A question for MILs/grandmothers: In your own words, why do you favor certain grandkids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve watched my MIL play favorites toward my SIL’s kids for many years. It’s usually not blatant, but it’s still clear. I’d like to hear from the MIL’s / grandmothers themselves. Do you think it’s ok to do this? Are you aware you’re doing it? Do you care how it’s perceived by the children? By their parents?

My mom goes the extra mile to make sure nobody is the favorite however, I know that in her heart, my kids are favorites. My dad blatantly favors my kids but I'm also his favorite child and only girl. My ILs love my nieces the most because they are their daughter's children. So, in our families, the daughters' offspring are favorites.
I'm curious to see the patern in families with only girls or boys. I have only boys but mine are young. My grandparents DNGAF about any of the grandkids, so their disinterest was shared equitably.

I think that this is pretty common and if you get down to it there are biological reasons for favoring a daughter’s kids over a son’s kids. The same biological reasoning may be why a previous poster’s MIL favors the child who looks like her son (there are plenty of studies that say father’s like children who look like them, so extrapolating from that why wouldn’t a father’s parents have the same probably unconscious preference). My MIL is obsessed with talking about which grandkids look like her side of the family, specifically her father. My two year old niece is apparently her father’s doppelgänger, so is my husband… Some people seem to have a need to make these comparisons. In my MIL’s case it doesn’t mean she favors my niece though. I think she favors my oldest daughter (my youngest is a few months old, so it’s not really evident if she’s in contention for the favorite spot), because she’s really smart and sweet (and beautiful) and my niece is very self contained and is pretty inaccessible/not easy to engage with. My MIL favors her only daughter over my husband and his brother and I’m sure she’d rather favor my SIL’s daughter, but I think it comes down to personality and even looks (my daughter is objectively cuter than my niece and that may win over my niece looking like her great-grandfather). Even if grandparents have a favorite I don’t think they should make it obvious. It’s awkward for everyone and totally unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have seen this type of favoritism by grandparents in my own culture, particularly when there are lots of grandchildren. For example, my grandparents took care of me when I was one years old and lived with them for 2 years. So I was in effect my grandmother's last "child." My grandfather favored his only two grandsons that carried on his last name. Plus, they had 17 grandchildren over their 7 kids.

OTOH, my ILs only have 4 grandkids (2 from their one son and 2 from my DH), and I would say that my MIL prefers her other two over ours. I have heard her ooh and aah over her one other granddaughter's pic (even trying to show me pics on her phone) while making comments about while my DD looks like their side, my DS looks nothing like them. I believe that it's b/c her other grandkids are fully white, while ours are only half white.

I very much relate to this. My ILs have 5 grandchildren (2 from their one son and 3 from my DH). They seem to prefer the other two over ours and I suspect it’s because they are fully white and have more of a resemblance to their son, while ours are only half white. DH also comes from a family of all boys (3 total). My ILs don’t seem to know how to interact or play with my girls.

With my side of the family, I come from a family of all girls, everyone else lives within driving distance to each other and sees each other often. Whereas we have to fly cross country. So when we visit there is a novelty to seeing my kids, who are super excited to be there which I think gives them preferential treatment.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my mom favors her boyfriend's grandkids.

My MIL favored mine only because we made an effort and her son/DIL didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve watched my MIL play favorites toward my SIL’s kids for many years. It’s usually not blatant, but it’s still clear. I’d like to hear from the MIL’s / grandmothers themselves. Do you think it’s ok to do this? Are you aware you’re doing it? Do you care how it’s perceived by the children? By their parents?

My mom goes the extra mile to make sure nobody is the favorite however, I know that in her heart, my kids are favorites. My dad blatantly favors my kids but I'm also his favorite child and only girl. My ILs love my nieces the most because they are their daughter's children. So, in our families, the daughters' offspring are favorites.
I'm curious to see the patern in families with only girls or boys. I have only boys but mine are young. My grandparents DNGAF about any of the grandkids, so their disinterest was shared equitably.

I think that this is pretty common and if you get down to it there are biological reasons for favoring a daughter’s kids over a son’s kids. The same biological reasoning may be why a previous poster’s MIL favors the child who looks like her son (there are plenty of studies that say father’s like children who look like them, so extrapolating from that why wouldn’t a father’s parents have the same probably unconscious preference). My MIL is obsessed with talking about which grandkids look like her side of the family, specifically her father. My two year old niece is apparently her father’s doppelgänger, so is my husband… Some people seem to have a need to make these comparisons. In my MIL’s case it doesn’t mean she favors my niece though. I think she favors my oldest daughter (my youngest is a few months old, so it’s not really evident if she’s in contention for the favorite spot), because she’s really smart and sweet (and beautiful) and my niece is very self contained and is pretty inaccessible/not easy to engage with. My MIL favors her only daughter over my husband and his brother and I’m sure she’d rather favor my SIL’s daughter, but I think it comes down to personality and even looks (my daughter is objectively cuter than my niece and that may win over my niece looking like her great-grandfather). Even if grandparents have a favorite I don’t think they should make it obvious. It’s awkward for everyone and totally unnecessary.

No, I have the only grandkids and my mom has zero interest.

[Anonymous]

My grandparent strongly favored some grandkids over others. Instead of taking it personally, even as young kids, we had fun with it and turned it into a game among the cousins to see just how far it would go in being so obvious about it. Both the favored grandkids and non-favored played along.

Today, we still joke about it and I was not on the team of the favorites, I don't feel like I missed out. Life is too short for these things to matter. Grandparents and parents bring their own biases, traumas, and pasts to the table- who am I to judge why they they do what they do.

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile...my mom is always complaining abour the blatant favoritism my brothers kids show to SIL's mom. It really bothers her not because she wants to be favorite but because they make a big deal about it. She partly laughs at herself for caring because its trivial like they gave other grandma "#1 grandma" mug or something insignificant.

[Anonymous]

My MIL favors the grandchildren she helped raise as well as the ones who look like her.
My kids are adopted and she treated them like the rest of the non favored grandkids, but there is always a lot of talk about who in the family resembles which grandparent and how you can really tell so and so is family just by looking at them. We no longer visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My MIL only has 2 grandchildren (my kids) so she has equal access to both kids and no other competing grandkids from another child. She still clearly favors the first born who is a boy. I am not sure she is aware of it but it is obvious to most others. My son has a strong resemblance to her son and my daughter has a strong resemblance to my side of the family. This is something my MIL comments on a lot. I have no idea if that somehow plays into it. Interestingly, her mother did the same thing with my husband and his sister. His sister still talks about it as an adult.

I have twins and my ils were horrible about favoring one over the other from the time they were infants. It was sick. Like your kids they thought the one they preferred was more like their family. My sils were particularly horrible and would send the one kid twice as many gifts and for every holiday and birthday, the other kid's gifts would be delayed. We always redistributed the gifts and told them to stop sending them by the time they were 5. One sil visited when they were 1 and she acted as if the other kid did not exist. To call them dysfunctional is an understatement. We have no relationship with them at all.

My spouse and I talked to them about this and they were such a provincial, cult like family that they believed it was normal and was so good for the favored child that it was a positive thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve watched my MIL play favorites toward my SIL’s kids for many years. It’s usually not blatant, but it’s still clear. I’d like to hear from the MIL’s / grandmothers themselves. Do you think it’s ok to do this? Are you aware you’re doing it? Do you care how it’s perceived by the children? By their parents?

My mom goes the extra mile to make sure nobody is the favorite however, I know that in her heart, my kids are favorites. My dad blatantly favors my kids but I'm also his favorite child and only girl. My ILs love my nieces the most because they are their daughter's children. So, in our families, the daughters' offspring are favorites.
I'm curious to see the patern in families with only girls or boys. I have only boys but mine are young. My grandparents DNGAF about any of the grandkids, so their disinterest was shared equitably.

I'm an only child, but my DH is the older of 2 boys. Our situation involves FIL. DH's brother has 2 children, as do we. All 4 kids range in age from toddler up through 2nd grade. MIL died several years ago and never made a difference between either of her sons or any grandchildren, but FIL shows clear favoritism to BIL's children, to the point that he has moved in with them (a cross country move) to "help out with the kids". BIL's family and ours are similar in income/housing/COL/childcare/health/etc, so it isnt exactly obvious to us why they need so much help. The extent of interaction with our kids is bi-monthly video calls. DH is bothered by this, but this appears to be how the relationships will be handled going forward.
I miss my MIL terribly.

[Anonymous]

My brother and SIL state that my parents favor my kids over them. Honestly, they probably do. However, we spend time with my parents- go stay there on weekends, pay for them to go on trips with us, have them visit us frequently, etc. Very open lines of communication. In contrast, my brother and SIL lived in the same town until two months ago, visited my parents every 6 months, never had my parents over to their house except when they needed babysitting and in general, never bothered with my parents.

For example, I give my parents and in laws a schedule every month of baseball games, music shows etc that my kids are in and say please join us if you're able. And then we visit after. My brother and SIL won't give my parents my nephew's baseball schedule so they can't attend games.

[Anonymous]

None of the grandmas are speaking up on this thread. Looks like they all know they are guilty of it!

[Anonymous]

Luckily my parents and ILs don’t favor any grandkids over others. But my own grandparents certainly did! I was their clear favorite for many years until my much younger cousins were born and then they were the favorite. My grandparents had 4 kids and 8 grandchildren. I was right in the middle (4th oldest) of the 8 grandkids. I don’t know why they favored me so much. But it was obvious and made me feel uncomfortable even though my cousins and siblings didn’t seem to mind that much really (just some light teasing about it). I would never do that to my own kids or grandkids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she have a closer relationship with your SIL than with your DH, therefore more access to the children, and thus a closer relationship with them?

See, this is always the common justification and I call BS. A fully grow woman should know better than to give young children in equal amounts of love, attention, and gifts. It’s just heinous to do that to young children who don’t understand the “I’m closer to my daughter” context. FFS, woman, learn some etiquette.

Now wait a second. If the DIL/son are always putting "boundaries" and not making the relationship important how is it the MIL fault? If you don't visit and aren't welcoming to your in-laws how do you expect that the grandchildren are going to be close? And I am not a grandma yet so I do not speak from personal experience but, have watched my SIL block my mom. She doesn't favor my kids but, she does have a closer relationship.

[Anonymous]

My inlaws have seven grandchildren. My children were numbers 3 and 5 in birth order. I really felt like by the time my first came along, the bloom was off the rose as far as grandkids went. They are also closer to my husband's brother, whose family is and has been a mess for some time, as they are their rescuers. My kids would see the inlaws at holidays and birthdays, but in between, rarely. If they would ask to spend time with them, they literally would say that they weren't free because they were having the other kids over. Yes, they did come to special events on occasion, but after many times of hearing the special things they did and / or bought for their cousins, by the time my kids were in late elementary school, they stopped asking to stay at Gramps and Nana's house, because they knew the answer would be no - their cousins took priority.

Now, ten years later, they are not close at all to their grandparents. MIL passed last year, and to be honest, they have little desire to spend time with FIL, who is argumentative, rarely asks about them and who they do not feel close to. The preferred grandkids have since grown and flown, and they do keep in touch via phone, but Gramps spends a lot of time alone. Sadly, what goes around, comes around.

[Anonymous]

This happens so often. FIL was a career diplomat, and he did really, really well, but they still don’t get it. They bought my son a car but not my daughter. One year when the kids were little they rented a beach house during the week of DD’s birthday, and gave her something I don’t remember—and gave her cousin 4 (count them, 4) dresses. It drives me nuts.