do grandparents show favoritism in your family?

[Grumpy's Gal]

Just curious -- it would appear that my inlaws show quite a bit of favortism between the grandchildren eventhough they are all in town, all about the same age, all visit the grandparent's house, etc. It's not just an occassional favoritism either....it's all the time. Very, very obvious. Is it this way in your family?

 

[Mermaid02]

Yep- my inlaws drive almost 3 hours to go to my niece and nephew's school things, and crab about driving across town to my kids stuff.

 

[lyeag]

O yeah. My MIL does big time. It used to really bother me, but then I thought, why would I want to expose my kids to such a petty person int the first place? The really sad thing is my parents died well before I had any children. My dad would have been a really good grandpa.

 

[florida-again]

I know this doesn't quite answer your question but....

My great-grandmother recently said to me, about my sister 'now I think all of my great-grandchildren are pretty, but she (referring to my sister) is something else. She's just breathtaking, she's just so beautiful!'

OUCH! I know it's true but it still hurt to hear it! I still love her so much though, she's way old so I forgive her!

 

[Castlebound]

Well it is so bad with my grandma that when my kids talk about her they call her Paige and Owen's(my cousin's kids) great grandma. MY DH's parents live less than 20 minutes from us but we usually only see them on holidays and birthdays, not that I'm complaining about it!

 

[DawnCt1]

My MIL is so shamelessly blatant in her favoritism that I have little to do with her at this point in my life. As a previous poster said, my MIL will drive two towns away to see DH's sister's kids (name the) game, and does not even ask us if any of our DS's play sports. She has been at the basketball game of another nephew and when she realized that her favorite granddaughter's game was starting in another town, she literally ran across the gym floor to get to her car and drive there.

 

[Patty3]

My inlaws always showed favoritism to their 3 daughter's children. My kids always seemed to get the short end of the stick.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

can I add a 2nd part to this post? How do you explain it to the children who are constantly being left out?

(and I feel guilty to say I'm so glad you guys posted and that we're not the only ones.....but then I feel guilty because I'm not happy there are other kids going thru this....)

 

[jbdreamer]

Yes! My dad's parent's are very close to their only daughter's family. A few years ago they wrote a christmas letter discribing how the year went, and how eveyone of their daughters children were doing, listing all by name and their hobbies. They briefly mentioned my parents & kids "meaning me my sister & brother." And they didn't even mention their other son who lived with them! They sent this letter to my other grandparents. They couldn't believe it!

 

[Nancy]

I don't feel my Mom does mainly because my sisters both live out of town, so she doesn't see their kids that much. I do think if she was here she would have treated all the kids the same. (it helps that there is a huge age difference).

Now my MIL...there is a definate difference. She goes to all their school stuff, she watches my nephew bowl every week (but this year my youngest is bowling too so she watches her every week now too) my other kids she shows up occasionally. She is always at my SIL's house or taking them somewhere. On NY Eve we asked if she wanted to go to dinner with us, she said she had other plans...turns out those plans were with SIL and family...we ran into them at the movie theater after dinner. She could have told us she was going with them (that wasn't the issue) She never goes with us, always with them. She takes my oldest nephew to plays because she says she didn't realize my girls would be interested in musicals....my girls did competitive dance for years, why wouldn't they like to watch musicals.

 

[3DisneyBuggs]

My MIL favors my SIL's kids. For their birthdays they get taken to ToysRUs. My DD;s birthday was last month and she didn;t even get a visit. Dh had to go there and pick up her card-(a ten minute drive with red lights). What's even better is my DD is 3 yo and we haven;t had dinner at Grandmas once since she was born. I always say thank God for my parents because they more than make up for both my inlaw set of grandparents.

 

[CathrynRose]

Just curious -- it would appear that my inlaws show quite a bit of favortism between the grandchildren eventhough they are all in town, all about the same age, all visit the grandparent's house, etc. It's not just an occassional favoritism either....it's all the time. Very, very obvious. Is it this way in your family?

LOL! So funny you mention this NOW - last week I had finally had it with my EX (still bothering me) MIL.... so I called her.

It wasnt just favortism between Grandkids - it was between MY kids - both her Grandkids... she likes the older one better.

She has let the younger one know he was "getting fat" (check out his picture - he's a real brick-house, isnt he???) And wouldnt give him a donut, but gave the other kids donuts.

The last straw was - no birthday gift for him, BUT my older one was given $50 "just because"

 

[Keli]

To some degree both my parents and the inlaws do play favorites I guess. I know my parents are closer to my dd than they are to some of their other grandchildren. It's partly because we live the closest so we see them the most, Ashli was the first grandchild, and then it's also because Ash has my mother's personality and tastes. But I'm not sure it's something my siblings realize because I don't know if they can tell how close my dd and mom are. My parents don't treat her better than the other grandchildren in any outward wasy.
My inlaws are a bit different. They used to seem to favor every other grandchild over my dd. I think it was because my MIL and I didn't get along so my dd didn't spend much time with them. As Ashli ages she developed a little bit more of a relationship with them and it got better. And I hate to think they are as shallow as this but I do think it helped that they feel Ashli turned out to be very pretty and that she looks like their side of the family (I think they are right, she does look like them more than she does me).

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

My in-laws also spend much more time with my SIL's son. My DS15 says all the time how "soft" his grandpa has gotten and how his cousin gets away with murder at their house.

My SIL said one time that Grandparents are always closer to their daughter's children in general. I told her I didn't think that was true - her parent's "chose" to do more with her son. We have always tried to include them whenever we had sports events going on - they never show up. They had my boys stay overnight one time in 15 years - her son is 3 and has already been over many times. My parents have 6 grandsons and treat all as equally as possible. The only limitation is the distance that they live - but it wasn't uncommon for my folks to fly out of state to see my nephews college basketball games.

I don't get it but I can say that we no longer tell my DS's if I invite the in-laws 'cause they usually don't bother to come.

 

[SleepyMom]

Yes, it is the same way in our family.

On my side my Mom favors my girls and will drive the 5 hour (one way) trip to visit for any reason. My brother lives in the same town as my Mom and she only will go to one of his 3 children's events or parties if I have brought my girls there to also go. So it's not like she's actually going for my niece and nephews, it's more like getting to spend extra time with my girls

I do not understand this at all. Thankfully it has not caused a riff between my DB and I, he understands it is Mom's doing and not because of anything my girls or his kids have done. She just has favorite's for some reason.

On my DH's side it is the same way, only it is a niece and nephew (his brother's kids) that are the "Golden Grandchildren". In our 15 years together my MIL only came to our home once to spend the night, it also happened to be a night in which DD11 was having a one night play. Since MIL lived 2 1/2 hours away this was her one and only chance to ever see DD in any of her activities and MIL decided not to go to the play. So we left and went to the school, when we got home there sits MIL and Golden Boy in our living room, she had called him the minute we left to have him come over. She once drove 8 hours (to Canada) to watch him in a hockey game, but wouldn't go 6 blocks up the street to see DD have a leading role in a play. Her loss, same as my Mom's loss when she refuses to see DB's kids...

MIL is gone now, and she never once ever saw either of my girls in plays, concerts, games or anything like that.

 

[buzzlady]

When I was growing up, my grandmother showed favoritism to my sister and one cousin. There were just the two of us and 6 cousins.

My 2 boys are the only grandchildren on my side and my husbands. They are treated equally by both grandmothers.

 

[golfgal]

DH's parents are very odd in their favoritism. They will go to plays, concerts, sporting events for all the other grand children other then ours. Our DS asked them if they would come to something of his and they said "oh, we will just wait until you are in high school before we start coming to your sporting events" yet they go to my 5 year old nephews stuff all the time, whatever. When DH's brother moved to our town, DD who was 7 at the time said "well, maybe Grandma and Grandpa will FINALLY come and visit us for a change". They were down 3 times in 3 months to visit DH's brother and go to their kids' things. They have visited us about 5 times in 15 years.

BUT, they always say they would rather have our kids over to their house then the other grandkids because our kids are better behaved and easier to watch . I don't get that one.

My mom is a total case and a half when it comes to favoritism. She is constantly buying stuff for my brother/sisters and their kids and nothing for me or my kids. One year at Christmas my brother got a new tv and my sister got a new microwave because her other one didn't work. Well, they had just BOUGHT a new one. It was MY microwave that was on the fritz. We didn't get anything that year because we didn't need anything. OK, whatever. The kids will sometimes get a gift from her for Christmas, but it is usually one of those $5 blue box Target gift things which is fine except that she will spend several hundred dollars on gifts for the other families and DH and I never get anything because "we don't need anything". My sister's kids get 25 gifts EACH from their other grandma, they don't need anything either, ok, whatever. Then she wonders WHY we don't like to visit because other then the obvious favoritism with the gift thing she is constantly telling them that they should change this or do that, nothing is ever good enough for her.

My dad and step-mom favor our kids but probably because our kids don't expect it like my sisters kids do.

 

[kasar]

Some of these stories are so sad. My grandparents did that to us (I don't think they liked my mother and their daughter lived near them) and it stinks.

As for my kids, MIL watches my nieces and nephews during the day so, of course, she's much closer to them than my kids. It's actually fine with me. I wouldn't want her watching them anyhow. I know they'll be closer to them but my kids get lots of love from us and my family (only grandkids) and it's their loss. They're missing out on some really cool kids.

 

[lovmy2girls]

Sort of off subject, but my FIL shows favoritism between his 5 kids. Some get birthday cards, and others don't. There are only 2 boys out of the 5 and, well, you guessed it, my husband is the one less favorite. It was just last night that his little brother called and told him, Dad sent me a Birthday card, and my husband said well, I guess your special , I didn't even get a phone call.

 

[nativetxn]

Yes. My mil has always favored her daughter's child over mine. But I love him more than enough for both of us