was going to make his dinner on a Wednesday, my mum seemed to think this was fine, maybe it was me but she had plenty of other nights to go there. Mum said I was being unreasonable in not inviting him another night, he's never been for a meal in my house since.
Then I started taking my daughter swimming on a Thursday after school, my mum told my brother and they started going on a Thursday too, thing was they used to go in the adult pool and leave me with all three kids, mine could swim but hers couldn't.
Anything I arranged mum was straight on the phone to ask him if they wanted to go. The final straw between my parents came when my brother was constantly emptying the freezer to take to her house, including things that had been bought for my daughter, my mum told him to shut up and mind his own business. It had rolled on for a number of years, my dad told me he had one grandchild and he wasn't having these two forced onto him. there was a huge blazing row one day, I turned up, knocked at the door, mum opened the door, looked at my daughter and said she had a fat face! My daughter was devastated that her nan could say something like that.
My poor dad had had enough, he went and got a place of his own, I can't say as I blamed him, he had a terrible time with my mum and brother, he spent his last remaining years happy.
Mums gone, the girlfriends kids don't want to know my brother except when they want money or lifts. My daughter never really forgive her nan for what she'd said, it was so sad really. My daughter had been close to my brother when she was small, now she doesn't have much to do with him.
In effect, my mums attitude to her own granddaughter when the other two came on the scene was the start of the end of our family as it was. She constantly talked about the other two and how wonderful they are.
In a lot of ways I blame myself, I should have put my foot down sooner, sadly I've always been the type that goes for the quiet life.

pickledonionspaceraider

swingaloo wrote: »

Maybe I will put the cat among the pigeons here, but here goes-


I look after 2 sets of grandkids.


I set age 9 and 11, one set age 7 and 10. All girls.


I love having the first 2 but don't enjoy looking after the other 2 because of issues with the eldest of the girls. (child R)


Both sets of girls are very well behaved on the surface and as far as the parents are concerned they are angels. Child Rs parents will repeatedly say how well behaved, polite and helpful she is.


Her mum says she is very polite, however when in a shop she will not ask for anything directly but will look pointedly, make a big thing of licking her lips and say 'Mmmmm those look very nice' dropping a hint. On occasion she will look straight at me and say 'I would buy one of those if mummy had given me any money to spend' but she hasn't. Followed by 'Aren't my manners good, I havnt asked for anything have I'.


In a caf! she will choose the most expensive drink on the menu. She will wait while granddad is in the middle of watching something then get the Tv guide and request very politely that she watches something on another channel.


She will pass remarks in the street such as 'I think that lady is very fat but I wouldnt say it to her as it would be rude'.


She can be very selfish with her younger sister but always has a reason 'Ive taken this off her because she may break it and its very special to me because such-a-body bought it for me' then 5 minutes later its thrown on the floor and trodden on by her.


If the girls get told off for anything she will make a big thing of apologising then smirk at the others as she turns away.


I dont like to say this but I simply do not like this child as much as the others. yes she is polite and well behaved but in a very manipulative way.

Children do push boundaries. It is normal. She is a ten year old....

You can always so 'No' - 'No you can't have that drink/watch TV right now etc'. Disclipline. She will only do what you let her get away with. What kid doesn't drop hints when they like the look of something in a shop? hardly crime of the century

I wonder if your daughter would want you looking after her child knowing that you view her as a manipulative little minx

CathA

Brickwall wrote: »

My brother was always the apple of mums eye until the day she died.

Ain't that the truth!! Caused no end of issues here, so I feel for you.

swingaloo

That's what I love about these threads, there is always someone with this type of response!

pickledonionspaceraider wrote: »

Children do push boundaries. It is normal. She is a ten year old....



Yes, I believe I mentioned that she was ten years old in my post but thank you for clarifying it for me. Having had 4 of my own children and spending 19 years as a teacher I am more than aware of what is normal for a ten year old. There is no such thing as normal, each child is an individual. All children push boundaries in many different ways. However some are more sneaky and manipulative than others.





You can always so 'No' - 'No you can't have that drink/watch TV right now etc'. Disclipline.

I do!


She will only do what you let her get away with.

She gets away with quite a lot due to the manipulative way she behaves. She has the same discipline as the other child but has completely different behaviours.




What kid doesn't drop hints when they like the look of something in a shop? hardly crime of the century

Not at all but its not the 'dropping of hints' that's the issue, its the way they are dropped.


I wonder if your daughter would want you looking after her child knowing that you view her as a manipulative little minx


She would and she does!


Just for the record, Im not the only one with this view, other grandma has the same opinion as do 2 aunties.


A lot of parents see their child through rose tinted glasses and her mum is no different. However it is naïve to think that all children will have the same behaviours and personalities and like it or not the fact remains that just like adults some children are not quite as nice as others.


Your view is never the less appreciated.

maman

That's a sad outcome brickwall.


With marriage breakdown and different forms of relationships these days this sort of thing is becoming very prevalent. To speak up on behalf of grandparents it's a very fraught path to tread.


It's interesting to hear about grandparents like amistupid. My first thought was 'Yes!', I think it's a huge imposition to childmind 4 days a week but that's because it wouldn't fit in with my life not because I don't love my DGDs. Each to his own.