Do grandparents always prefer the child who looks more like them?
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Anonymous
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I have fraternal twin girls. When they were infants they looked like each other but now that they are older (3) they look significantly different — one looks like me and one looks almost exactly like my MIL. She is a copy of my MILs baby photos. It’s ironic because my other daughter has MILS name as her middle name. Anyway MIL obviously prefers her lookalike. She is always showing her off buying them matching clothing taking them around at parties to greet people together while DD #2 plays with the other cousins.
Yesterday after a family cookout she actually told me and another group Of family members that we should switch the girls middle names so her lookalike is the one with her name and vice versa. She was like, they’re young enough and they’ll never know. It just made me sad when she said it. It’s like she is putting all of her energy into my one daughter. Other DD is getting old enough to notice and I know it must confuse her. I’ve tried pointing out things in a gentle way like “yes Larla looks like you but Brynleigh has your talent with singing, etc” but she’s just not interested. I don’t think it is at all conscious on her part.. Should I press the issue? Fwiw my husband sees it too and is the one who brought it up but is similarly undecided about how to handle. I’m not my MILs biggest fan but I do want to get along. She has never struck me as a narcissist or even high self esteemed so this comes out of nowhere and I can’t figure it out. |
Anonymous
| How can it not be conscious? You have twins and she bizarrely lavishes all her attention on her mini me. Of course it is purposeful. |
Anonymous
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I'd stop convincing her (bringing up singing talent seems weird, they are toddlers).
But if she buys matching outfits for Gma and only 1 daughter, I'd have your DH have a talk about that bullsh*t because that is NOT okay. Call out the one sided treatment when it is obvious, and if it doesn't improve, you scale back visits. This is incredibly toxic behavior for siblings, especially twins, to endure. It's not good for EITHER of them and you are the one who needs to protect them from it. This is the type of stuff that will damage their sibling bond and I would not tolerate that at ALL. |
Anonymous
| Wait, your MIL purchases matching clothes for herself and ONE of your DDs? If so, stop this now. |
Anonymous
Sorry, what I meant is that I think SHE thinks she treats the girls the same. My husband said something mild about how she has to pay attention to other DD (I hate writing that but you know what I mean) and she was shocked that we thought there was any dissimilarity in treatment. I think I’m her mind she doesn’t see it at all. Which makes it harder to deal with. |
Anonymous
| No. My kids strongly resemble their grandfather and not their grandmother (take after his ethnicity and not hers), and this has not affected how my parents feel at all. They adore both. However, my son has special needs, and when he was little, they didn't quite know how to deal with that. Now they understand him better, and he's grown out of some behaviors, so it's all good. |
Anonymous
My MIL is known for her hats and has one “famous” one that is leopard — she bought both girls sun hats for the BBQ but lookalike daughters was leopard like hers and the others was yellow. That kind of thing. |
Anonymous
| Not at all! But I've noticed that inlaws like my son more (son of their son) and my parents like my DD more (they only had daughters). I think it's that they like the grandkid that reminds them more of their kids. |
Anonymous
I'd switch the hats on the girls. If she tried to "correct" I'd say "why does it matter Midge?" with as much iciness as I could. I'd thwart this at every turn and eventually she'd find those hats in the trash can. |
Anonymous
She knows exactly what she is doing. Also, start writing things down that she's doing. Having a solid list will help you feel more confidant that you aren't just seeing things. Your DH needs to be on her about this. |
Anonymous
| No. My father blatantly favors my first one and they don't look alike. He actually verbally compares all his other grandkids to my DC1. My mom is more discrete but DC1 is also her favorite. My MIL and FIL prefer my nieces to my kids, but it's because they are their daughter's kids, so understandable. We all have older kids, so advice from me is to lavish your kids with love and attention equally. Mine don't really care about the grandparents' favoritism. |
Anonymous
| This is not normal. My mom has 5 grandkids and none of them look like her (she has dark hair and olive skin and all of the grandkids are fair) and she adores all of them (as does my dad, though he's a little spacier about connecting with little kids). My in-laws tend to prefer whichever child is better behaved at that moment, understandably, but this switches all the time so it's not consistent. |
Anonymous
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Nope. Not always the case.
I do think my mom will always have a special soft spot in her heart for her grandson that looks AND acts exactly like my brother. It's literally like, my brother as a kid, round two. But I think I only know this because she gushes about him to me - she would never treat the kids differently. |
Anonymous
| None of my three look like my parents. One’s adopted. The other is the spitting image of dad. One is a throw back to an ancestor in dad’s family. My parents seem to prefer the last because she is very charismatic and was also the only grandchild for over a decade. |
Anonymous
| My parents prefer whichever of my kids is behaving and in the best mood that day. They don't favor one because of their looks. |