Grandparents having favourites

amistupid

harrys_nan wrote: »

amistupid,
Very little things can make someone, not like someone else.

The thread would be boring if everyone accepted things at face value and simply blamed the grandparents without questioning why they appear to be unfair to one of their grandchildren.

None of us know why they made more fuss of the eldest boy when he went to secondary school, but there may be reasons why they did.

I just can't understand why, without reason, two people who are loving and supportive to two grandchildren are unkind to another, it doesn't ring true to me.

The explanation given by the OP is that they dislike her, the child looks like her, so they dislike him, I'm questioning that. However, if she believes it, knowing the hurt it's caused her, she will be more protective of that child and maybe hypersensitive to anything they do to him.

Hermia

amistupid wrote: »

That seems nonsense to me, it's like saying to parents you should always treat your children equally. I've brought up four children, If one of them did something exceptional they would be rewarded, not the other three; likewise if one misbehaved they'd be denied certain treats, that the others still got.

But surely you would try to make it fairly equal at the end of the day. If one child was exceptional academically I am assuming you wouldn't spend years showering them with gifts and not giving the other kids anything because they can never reach the same heights? Would you not look at the other kids and reward them for being creative/charitable/whatever to encourage them? It doesn't sound as if these grandparents are even looking at the middle boy as an individual with his own achievements.

I don't think the OP's comment about the middle boy looking like her is that odd either. I look like my mum whereas all my cousins on my dad's side look like that side of the family. I can't tell you how often that was brought up when I was a child and I was treated like the outsider.

Hermia

cyantist wrote: »

I don't have kids so it's probably easy for me to say this, but if my parents treated one differently to the other they wouldn't be seeing either of them until they learned to be more fair

Same here, but it does seem to be hard to do. My friend's mum took an instant dislike to her youngest daughter at birth (no idea why!). I remember one Christmas she gave the older daughter approx £1k of presents and the younger child a chocolate selection box. The younger spent a lot of Christmas day asking why nanny hated her. My friend won''t cut off contact because she fears the whole family will implode.

cyantist

That's awful Hermia. Poor child.

I have two nieces and a nephew and I have definite favourites (I feel bad about this but can't help it), but I still try to spend time with all of them and make sure I spend approximately the same amount on each and put as much thought into gifts for all of them. I just wouldn't even consider spending ten times more on the eldest because she is my favourite, it would be horrible to do that.

amistupid

Hermia wrote: »

But surely you would try to make it fairly equal at the end of the day.

That depended on them hard work and good behaviour deserve rewards. One of them was lazy and less well behaved. He was loved as much as the other three but didn't get rewarded as much.

Person_one

amistupid wrote: »

I just can't understand why, without reason, two people who are loving and supportive to two grandchildren are unkind to another, it doesn't ring true to me.

it is hard to understand if you're a 'normal' loving parent or grandparent, but it definitely happens!

I've seen it in my own extended family and the damage can last for generations. My grandparents had major form for this so my parents made sure we were kept at enough of a distance that we weren't so attached to them that their hurtful behaviour would bother us. We have never suffered as a result of that distance but cousins and others who were exposed to it certainly have.

Ms_Chocaholic

On the other side of the coin, this experience may back up Amistupid's comments. My uncle is married with two children, one is not his birth child but he adopted her and treated her as his own. My uncle's mother (my grandmother) also treated them the same and one Christmas gave them both money in the form of a cheque. Some months later, my grandmother noticed that the cheque paid to her son's eldest (adopted) daughter (her granddaughter) had not been cashed. My uncle said that his wife had made their younger child share her christmas gift from her grandmother with her older sibling as his wife had thought that her husband's mother had not given their eldest a gift. When my grandmother explained that she had sent them both a cheque, it transpired that the cheque must have been discarded with the envelope and my grandmother cancelled the original cheque and wrote out another.

elsien

I have a friend whose in-laws treat one child more favourably than the other. Not in a malicious telling off sort of a way, but because one child is a mini-me of his dad so they just seem to find him easier to relate to. The kids are treated equally in terms of gifts, and when they're both with the in-laws they are treated the same, but mini-me is invited to stay over more often and there's often an excuse why they can't have the other one unless mum pushes the issue with them.
They love both of them and there's no harm intended, they just find the one child easier than the other.
Could something like that be happening hear, and your own feelings are colouring your interpretation?

Brighton_belle

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

... I ended up sitting outside in the car with DS2 while my other children and husband had tea. My husband had believed his mum that DS2 had deserved it and I didn't want a scene in their house.

But sitting outside in the car while the others stayed and had tea as though all was tickety boo, is making a massive massive scene, isn't it? Or does 'making a scene' to you actually mean just shouting angrily? (I'm not saying you were right or wrong to handle it this way, just observing that you did make a huge statement).

olgadapolga

My MIL used to do this with my children - lavish attention and presents on my DD1 and ignore her brothers. DD1 was the oldest grandchild so that may have had something to do with it but my gut feeling was that she just didn't like the male of the species as she also favoured her daughter over my DH.

Fortunately for my boys, their grandfather could see EXACTLY what she was doing and who was being favoured and he counteracted it all by giving the boys attention, love and the odd present but without leaving my DD out.

We then moved away due to work and my FIL sadly died. After that, the MIL would ignore my boys' birthdays and send them a "gift" when she sent my DD's birthday presents. The boys started to ask questions by this point as my DD got about ten times as much as they did. They weren't particularly bothered about it, just curious as to why their grandmother did it. My DD was mortified about it.

It all came to a bit of a head one day when she sent my daughter a laptop computer and sent the boys some tat from a charity shop. She'd told my DH that my DD was getting the laptop but he told her that it was completely unacceptable behaviour, especially as she said that she was going to send the boys £5 each. My DH said that we would not tolerate any more of her appalling attitude towards the boys. She just said "well, it's done, end of". Not - we intercepted the parcel and re-addressed it to all three of them. My DD hates laptops anyway and refused to touch it but my DS2 used it loads. Poetic justice.

Since that incident, there have been no more presents from her and she has completely cut herself off from us. No phone calls/emails/texts/cards, nothing. We've tried to keep communication going but eventually realised that it was a lost cause when she went into hospital for a life-saving operation and didn't tell us she was being admitted. We had to ring all of the hospitals in the area to find out if she was actually alive. Ah well, it's her choice. At least my children still see my parents.