Favoritism from Grandmothers

I would try one more time to discuss this with grandmas and try to make them see. If that didn't work, the next time one of your girls ask you why grandma likes sis more than her, tell her you don't know the answer to that question and tell her to ask grandma! She may get her feelings hurt by the answer...but her feelings are getting hurt over and over anyway, and her blunt question may just be the "slap in the face" that grandma(s) need to actually see what she(they) are doing!

You can rest assured that you had not lied to her and told her that what she is feeling is not true and you put the responsibility in the hands of the person(s) to which it belongs.

Sp sorry to hear what you're going through. Know that you are doing a good job of handling it. There are some additional things you can do. Since you and your husband are in agreement on this and you are the parents, you can set boundaries around what your mothers are allowed to do. Regarding presents, set a price limit or item limit for presents and if they exceed it for one child return the item or don't allow them to give the child the extra item. If they continue to do this, don't allow any presents from them for either child. You be the one to cut the cake. Provide your mothers with information (articles, etc.) that show the damage that can be done by talking about weight in an unhealthy way. Having different body types or abilities is natural between siblings. Are your mothers exactly like their siblings? Are their children all the same? You're doing a good job praising your daughters for their accomplishements. It's okay to let them know it's okay to be different. Nobody is in control of the body type or facial features they were given. What counts is what they do with them. The old adage, beauty is as beauty does, is very true. It sounds like you are raising them to be good people which is the most important of all. But remember, you and your husband are in charge of how often your mothers see the girls. You need to establish rules of behavior for them as much as you do for your girls. Be strong but you can do it. Good luck.

No matter how good of aa parent you are, how many children you have, or how good of a grandparent you will become, there will simply ALWAYS be some children (and adults) who are easier to 'like' than others. This has very little to do with love.

We've raised 4 children, and there's one (or two)that I've always found easiest to 'like'. Anyway, that kid (now an adult) is in some kind of transition, and I'm finding myself quite perturbed with him. We all go through stages.

Try to avidly encourage the each daughter when she DOES something admirable. (Kids should never be given most of their accolades about things they have no control over such as looks, build, or personality traits). Compliment her character and how she treats others and for her efforts. You are your girls' best cheerleader.

When the Bible said 'train up a child in the way (s)he should go', it means 'according to his/her natural 'bent' (or natural strengths). I'm a firm believer that each child NEEDS to be parented differently as we ALL have different temperaments and sensitivities. Try to find what works with each daughter and go with it.

I also agree that you have every right to monitor the gifts that come into your house and how much time is spent with your kids, and to lay down (AND ENFORCE) rules for such things.

This may sound scatterbrained, but I hope it has some bearing in helping you find 'middle ground' at least for yourself with the girls.

Tell them to stop treating your older child unfairly or you will keep both children away from them. Especially the comments about her size need to be stopped before your daughter becomes self-conscious or upset. Ask them if it isn't enough that children get scrutinized by strangers and shouldn't they be able to depend on the people they love for unconditional love and affection. Good luck to you!

We were fortunate in that my girls had 3 grandmothers. One favored one. One favored the other. The 3rd treated them both equally.

Unfortunately, only one lived near us and was intimately involved... with the older one, completely snubbing the younger. The older one was oblivious until she hit about 12 years old, then felt horrible about it because she loved her sister so much. The grandmother had no idea she was hurting her beloved by snubbing the other!

Anyway, we were honest about it, and told the older it was OK... it was craziness. These things happen, and all of us loved the younger very very much. We did NOT try to compensate for the mountain of gifts under the Christmas tree to the older daughter and not for the younger. They grew up knowing this was just the way it was.

And.. neither of them is scarred by it as adults, but in our case, it was actually harder on the favored granddaughter than on the snubbed one, because they are both so sweet!

Hi S., I can relate about the favoritism. It runs in my family since my grandmother (and probably before her). This is from one not so favorite grandaughter. My grandmother used to say to our faces who her favorite grandkids were. Not knowing that it really hurt, everyone made it a joke. I ended up telling her that she really didn't know who her favorites where.
Then with my mom, I know she has her favorite kids, and I know also that my daughters are not her favorite ones. By whatever means you measure it, she lives far and weeks can go by without her asking about them even. It's not the same way with my nieces.
How do I tell that to my kids? I don't. At least not yet, they are 6 and 4. The 6 year old loves her to death and I just tell her that her grandmother works a lot. (she is still working, so I'm not lying, I just don't give her a lot of information)
So I know the situation is different, because you have favoritism within your home (made by the grandmothers). I would probably give a talk to my daughters reasuring them on how special they are no matter who tells them what. And that includes grandmas. We have told our daughters about "inmediate family" and extended one. Our inmediate family is what counts. The good things about our extended family also counts, but they are not as important. And I truly believe they are not, we see each other day in, day out. This is what's real.
And if the grandmas make it too obvious even with presents, I would probably ask them not to give any present but instead, memberships for the family to enjoy. Or one each to age appropriate magazines or stuff like that.
One cannot deny chemistry among exgtended family members, but hurting one because favoring another goes beyond that. It should be equal just as you are stressing onto your children. Everyone is speciall on their own way.
So all the power to you, for noticing, not encouraging and not ignoring.
Good luck!
M.

S.,

It is always painful when a child is "rejected" by others, but there is an even bigger sense of betrayal when it is coming from family. In all honesty, your mother and mother-in-law may be oblivious to the fact that they are treating the granddaughters differently. We often don't see the small changes, especially within ourselves, and it seems from your description that their treatment of your daughters has slowly changed over the years.

I don't know what your own mother-daughter relationship is with your mother, so confronting her with your observations may be difficult. You will need to get your husband involved and supporting you when you address your mother-in-law. Try talking with both grandparents (involve your father and father-in-law if possible) avoiding the word "you" in your statements. Use as many "I" or "me" statements which turn observations and concerns back on you rather than using "You" statements which may put the grandmothers on the defensive.

Tell them essentially what you have stated in your email to Mamasource. Describe how you see each of your daughters outlining their individual strenghts and acknowledging their differences. You can even acknowledge that you understand how the older granddaughter's sense of fairness, sense of justice, strong self-esteem can, in a child, be viewed as "difficult," but are valued assets in an adult's personality. Let them know that she is young and her body build and weight are perfectly normal for her age and you are comfortable that her pediatrician will continue to monitor her health, growth and development. Thank them for their concern, but stress that negative words like "fat" will only cause damage to your daughters self-esteem and self-image. Remind them that by home schooling you are trying hard to use the home environment as a means of building up each child's self-esteem and character. Let the grandmothers know that you value their influence in your children's lives and that you would like to share ways they can continue to be a postive influence on their granddaughter's growing self-esteem, especially as they begin to enter the teen years.

You can even suggest some books for them to read on how to help young girls maintain postive self-esteems and positive body images in today's world where the media is constantly bombarding us with false models of female beauty.

You may need to set limits on gift giving. If it becomes a big concern, you can give them a dollar amount that they are allowed to spend on birthday and other gift-giving holidays. Stressing that the same abount must be spent on each child. Another option, is to send a list of pre-approved gift suggestions for the grandparents to buy for birthday and other occations. This way, you will have control over what gifts are bought. You can always double check with the grandparents when they arrive to see what additional gifts have been brought. You may have to confiscate some gifts if they insist on bringing extrasfor the younger child. The grandparents will get the idea pretty quickly if you stick to your point on this. You can always stash away extra gifts and give them out to both girls as special surprises or rewards at other times in the year.

I pray you work this out for you all!

K.
(homeschooling mom to 3 boys)
http://www.creativetutors.com/northcarolina/blog1.php

This is a tough one. Sometimes I don't think that grandmothers even realize that they are giving more attention to one child than the other. We have also been dealing with this issue with one of our grandparents who lives just around the corner. A couple of months ago when they wanted to have their favorite over I told them that they couldn't because the other one was never welcome and that it was causing hurt feelings. They agreed that our other child could spend some time with them. It is heartbreaking! Both of my grandmothers had favorites as well. One of them was better at trying to be fair to all of her grandchildren. I was not a favorite when I was little, but as I got older I sort of got angry with my cousins who were favorites because they took advantage of my grandparents. However, one of my cousins who was a favorite took things too far and lost favoritism. She became a single mom as a teenager more than once and that did not go over so well with the grandparents. Your girls are fortunate that you and your husband try to treat them as individuals and that will go a long way. Sometimes life is even hard on favorites. My parents had favorites between me and my siblings. I was always closer to my Dad and my sisters were always closer to my Mom. My parents have always tried to include all of us, but their relationship is different with each of us. If I want to know what is up with Mom - I'm more likely to find out from my sister and my sister usually has to ask me what is up with Dad. I talk to my Mom - but it is not usually deep conversation.

S.,

My mom favors my youngest while my mother-in-law favors my oldest. My youngest can do no wrong in my mother's eyes. She went and bought him a 4 wheeler just because she thought he needed one. Well, she thought about my son and bought him 2 transformers. There was no comparison to the equality in the purchases. My oldest was a little upset but he got over it. My mother-in-law takes my oldest everywhere, buys him everything, does "special" things with him, lets him stay the night but not my youngest. She won't allow it. My oldest has stayed the night with her since he was a baby so age shouldn't be the factor. My youngest doesn't really say anything about it right now but the day's coming where he questions it. To rectify everything I basically told the grandmothers that they had to treat the 2 equally. My mom tries to now to be equal. It's hard sometimes because they are 2 very different little personalities with different likes. My mil will not change even though she's been talked to. So, we don't let our oldest stay unless grandma agrees to let our youngest stay next time. It's hard because you don't want either of them to get hurt.

From what I've read your oldest is 9 years old so she can definitely grow out of her chunky body structure but I would make dang sure no one made a comment about her weight at all. Those kinds of comments can ruin her self esteem and make her self conscious about the wrong things and even lead to serious problems like anorexia and bulemia.

My advice overall is to talk with both grandparents and tell them how you feel. They may not realize they are showing favortism. I would address it everytime it occurs in a very subtule way that isn't offensive. When someone says something positive about your youngest counter it with another positive about your oldest. They will get the point. Good luck!

well i have to say i just read my daughters story through yours.... only my older daughter is the skinny one. my husbands father does the same thing. buy more gifts for the baby and always oohhs and ahhs all over her. the thing is hes not the only one to do it people in public ALWAYS talk about my youngest daughter and never my older... and it makes me batty! my youngest daughter is sooo easy going... blond hair blue eyes and a little chubbers..(adorable on smaller kids) and her older sister is adhd brown hair and skinny minny. so when it came to my husbands dad i told him if he doesnt do something about equal gifts we will not be going to christmas. also i have stoped inviting him to birthday parties because he would always come to the younger ones and not my older daughters. Any way im rambling now the point is this you talk to your mom and your husband should talk to his. it will be hard but you have to be honest or things wont change!

Very sad. Luckily they live away from you. Therefore write tham a letter and tell them what you have said to us. Also request that they begin sending a money gift to the girls on Bday and christmas instead of a gift, make sure to tell them it must always be equal. I'm a gma too, and certain kids have dif personalities. You can't help liking one person over another, however, rhe comments are very uncalled for, be sure to mention that to them too. Sometimes kids who are not the coolest kids turn out to be wonderful adults. She sounds like a typical first child to me, I was one of those.

We're dealing with that as well. My MIL favors my oldest and always has. It's become more evident in the last year when my youngest was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She won't learn how to care for him at all.

My oldest (almost 9) goes to her house about once a week and she takes him shopping for things I won't buy him. He's on the heavy side (not fat, just solid) and she agrees that we need to watch what he eats when talking to me but then she gets him doughnuts, McFlurries, adult sized entrees and only God knows what else.

My youngest (6) only sees her when we take him to her house. She says she wants to see him more but rarely comes to our house. She actually passes our house on her way to the hair salon every Thurs. It really upsets him that his brother gets to go visit her and he doesn't.

I'm just thankful that my mother takes up the slack with the youngest. She met with the drs. from the beg. and said this will not keep me from spending time with my grandson. She very accomodating and gets him so they each get to go somewhere.

I wish I had some advice but everything we've tried has fallen on deaf ears. I'll be reading your responses. Good Luck.

Hi S.,

I know it's very hard to deal with things like this. The Better gifts things need to get nipped in the bud. You might need to take the Grandmothers to a therapy class or go into therapy yourself to get some real help on how to deal with them ( it will help). I had to get therapy to help me deal with my older son and it really helped. It sounds like you're not and have been firm with the Grandmothers from the beginning of this situation. Get control after letting them slide for all this time is going to take consistency, but you can do it. Stay firm and inspect all gifts, and interactions from them. Let them know that what they are doing to your older one is not going to make her loose weight or help her in any way. just the opposite. They are doing more damage than they will ever know.

Hi S..
I completely understand where you are coming from. My youngest daughter is petite and very cute and charming to say the least. Very outgoing. She was born with multiple heart defects, bladder and kidney defects as well. My oldest is like yours, very sensitive, 5ft and weighs 123 and is slightly taller and bigger than everyone else. My in-laws are wonderful, loving people BUT have always, from day one, favored Elaina (my youngest) for multiple reasons I suppose, but mostly because she has been so sick for so long. But I see the hurt in my oldest, I see how all this has affected her. She is so compassionate and loving, but takes all this to heart. My hubby has talked and talked to them til he is blue in the face, his mom is much better, but his dad is not. I know it hurts you to the core to see them do this and how it affects your oldest daughter. I am praying that they will stop this and understand they both are wonderful in God's eyes and special in their own way.
Bless you.
W. from Sellersburg

It is sad for your older daughter, but this is likely going to continue throughout their lives, and not just from their grandmothers, but at school and everywhere else. It's just a fact of life that cheerful, bubbly, attractive, slender girls/women get more attention and accolades than "chunky", argumentative ones, who are often bitter and resentful because of a lifetime of the different treatment.

I certainly got more attention from my grandparents than my older sister, simply because she was shy and was like talking to or hugging a wall, and didn't seem to have much personality, whereas I was always full of hugs and chatter.

Life isn't fair, and it really isn't fair for parents to try to raise their children to think that it is, because it isn't. It sets them up for a whole lot of disappointment and anger in life. It's a good idea to teach simply that life isn't always fair, but it is what we make of it. We can choose to be bitter about it, and dwell on it, and make everyone around us (the grandmothers) miserable, or choose to make the most of life and be happy. They probably don't realize they are doing it, as they deny it. And, being overweight as a child is a legitimate concern, even if it seems due to genetics (genetic sweet tooth, even). Diabetes is no picnic, and her grandparents don't want her to deal with it. Also, younger children are cuter; there's no denying that. When there's a baby and a toddler, the baby gets more attention; when there's a toddler and a preschooler, the toddler gets more attention, and so on. I'm sure some of it is just that.

I have relatives who think that they haven't gotten as much attention or gifts or whatever as other members of the family, and it's a real pity. They dwell on it and pass it on to the next bitter generation. After a while, that's all they have to talk about, how they've gotten the shaft. Frankly, who would want to spend much time with that poor, wo-is-me attitude. I think you'll be doing your older daughter a real disservice to raise her up to be comparing herself to her sister, because no matter what, she'll never feel like she measures up. Don't do that to her. Teach her instead to blow it off, and again, that life isn't fair, oh well!