DC upset about grandparent favoritism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my mom is a narcissist

So protect your kid as you would have wanted to be protected when you were a child. I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem like talking to her about your concerns is going to change her behavior!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Stick up for your kid. Let grandma know it isnt acceptable. Figure out a way to make her mindful of the imbalance and remind her that you arent asking for fair/equal but that time spent with DC should not be spent talking about her other grandchildren. Ask DC wants she wants and how her relationship with your mother makes her feel. Ask her what you think you all should do - make it collaborative.

No. That's helicopter parenting.

OP here… how is it helicopter parenting?

It's not. The point of being collaborative is that you get your son or daughter to talk through it. They may have more problem solving skills then you give them credit for but at age 7 they still need to be assisted a little bit in lots of ways.

I'm not sure what the previous poster is talking about but I have a feeling the referencing talking to your own mother about her treatment of DC. That apparently 7 year old should feel comfortable talking to Grandma someone who is an adult and who in all normal social cultural interactions would be deferred to. As if talking to your own mother about her treatment of your child is somehow akin to calling a professor and asking about their grade when they are 20 years old.

NP. The reason this approach is awful is that it puts much of the emotional burden and decision-making on a 7-year-old. Also, it’s almost like pp is telling op to weaponize her kid against grandma. Yes, grandma is horrible. But this is something OP, the adult, needs to solve and keep her kid out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Stick up for your kid. Let grandma know it isnt acceptable. Figure out a way to make her mindful of the imbalance and remind her that you arent asking for fair/equal but that time spent with DC should not be spent talking about her other grandchildren. Ask DC wants she wants and how her relationship with your mother makes her feel. Ask her what you think you all should do - make it collaborative.

No. That's helicopter parenting.

OP here… how is it helicopter parenting?

It's not. The point of being collaborative is that you get your son or daughter to talk through it. They may have more problem solving skills then you give them credit for but at age 7 they still need to be assisted a little bit in lots of ways.

I'm not sure what the previous poster is talking about but I have a feeling the referencing talking to your own mother about her treatment of DC. That apparently 7 year old should feel comfortable talking to Grandma someone who is an adult and who in all normal social cultural interactions would be deferred to. As if talking to your own mother about her treatment of your child is somehow akin to calling a professor and asking about their grade when they are 20 years old.

NP. The reason this approach is awful is that it puts much of the emotional burden and decision-making on a 7-year-old. Also, it’s almost like pp is telling op to weaponize her kid against grandma. Yes, grandma is horrible. But this is something OP, the adult, needs to solve and keep her kid out of it.

And by “the adult should handle it,” I mean that op should limit contact with grandma even more. And, op should tell grandma exactly why she’s doing it—no simple ghosting that grandma will choose to blame op for unless op explains her decision. But keep the kid out of it—that’s like dragging a kid into a divorce and will probably re-open the kid’s wounds.

[Anonymous]

OP - Not the same but my ILs do this with my three DC. Oldest and only boy is the golden child even though his younger sisters out preform him in sports and academics. It is mostly FIL. When they are in town I minimize their interaction with all 3 together. This last time was the worst and I mentioned it to DH who had a talk with his mom… who will break it to her husband. Hoping it gets better as we see them in 2 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

Simply not true. By that age it was easy to tell my grandparent preferred my brother. He was younger and the only male grandchild in the family. It baffles me as an adult how my parents just let it happen and didn’t say anything or acknowledge what was happening.

With my own children it is also blatantly obvious but my older child pulls no punches and outright calls her grandparents (my ILs) out when they get like this, bragging endlessly about one of her cousins while not acknowledging her in any way. I’d guess she was about 8 the first time she piped up when they were raving about how athletic her cousin is and told her it was fine she wasn’t because she was a girl. A girl who runs 5ks, does swim team, plays softball, etc. So just patently untrue statements from the grandparents.

OP here… I secretly would love for DC to call them out on it. I truly wonder how they’d respond.

Why? I’m wondering if it is bothering you more than it bothers your child. We grew up with my parents being upset at my grandfather for favoring my cousin. It really bothered my father and my parents would talk about how one particular cousin was the golden child and how my aunt’s kids were always favored. We really didn’t care. At all. We had other grandparents and relatives too. My parents brought this to our attention far more than any attention or lack of from our grandfather. He died many years ago, we are all adults and they still say how her parents put my cousin and her kids on a pedestal. Now I call my own parents out on how this is really about some deep sibling rivalry between my father and his sister.

The “kids” - my cousins, siblings and me, are all in our 40s. No animosity or anything between us.

It bothers me a lot, for sure. But I’ve tried so so so hard to remain neutral. I personally think DC is of an age that can ask “why don’t you come to any of my X games?” I’d be so curious their reaction when they are put on the spot

I don’t want to make any assumptions here OP, but I’m a little concerned that you are so fixated on what your parents would do if your child confronted them (you’ve mentioned it several times now). It seems like you are quite aware in general, and so you must also know that this is setting your child up for another (potentially more extreme) traumatic interaction with your parents.

It seems to indicate that maybe this isn’t all about your kid, and that this is bringing up a lot of stuff for you too. Which is totally normal. But the central focus should be “how can I make sure this never happens to my kid again” (the answer is cut off the grandparents) and not looking for more proof that your parents are bad people (for whatever reason) and letting your kid be collateral for your own resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does your sibling say? My mom is a narcissist and I’m not the favored one, but my sibling caught on to the behavior. I would try to talk to your mom before cutting her out because it can be traumatic for people to see family relationships end abruptly (ask me how I know).

Sibling definitely knows/agrees mom is a narcissist and knows they are the golden child. We’ve talked at length about this. We have not talked about this playing into the grandchildren however.

OP, your mum won't change and as you have not yet addressed this 7 years in, you are now in danger of damaging your child's sense of self esteem if this goes unchecked.

Either limit time with your mother and address this publicly every time she does it, or hand it to your sibling to deal with. I mean that. In her role of golden child- she has to be the one to speak out for any hope MIL will edit herself a bit. It won't mean anything or be valued/verified unless it comes to her directly from your sibling. You are at least lucky your sibling acknowledges this and has discussed it with you. Why would you not have talked about this with sibling already? This is in your hands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

Ummm, no. 7yo aren't stupid. 100% possible and likely that the 7yo picked up on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Limit contact with your mother. You don’t have to cut her out of her life, but you can absolutely minimize your interactions with her and hers with your child.

I do. I’m already pretty low contact with her as it is.

And this is why she prefers the other grandchild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my mom is a narcissist

So protect your kid as you would have wanted to be protected when you were a child. I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem like talking to her about your concerns is going to change her behavior!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does you kid get along with your MIL? Do you? If so, then ghost your mom.

Yes and yes. DC adores my MIL. I also get along well with her. My ILs come to anything DC does. Like to a point of it almost being ridiculous, but considering DC knows the opposite, we very much appreciate my ILs.

Well you say you are low contact with your mother to begin with so you explain this to your child. You say just like DC spends time with MIL and MIL is so happy, Cousin Larla spends more time with Mother. Explain that you aren’t very close to your mother and that means DC doesn’t spend as much time as Cousin. A 7 year old who doesn’t see their grandmother much shouldn’t be that upset about the lack of a relationship that was never there to begin with. Explain it away and focus on the relationships you do have with other family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

I don’t think it’s fair to try to blame me for my mom’s behavior. I have tried to be as neutral as humanly possible in this situation. I sincerely would love for my DC to have the relationship with my mom that I didn’t get to have.

I can’t imagine how you could be neutral. You shouldn’t be! You see your mother showcasing your child’s cousin and basically treating your child as invisible. How do you NOT speak up? “Mom, It’s really rude to show off one grandchild in front of the other. You ignore Marlo and it is really hurtful. We frankly are not interested in spending much time with you when you treat Marlo like he is invisible.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

I don’t think it’s fair to try to blame me for my mom’s behavior. I have tried to be as neutral as humanly possible in this situation. I sincerely would love for my DC to have the relationship with my mom that I didn’t get to have.

Your DC has already been hurt. Neutrality is not appropriate. You need to be honest with your DC and just say, “I know, honey, my mom can be a really insensitive jerk. When I was a child, she always very clearly favored Aunt Linda over me and it caused me a lot of pain. I see her hurting you now and I hate it. I’m sorry she can’t see how hurtful she is. You are wonderful and it’s sad that she is the way she is. We don’t have to spend much time with her. I don’t want her to hurt you the way she hurt me.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

Simply not true. By that age it was easy to tell my grandparent preferred my brother. He was younger and the only male grandchild in the family. It baffles me as an adult how my parents just let it happen and didn’t say anything or acknowledge what was happening.

With my own children it is also blatantly obvious but my older child pulls no punches and outright calls her grandparents (my ILs) out when they get like this, bragging endlessly about one of her cousins while not acknowledging her in any way. I’d guess she was about 8 the first time she piped up when they were raving about how athletic her cousin is and told her it was fine she wasn’t because she was a girl. A girl who runs 5ks, does swim team, plays softball, etc. So just patently untrue statements from the grandparents.

OP here… I secretly would love for DC to call them out on it. I truly wonder how they’d respond.

WTH are you fantasizing about your SEVEN year old doing what you as his mother and the adult should do? Call her out on it! Tell her to knock it off! Don’t force your child to me more emotionally strong than you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

I don’t think it’s fair to try to blame me for my mom’s behavior. I have tried to be as neutral as humanly possible in this situation. I sincerely would love for my DC to have the relationship with my mom that I didn’t get to have.

DP. I agree with the first poster. Your child is picking up the resentment from somewhere. It makes sense that it would be from you. Even your OP, which is written to seem like it is unbiased and fairly presented, is not actually unbiased and fairly presented. You owe your child more. That a 7-year-old burst into tears about it means that you are somehow egging on the behavior because that is not something most 7-year-olds would pick up on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a 7 year old senses this much favoritism it's probably because she's sensing OP's frustration with her mother. It didn't happen organically.

Simply not true. By that age it was easy to tell my grandparent preferred my brother. He was younger and the only male grandchild in the family. It baffles me as an adult how my parents just let it happen and didn’t say anything or acknowledge what was happening.

With my own children it is also blatantly obvious but my older child pulls no punches and outright calls her grandparents (my ILs) out when they get like this, bragging endlessly about one of her cousins while not acknowledging her in any way. I’d guess she was about 8 the first time she piped up when they were raving about how athletic her cousin is and told her it was fine she wasn’t because she was a girl. A girl who runs 5ks, does swim team, plays softball, etc. So just patently untrue statements from the grandparents.

OP here… I secretly would love for DC to call them out on it. I truly wonder how they’d respond.

Yikes. I cannot believe you wrote that let alone secretly dream it. This one statement proves that you are the problem...that you want a 7-year-old to initiate a fight with the grandparent? You are completely unstable and should not be a parent. Sheesh.