My husband, myself, and our children went and saw his family. We live in a different state so we only see them a few times a year. We have two children, a daughter who is 4 and a son who is 2. I have always had a sinking feeling that there was a little favoritism being shown to my daughter from them. I always kind of blamed myself for this. You see, my son was born earlier than expected, and at the time my husband was out of the country on a business trip. It was an extremely stressful delivery, and the way I deal with stress is to try to be alone as much as possible, so I asked that no one visit me in the hospital so that I could just spend time alone bonding with my son. (I had serious feelings of failure when he was born, because he had to be delivered by c-section, then had to be in the NICU for a while, and I was extremely depressed the weeks leading up to delivery) Anyway, ever since I have noticed hints of resentment from my husband's family when ever it is talked about.
For a while I thought I was just imagining the favoritism on account of guilt from 2 years ago, until two months and this past weekend. In early June, we were in town and had lunch with my husband's brother, who had a bag full of wrapped gifts for my daughter. He said something to us about getting a few things for our son and he would mail them out. That hasn't happened. We saw him last weekend the same time we saw my husband's parents, they had gotten my daughter a special little gift, and nothing for my son. His mother wanted to know what size my daughter was in so that she could send her come clothes in the fall, but made no request about our son's size of clothing.
It is getting to the point that my husband is even noticing, and he doesn't notice ANYTHING! He asked if I thought it was weird that they seem to be getting things for our daughter and not our son. I told him, yes it does seem odd. Right now my son is young enough to not know anything seems a bit fishy, but in a couple years (or less) I am afraid he is going to notice really start to resent it, and not want to visit his grandparents on my husband's side.
I feel like I am not in a place that I can say anything to his family without making the situation a million times worse, and make their opinion of me even lower than it already is, and starting a huge war. I am not one to start a war, but I would like to keep the peace in my own home. Does anyone have any experience in this? How did you deal with it? Did you bring it up to the family, or did you just try to deal with it at home?
Quick Edit: Our daughter is actually not their first grandchild. She is their first granddaughter, but they have a grandson, my husband's nephew, who is a few years older than our daughter.
Thanks for all the insight. I am going to have my husband bring it up with them, unless it resolves itself the next time we see them. It makes me sad that it even has to be brought up. I just want the whole issue gone before my son is really old enough to notice what is going on. And again, if my husband has started to notice it must be getting really obvious.
Both my mother and MIL did tat. Favored the girls. I would hand them back the gifts if there was nothing for the boys!! The eventually got it.
I have seen this situation a few times, first with my cousin and second with my own children. Grandparents seem to favor the older child first, especially when they are still toddlers.When my aunt became a grandmother before my mom, my mother just could not understand why my aunt gushed on and on about the first grandchild and hardly mentioned the 2nd. It has nothing to do with you, the children, or anything else. It's simply because the grandparents have had an attacmehment with the older child for a a full 2 years more than the younger, they know the personality better, can relate better, and because they don't interact with the children on a regular basis they don't understand he has 'feelings' yet.
Plus, girls are WAY more fun to shop for. My oldest is a girl, by 2 years, and I still cannot get excited for shopping for yet another t-shirt for DS to this very day.
Now that DD and DS are 13 and 10, respectively, I'd venture to say that DS has become a favorite because of his loving personality. DD is STILL way more fun to shop for though!
J.,
What a tough situation! I would definitely let your husband deal with it. Don't say a single word about it. There is one thing for sure---if you say anything, they will resent you F.. So, let him talk to his parents and family about it and nip it in the bud. Have it come from his perspective and it will be much better received. Good luck!
I would not do anything yourself about this. It is your husband's place to tell his family that he hopes that they will not show favoritism to his daughter over his son. You should stay out of it.
I agree with the idea of taking off with your daughter when you visit them and leave your husband and son with them. As he gets older, they will get to know him better.
It will mean a lot more when the kids are older, but until then, don't "borrow trouble" by just assuming that they will keep on acting like this. It's too soon for that.
Good luck!
Dawn
This sounds just like how my in-laws treat my kids! I have a 6 year old daughter and a 4 year old son and when my son was about 22 months old, my friend made a comment to me during a visit by my MIL that "You can sure tell who her favorite is!". And she only spent a couple of hours with them for a play date!
The only thing I could figure was that my daughter was their first grandchild and they lived closer to us when she was born/little, so they spent more time with her than my son. Then, when my son came along, they "helped" with my daughter during visits so that I could take care of "the baby", so they just didn't hang out with him much. It doesn't excuse it and it is totally maddening, but it seems to be getting better now that my son is older. They just came for a visit recently and they seemed to truly make an effort to play with BOTH of them. My MIL is worse about it than my FIL and he was here on this last visit, so maybe that's why it was better (he would play with my son while my MIL played with my daughter). A lot of times, my MIL will come by herself and then it's really bad. I talk to my husband about it, but he hasn't "dealt with it", so I'm not sure how to tell you how to handle it. When I hear them playing and my son is trying to talk to my MIL and she is ignoring him, I usually prompt her by saying "A___ what are you trying to say to Grandma?", then she will snap out of it and start talking to him. It's heartbreaking to watch and my son IS getting to the age where he is starting to notice, but I still don't know what to do about it. My MIL struggles with severe depression, so it's hard to approach her rationally about anything because she can't hear anything constructively.
The tricks I have found that work short term are to intervene in conversation, like the example above. Or, I'll suggest that they play a game together or let Grandma read them a story so that they can all do those things together. If worse comes to worse, I'll just play with my son. I usually try to give them their time with Grandma when she's visiting, but if they are "shunning" my son, what's the point? I wish I had more advice. I guess this is more of a sympathy post. :-(
Good luck! If you find something that works, do share!
I would have hubby bring it up... It's HIS family, and he should be the one to address it.
Maybe it would be nice if the next time you visit, you and your DD ONLY have a little mother/daughter date, leaving hubby and son with his family... Give them a few hours where they don't have the chance to dote on on your daughter, and hubby can encourage them to bond a bit more with your son.
ETA... After reading Debra's post... I think she does have a bit of a point... Now that I think back, I was the first granddaughter born into my family. I was DEFINITELY shown quite a bit of favoritism, up until they day my older brother (First grandchild, period...) became a kiss-up and I renounced my grandma's religion... then the favoritism shifted to him and has stayed there to this day. lol.
My other grandmother shows quite a bit of favoritism to her first great grandchild... but hardly any to the rest. He was the only great for about 4 years, and they developed quite the bond before any more came along. She still shows him a lot of favoritism, even though she now has 8 greats... They just have that special bond.
MAYBE this will just be a thing that happens while your little boy is too young to notice, and when he's bigger and more vocal and active, they'll remember he's there. hopefully.
if not, i'd leave it up to your husband to address. but this sort of thing does have to be handled with tact and love. a light 'hey, i'll just set this bag of gifts aside for primrose until podrick has some to open too! can't have the princess getting above herself, ya know.'
in almost all cases this sort of gentle nudging will fix it. and it's best if it doesn't come from you.
just make very sure that your natural resentment of the favoritism isn't coming through to the kids. you don't want your son to pick up on it in the background and absorb it. cuz kids do that.
khairete
S.
Hubby needs to take this one. His parents, his deal. He's noticing the behavior, he knows what happened around your sons birth, and he loves you all. If he deals with it now and they can have an adult discussion, the resentment can stop now. Since he asked YOU if you noticed, then it's his desire to deal and not you pushing anything, so thats one less thing they can say you brought up.
I think your husband needs to bring it up with his parents.
Maybe sometime when the four of you are together your husband could bring it up. That it has been noticed that there is not balance between your children. And ask if there is a reason. That it is important to you that your children are treated equally. That you feel your son will so be old enough to notice that there are gifts for sister and not him. You don't want either of your children to ever feel negatively about something like that. It is your wish that they be treated equally or no gifts for either.
Maybe you could than say something like...I have thought alot about this in trying to figure out what could be wrong and the only thing you can think of is the birth of our son. Tell them that you want to explain how that time was for you and that how you dealt with the situation had nothing to do with them personally or anyone else. It was about you and how you needed to cope during that stressful time. If they say it has nothing to do with it say well maybe not but I wanted to clear the air on that issue anyway and did not want you to think that my needed seclusion had anything to do with anyone but myself and what I needed.
Maybe they are not conscious of what they are doing and might deny it but they might walk away and think about it all and change their ways.
I would find a way to nip that in the bud..so many ugly beliefs that your son could start to form as he starts to notice the favoritism.
Good Luck!
Ok. On my Dads side of the family, I was the favored child. As we grew older, we both knew it, and I didn't like it anymore than my brother did. Mom tried, but wasn't always successful. Apparently, for my brothers first Christmas (he was 11 months old and I was almost 2.5 yo), my grandparents showed up with a bag of presents for me, and one each for the rest of the family. Mom didnt even let her bring them all in the house. She told her to pick one for me and the rest had to go back. Suggest you rectify yours in a similar way ... But know that if you treat them equally, they will notice and may try to stop her on their own ... We did some, but it didn't really work. Best wishes.
I don't have an answer for you because we deal with this from both sides. My mom favors the grand-daughters over the grandsons (I have one girl and 2 boys and my sister has 1 girl). It's painfully obvious to everyone but her. I don't know if my dad denies it to avoid the fight, but he says he doesn't see it as badly as the rest of us do. The sad thing is my boys are 7 and 5 and starting to see this for what it is. It annoys me to no end, to the point where it is starting to have an effect on my relationship with my mom.
My MIL lives near 4 of her 7 grandkids, so she favors them greatly. She visited us 2.5 years ago in our home, and when we went to the book fair at school, she bought books for the 2 grand kids at home and refused to buy mine any. I also bought books for the nephews and one cousin back in Mississippi. My husband would never admit this and we don't see her often enough for me to have a big problem with it.
We live 10 minutes from my parents, so I do have a big problem with them. Plus that's how it was growing up...and I hate that it's happening to my kids. I know my mom loves them all, but she can't connect with the boys at all and it drives me batty.
