grandparent favoritism

I come from a family where it is very obvious who are the favorite grandchildren AND children. Both sets of my grandparents did not hide who were favorites and my parents did not do a good job of hiding their favorites. My parents are even worse with my two sons.

I think it is good to let kids work things out on their own sometimes. But I don't think it is ever good to encourage kids to hit it out and have a "boys will be boys" attitude with confrontation. My brothers were extremely physically violent towards each other and towards me. My parents encouraged it. They also encourage it with my sons which is COMPLETELY unacceptable to me. However, my parents have no respect for my rules for my kids and whenever we discuss this, it turns into drama and I am the bad guy.

My parents respect my husband more than me so he has talked to them a few times, but they haven't changed. I have limited my contact with my parents, but cannot cut them out completely because we need depend on them for child care once a week. We have disallowed them to come over early, though. For example, if I start my night shift at 10 pm, I do not allow my mother to come earlier than 8pm. This makes her angry, but she does not connect (or possibly does not want to connect) the conversations we have had about how my husband and I want to handle our kids behavior and playing favorites with them when we aren't there, even though we have explicitly explained why we want things this way.

But things are very tense with them and it is pretty unpleasant. They have no issue with having a favorite, praising him more than the other grandson in front of the other grandson, and then allowing conflict to go to extreme levels.

I hope that you and your husband can work something out with your family that will help. I have found in my case though, that because my parents don't want to change and see nothing wrong with their behavior, they will most likely never change no matter how much I beg. I hope your family is more reasonable. :(

I don't know how to fix it, my mil is for gd reason, she has all boys, one son gave her more boys(me) and then one of her other sons gave her all girls, so she got her desired gender in her granddaughters and its very obvious to the entire family who she spends most her time with, who she buys the most for, and which one she always says yes too and no to my boys all the time, the oldest is old enough to see, he was upset at first but now its like its always been that way since birth for him so sadly to say he is used to it, and then the other grandparents favor one cousin and does everything with and nothing with my boys, I think that's the one that really hurts my boys and they still aren't over it, but talking to both doesn't seem to help at all, it just hurts their feelings and they get mad because they don't see they are favortism anybody

Here's my take on grandparents in general: they come from a different time that we do. Growing up when they did, no one cared about how you would psychologically affect your children. That generation, and likely the ones before it, were callous parents. They grew up during depression and war, and their objective was to feed their kids, not nourish their souls. Now, I think OUR parents (the baby boomers, more or less), who were the kids of said callous generation, changed a good bit in their parental temperments, but OUR generation definitely has. I, personally, think this has had both positive and negative effects on society. Negative being the laid back pandering parents who don't push their kids at all and they end up being 35 and living at home playing video games still. The positive, of course, being that our children are protected from a lot of unnecessary injustices and also are overall more intelligent people as they have "emotional" skills thanks to us.

All this to say, I think a lot of g'parents dont' find anything wrong with playing favorites, wheres we, of course, would never dream of doing such a thing to any child, let alone our child.

My advice is to be vocal about it and say what you mean to say to them. I would never want to start a family war if I had to deal with this, but I would certainly (at some point) say something along the lines of "You know what, I don't really like the way you treat my son compared to his cousin. I don't think it's good for his development and psyche, and I now need to decide how much time I want him spending around you because of this. I'm sorry, but it's my job to raise and protect my child, and this is something I can't ignore any more." I don't know if that helps you, Lindi, and maybe you've said you peace already to no avail.....I just have to call a spade a spade when I'm dealing with people and it involves my children. Family is supposed to be the ones to nourish and lift each other up, and when people can't get their shit together and treat their family right, you have every right to say something both diplomatic and to the point.

Sorry for the long tirade, obviously I have some crazy g'parents also, but just my opinion about dealing with them. I know old people are hard to talk to about certain things, but maybe just say what you gotta say and see what happens. I have found in life as I get older that if I lay down the law about how people are to treat me or my kids, it usually happens...and not because I am some force to be reckoned with or anything, but because I simply said it.

It is definitely a good tirade. There is a balance between how some of us were raised and the over-doting parenting method, I think.

LolaInLove, I like your speech to the grandparents. It is very precise, but not rude.

No advice, just hugs. It is really, really hard to see your precious little one not being treated the way they should, especially by those who are meant to love and cherish them.

Thanks ladies... I have thought so many times of just coming out and SAYING things similar to what you suggest, Lola. DH already had pretty much, in a softer way, and he was met with complete denial. His mother just denies things. I often thought if I spoke up too, they might take it seriously, esp. since their other daughter did too...but I'm not sure I want to cut them off or anything and before creating more tension (I am not good at confrontations) I better think what is really going to come of it, and I am pretty sure the answer is nothing.
DH caught grandpa telling DS he could not play with a toy at their house because it was cousin's. It wasn't, it was something grandpa bought to keep at his house, and nothing that could have gotten broken, and cousin was not there so it was total BS. Ugh. When DH stepped in and said "no, you can play with it", then grandpa felt stupid I guess and let him play with it. But seriously, it's so dumb!

I hear you Lindi....I am not great at confrontation either, but I will do it if prompted by a situation that has gone on too long. I think maybe the best thing you guys can do is just what your DH did regarding the toy....stand by and stick up for him when needed. Hopefully grandparents will learn that you won't take that kind of crap regarding your son, and your son will learn that you are sticking up for him. All good things hopefully!

lindi, I do totally understand the dynamics (my older son was 3 1/2 years older than my second son.) In my (limited) experience, getting knocked down now and then (literally and figuratively) doesn't do any lasting damage and may even be of some benefit.

Just take what I said and put it in your back pocket and think about it and if it's full of crap, ignore it. :)

Maybe you should keep your kids away for awhile or if you are really tired of your kids being treated the way they are... teach your oldest to ask grandma "why she loves ____ more then him, did he do something wrong". My cousin has 2 girls and treats the oldest like she isn't hers, so I told her what to say to her mom... in the last 6mths their relationship has improved a lot. Mean but it worked.

No matter what you do your kids will only be upset with grandma and the cousin. Your son will always know who loves him and that is what will make him the best man when he grows up.

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Originally Posted by lindi

Thanks ladies... I have thought so many times of just coming out and SAYING things similar to what you suggest, Lola. DH already had pretty much, in a softer way, and he was met with complete denial. His mother just denies things. I often thought if I spoke up too, they might take it seriously, esp. since their other daughter did too...but I'm not sure I want to cut them off or anything and before creating more tension (I am not good at confrontations) I better think what is really going to come of it, and I am pretty sure the answer is nothing.
DH caught grandpa telling DS he could not play with a toy at their house because it was cousin's. It wasn't, it was something grandpa bought to keep at his house, and nothing that could have gotten broken, and cousin was not there so it was total BS. Ugh. When DH stepped in and said "no, you can play with it", then grandpa felt stupid I guess and let him play with it. But seriously, it's so dumb!

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It is dumb, of course it's dumb. The whole thing is dumb. But it IS Grandpa's toy, right??? I mean, Grandpa bought the toy and so doesn't he really get to decide who plays with it and who doesn't, even if his criteria is totally flawed?? I just think it sends a message that in the long term, you ~might~ not want to be sending to a child, that whenever someone who is in a position of authority, says your son can't do something, that dad is going to step in and "undo" that because the rules don't apply to him. Does that make any kind of sense?? Teachers, bosses, even the police "inflict" rules that are at times unfair and arbitrary and are based on nothing other than stupidity and yet we all have to follow the rules, even when we don't like them.

ALL of us came from families with all level of weirdness going on and politics and playing favorites and we all got our bumps and bruises from it, KWIM?? It just seems like there is a way to express the idea that yeah, what happened there wasn't fair and that sucked but we completely trust that you are talented enough to handle that situation and sometimes things just go that way and you gotta roll with the punches, as opposed to instilling an expectation that a child needs Mom and Dad to fight battles for him, because he never learns either the ability to fight battles for himself OR the ability to deal with it when a battle simply shouldn't be pursued. And in a lot of cases, the exceptional kids are the ones who need that lesson the most.

I'm sorry if I come off wrong here, I am just trying to save some other people some woe that I've had to go through the HARD way!! :/