Anonymous wrote:compare her to other, more well behaved MILs. Say, "wow, I know other MILs that love their grand kids as individuals. Get my point?" Husband should do his husbandly duty (I am a DH too) and stand up for you. He should say, "Yeah mom, seriously, not cool, okay?"

i loved this!

The offensive MILs most definitely did it with their own children, OP. They have no idea how f*cked up the *favored* one turns out to be! This is because the UNfavored one is always trying to prove something. So in a way, I should thank my MIL for turning out such a great UNfavored son!

Anonymous wrote:I read this with tears in my eyes because our son is not the favorite on either side. It is so hard to have to answer him when he asks when his grandparents are coming to visit. My parents have cancelled 3 trips in a row to see us because of something that has come up with my brother's family twice and my dad's job once. When they do visit, I am not exagerrrating when I say, my father takes no interest whatever in our son and constantly, constantly talks about my brother's two kids and compares them non-stop to our's. Every single conversation leads back to them.

I want my son to know his grandparents. But what do you do when they don't seem to care if they see him? I can't keep making the effort and continue to have my son disappointed. I can let go of my hurt feelings, but how do I explain it to my son that they haven't come to visit?

I don't tell my kids Grandma and Grandpa are visiting until they are within walking distance. Too many weird things (car breaks down on the turnpike, AAA can't hear them on the cell phone to even get assistance, all kinds of crazy crap).

I suggest pulling your dad aside and saying that Timmy has a hard time always being compared to Jimmy and Joe. I'm sure your dad isn't doing it to be malicious but if there is something your dad and son have in common, next time they visit have them go to the train museum together or something like that. For my dad, it's fishing and he loves to take the kids to the pier. He never fishes the same way as when he is on his own but he loves teaching them.

compare her to other, more well behaved MILs. Say, "wow, I know other MILs that love their grand kids as individuals. Get my point?" Husband should do his husbandly duty (I am a DH too) and stand up for you. He should say, "Yeah mom, seriously, not cool, okay?"

Anonymous wrote:HELP! I have a mother in law who plays favorites and likes to compare our kids to their cousin in every single conversation that we have, and unfortunately, our kids aren't the favorite. I should add that I don’t mind if she does have a favorite. What I do mind is that she compares the cousin to our kids (personality, skills, etc) in their hearing and our eldest is getting to the age where these kinds of comments are going to be noticed.
I believe that she isn’t doing this to be malicious, but she doesn’t really have anything else to talk about. Is there any nice, non-confrontational way to tell her to quit it?

Tell her your kids can fly. She what she says. I doubt she can top that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HELP! I'm a MIL!
I can see what everyone is talking about. Sometimes I find myself talking to one of my kids about the other....including kids....and I think I come accross as comparing them. My intention is for them to be informed about each other....they are all so busy!
Please, if anyone has advice as to not come accross as comparing or judgemental....please let me know. I love them ALL so much!

my MIL constantly talks about everyone else and says 'she is just trying to keep everyone informed'. to me, keeping everyone else informed about things that do not involve them is also known as gossip.

I'll second this. Why not just focus on the people you're with?

I love my MIL but sometimes it feels like she's forcing our relationships with other family members. The strangest part, to me, is that DH's family is small (1 sibling, who is married, and one grandparent), so it's not like we have soooo much to catch up on (I come from a much larger family and have never known all my cousins birthdays by heart- and that was okay, since they didn't know mine either). Reminders for birthdays are one thing, reminding us to send a gift when we've agreed with BIL and SIL that we won't share gifts among us? Too far. I can't help but think that a lot of the older generation's need to keep those extended family relationships close is because they cannot deal with the changing family dynamics that happen once people have their own kids and the family of origin isn't the tightest bond anymore.

All that said, you clearly want to do the right thing. Hopefully your DILs see your good intentions.

Op, I would personally not hold out much hope for a transformation by MIL here.

DH and I are in the same boat. His younger sister had her kid first and she is herself clearly the favored child- but its more than standard favoritism. Anyway, this now extends to the children. Our lovely creative Daughter is constantly being examined for flaws in every way except her appearance (she is really beautiul so we hear alot about how really beautiful she is. Of course we care about the inner beauty which is far greater yet, but we dont hear about that at all).

Meanwhile SIL's son who barely makes eye contact or talks, and is an underweight supercompliant child is adored as if nothing wrong could ever come from his or the wonderful parenting he receives.

However, dont be fooled. I know SIL is in fact also constantly being criticized by her mom. The difference is, she uses the negative comparisons to make herself look and feel better about herself.And then she feels really quite ok herself about criticizing and comparing OUR kids when she doesnt know shit about my kid. She has spent a grand total of three short visits with her spaced about a year apart.

On one hand this comparison business is silly bs, on the other, its quite serious. This kind of constant criticism and the _tenacity of the search for opportunities to be disapproving_ is really not a health thing and I propose you find ways to remove your child from being around that as much as possible.

Anonymous wrote:Oh Lord, I feel for you. When SIL had her first child, you would have thought it was the second coming of Christ himself. ALL. WE. HEARD. ABOUT. Honestly, I can't even stand the name anymore. The kid is a great kid, has nothing to do with him, obviously. But MIL was absolutely nauseating.

Everything SIL does is so very wonderful and somehow deserved. Vomit.

Keep perspective, and realize that MIL sounds insanely (really) ridiculous to everyone within earshot.

It sounds like you and I are in the exact same boat! And I agree 100% with you on what you're saying about keeping it in perspective and that she sounds ridiculous. But trying to get her to realize that she sounds that way to herself (while still keeping some level of harmony), is going to be the tricky part.

Perhaps by saying “it’s not fair to compare two very different people to one another?”