Reply to DC upset about grandparent favoritism

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "DC upset about grandparent favoritism "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

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. [/quote]

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 [/quote]

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.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics