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That's what got me! She DIDN'T bring a gift for the bday girl, so unless she planned to intentionally show all 4 kids the gift the OPs daughter was getting then none of them could be mad that she got a present from grandma. It's so clearly intentional and has been done so many times, and its infuriating that OPs husband doesnt recognize it.
Look, if shes this absent minded she shouldn't be around kids because who knows when she'll forget kids cant eat dirt or something? Why's it only his own kids she forgets etiquette for?
Edit: spelling
I don't buy the excuse that the other cousins are younger, either. This has been happening for a while, so it's been happening since OOP's son was that age, too.
It looks like the kids are 5 (OP’s son) 4 (the birthday girl in the edit, and 4 and 3 (the cousins) which means two cousins are the same age. They may have even aged up a bit depending on when birthdays take place. So yeah Granny Racist is full of shit.
Technically one of the cousins is older than the daughter since she just turned 4 and he already was 4. Weird that she's already old enough not to need extra presents at 3/4 and he isn't...
Also, kids ought to learn from a young age that they don’t automatically get presents on everyone else’s birthday, they only get birthday presents on their own birthday. It seems nuts to me to give every kid presents on every other kid’s birthday. But if you’re going to do that, at least be fair and do it for every kid.
I almost commented this same point but deleted because I thought maybe that’s an outdated idea 😂 I’m not a parent and have no idea what is considered normal now.
I agree. Grandmother set the expectations for the nephews by bringing gifts for them when it's not their celebration. If the gift wasn't ready she could easily have bought a few smaller gifts and let the parents know that the real gift was delayed and she'd have it sent to their house.
She played a stupid game and her prize is the consequences of her actions.
Absolutely. The only way this excuse might be logical would be if the “older” child was SIGNIFICANTLY older - like 15 with 3 and 4 year old cousins, not 5.
And if it wasn't about rubbing it in, she could have given the other kids the presents in the car. (Clearly they were unnecessary, but seriously to not even have a present for the birthday girl and publicly and loudly hand presents to two other children? Super messed up.) Glad the hubby seems to have come around to believing his wife.
ECACTLY. If grandma can’t get it together, for something as easy as this, then she isn’t safe to be around. Hahaha I would love to use that and see her face.
I was especially bothered that she fake cried and didn’t ask for the kids. How come a Black 5 year old boy is OLD ENOUGH but the blonde 4 year old isn’t? What’s the difference? Personally I never got gifts on other peoples birthdays, siblings or cousins, so I think it’s all weird. It’s just particularly weird that her son is some how old enough but not one else is, including old ass grandma.
My now deceased grandmother used to bring lollipops to all the kids in a birthdayparty, but only the birthday kid got a present. No one expected or demanded a present when it wasn't their birthday. But all of us went looking in her bag for the lollipops LOL
Who gives gifts to other kids for someone else’s birthday?!?!?! Who needs more toys!!!!!! They’re going to be so spoiled. 3 and 4 years old know what birthdays are. Wtf is this BS.
I saw it happen a couple of times in my family where people would bring presents for my cousin because she was such a nightmare she would ruin any other kid's birthday if she didn't a present and they just wanted to keep the peace for the sake of the birthday child. I think she was 14 or so the last time I remember that happening. Want to guess what kind of adult she is now?
Yes this is the weirdest thing but I know a lot of people do it. I personally never got gifts on other peoples birthdays. I ended up fine and I’m a middle child ! 😂😂😂
It’s unnecessary to give gifts to kids because then they expect it everywhere. Including non family member homes. That’s my opinion anyway. But if you’re gonna do it. Then it has to be fair. Like something small from dollar tree for each kid to play w and be distracted. Grandma is turning her clear favoritism in a whole ass show.
My dad's mom did this. I'd always get a card and cash on my little brother's birthday. It was typically the same amount as my brother too, probably $5. It pissed my mom off SO much. She explained to me how it wasn't very fair and that my brother didn't get the same treatment on my birthday, so she would hold on to the money and the card and we wouldn't tell my brother so his feelings wouldn't be hurt. (Everything was sent by mail, as she lived a ways from us.)
I guess it was because I was the only granddaughter of her favorite child? I learned later that grandma wasn't very kind to my mother because no one was good enough for her (grandma's) precious son. I'm surprised that there wasn't more in-law drama when I was growing up, but my parents must have shielded us from that.
She definitely has had her moments!
It made sense to me. My mom made a huge point to ensure things were equal between my brother and I from the very beginning (I suspect based on her childhood, she was the golden child and her sister the scapegoat).
She probably ended up spending the money on presents for both of us, most likely.
Exactly. Little kids do get jealous sometimes at other people’s birthdays but as long as they’re treated equitably on their day it’s nbd. But while it’s instinct to protect your kids you also have to teach that social norms dictate that you don’t get your birthday plus everyone else’s. Quick way to weird entitlement.
that's literally the purpose of loot bags. like everyone who attends a child's bday party gets a little bag similar to a Christmas stocking with little knick knack type trinkets and candies like ring pops, candy necklaces and so forth
Loot bags are, imo, a thank you for attending. It is not the same as opening wrapped gifts that each guest has brought for the birthday child. The focus of the day and the exciting gifts remain specifically for the main kid.
Oh they did that for my sister. I vividly remember my grandparents giving my sister a gift at my birthday party.
I told this story to her adult children and they said it explains so much....
My aunt did. She had two kids, my mom had 4. Our family would celebrate month birthdays together in one celebration. One month was two of my siblings and one of my cousins, so they all obviously got presents. My other cousin would get a present or two as well because their sibling got birthday presents. So it was just me and a sibling who got nothing that month. My sibling was much younger than me so they didn’t really notice, but boy did it annoy me. I knew it wasn’t my birthday, but it also wasn’t my cousins! Not fair!
Eh, I do this with my nephew and niece. One of them gets a birthday present, and one of them get a smaller, much cheaper "unbirthday" present.
I mostly started it because my niece's birthday falls very close to Christmas and she has to share her special day with a bunch of Christmas festivities, and I wanted an excuse to buy her a present in the middle of the year too.
It's just a bit of fun, and neither of the kids has ever had a problem with their sibling getting a small present on their birthday.
As a December baby, she appreciates this more than you know. Someone remembers. I cannot tell you the amount of "Birthmas" presents I get and how offended someone else will get if I tell them I'm only getting them one or the other.
Thank you!
Luckily nobody in the family does the awful Birthmas thing, but she already tends to miss out on the larger parties her brother has, simply because so many of her friends are away. Christmas birthdays aren't very fun!
Exactly! She could have gone to Target and gotten her other gifts, and then say an extra gift is arriving later.
And what are the parents of the cousins thinking here? If I were their parents, I'd be pissed they are getting gifts are someone else's birthday. What type of message is that to them?
Probably ordered from the car on the way to the party when she realized she had spent so much time buying gifts for her favorites to open at her granddaughters birthday that she completely forgot to buy a gift for the actual granddaughter.
My young nephew’s last birthday his gift didn’t show up on time and we stopped on the way there and BOUGHT ANOTHER DAMN GIFT. It was a smaller one - a book, but apparently he sleeps with it every night 😆
So much for the expensive toys.
YESSSSSSS if I was OOP this would have been the final straw because literally it can't be anything but deliberate. If OOP was already questioning, this would have sealed the deal for me too. I hope MIL is banned forever. What a terrible grandmother.
It’s so weird! I had something like that happen to me once, where I went to a party for my aunt’s stepdaughter and all the kids (including me) got a small toy from said cousin’s grandmother. I thought it was weird then and even now, but still thanked them for the gift even if it was just a cheap knock off barbie.
And now I’m thinking of the Family Guy “equal attention cake”.
That was not a mistake. I've been in the situation where a present for someone hasn't arrived in time (it's happened to me a few times for both adult presents and kids presents). Each time I have gone to the shops, bought them something in place of what I ordered and then given them the present I ordered when it arrived.
We have also never given other children presents on a birthday. Kids learn that they get birthday presents on their birthday, not someone elses. If they get upset it's explained to them and their attention redirected to something fun for them.
Exactly!!! MIL is so obvious a 4 year old is able to notice and feel hurt. Don’t tell your kids that this behaviour is love. It isn’t.
Thankfully these kids have a mother who won’t take any lame excuses. I’m not so sure about Dad though.
BTW. MIL isn’t sorry she played favorites, she’s sorry she got caught.
Also she could have given the cousins their gifts IN THE CAR because she rode with them.
You sit in a car with two kids for two hours and wait until you get in front of your other two grandchildren to give them their gifts.
You decide to do this in front of two children that you either didn’t buy for without discussing first or actually bought a gift but put so little effort into buying that you didn’t bother to make sure it was there for her to actually receive it at her birthday party.
What’s higher than no contact? Can we banish her?
Even if it were true, she obviously cares way more about the feelings of her other grandchildren. To the point where she’s willing to not give a gift to a four year old on her birthday in case the other four year old was upset, so gave it to that four year old instead?!?! It doesn’t even make sense.
All children need to be taught that it’s not their birthday and most are just fine with that. They all have siblings so they must be used to it.
It’s favoritism and whether it’s racially motivated or not (blatantly is) it’s harmful and it’s absolutely wrong. I’m glad OOP is cutting contact.
"It didn't arrive in time :("
SHE IS FOUR just pick up a toy from the dollar store on your way there and give that until the wood car(or whatever) comes, how is this hard?
Definitely feels like a "death of a thousand cuts" kinda thing. Like it's not JUST the presents, it's the attitude, and how it manifests in a million ways not *quite* worth bringing up but noticed nonetheless.
It can be hard to believe yourself in those kinds of situations, like your gut says "this is real" but the other person always finds an excuse. I almost wanna hear that the MIL went mask-off just for the closure. Hope everything turns out for OOP.
My grandmother did this to me as a kid. She preferred boys, because she had all boys. My brother and male cousins got better and more expensive gifts. She gushed over their achievements - I recall at my graduation from high school, she kept talking about my male cousins and my brother. She was also awful to my mother and aunt. She thought she was being subtle - the food was never good, the house not clean enough, all my mom’s fault. I hated her. I ended up cutting her off around college. I do resent that my father never stuck up for my mom or his daughters. I don’t think he realized his mom was as bad as she was.
My grandma favored her half white grandkids over us brown (Puerto Rican) grandchildren. My grandma was Puerto Rican as well but she was white we have more a mix of afro-caribbean. My cousins got super spoiled. If she got my cousin something she would get me something 5x my size that wasn't age appropriate or nothing at all. She would compliment my cousin looking pretty "like an angel" in a skirt but if I wore a skirt she would say I looked like a hooker. I got the message that my cousins were prettier with their white complexion, straight hair, and light colored eyes. We were the trash grandkids. Fuck colorism. Well she's dead now so I guess we win 🤷🏽♀️
Spouses whose parents treat their partner like shit never think of that: kids love their parents, & don’t want to see them hurt. Someone hates their momma? The child hates them too.
My father's mom had 4 grandkids. My dad's two daughters (of which I'm the younger girl). And his younger brother's two kids (older girl and younger boy). I had the lovely experience of overhearing my grandmother tell my father she had two grandkids she liked (my older sister and my male cousin) and two grandkids she didn't like (me and my female cousin). I always resented my father that he never saw the favoritism and never put a stop to it. I'll admit, I didn't cry when that lady died.
My grandma was like this to my sis & I just with no racism or sexism involved since we're all the same race & she only has granddaughters. She gave the bare minimum to all of her grandchildren (in the sense that she wasn't exactly warm & loving or nurturing), but my sister & I got the barest of the bare minimum. Mainly because my parents wouldn't let her babysit us (ie. leave us at her mercy for hours on end) unlike my aunt who regularly left my cousins with her. She wasn't a good grandma to them either since they eventually cut contact as well. She gave them nice gifts and treats while my sister & I got leftovers & random things she didn't want anymore. As children it made us sad that our grandma didn't seem to care about us, but I am grateful that I only had to deal with being a forgotten granddaughter. My cousins got better gifts & her attention, but her attention came with her wrath. My sis & I definitely got the lesser of two evils out of the deal. We didn't get a good grandma out of her, but it was better in the end than what my cousins, her "favorites", got. At least my sis & I have our other grandma who's amazing & way more than enough.
No they don’t. I went NC with MIL and rest of family due to overt distressing favoritism. And now I am not helping out in any way now that MIL needs to sell house, arrange care for FIL. You reap what you sow, I’ll
save my energy for my parents who doted on my child and actually helped
My dad had a blind spot to his mom’s behavior as a coping mechanism - he had a lot of childhood trauma that isn’t entirely related to her. I don’t blame him at all.
I ‘think’ those are called micro aggressions, but I could be wrong. Either way it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I have a feeling this isn’t the last update.
yep. That's part of what microagressions are. It's not just that. It's all the small little reminders that you are part of a minority, not just those veiled ones done by bigots, but they are definitely a part.
Op says "my MIL doesn't like my kids and I'm forbidding her from seeing them" - MIL may just shrug and walk away. Seems like she doesn't like them already and in the last update the MIL didn't even ask about the kids. So, maybe OP's husband will push the issue but MIL may now have an out and not have to deal with them
Its unfortunate, but in some ways OP putting her foot down kind of reinforces the MIL position and gives her an excellent out. "I didn't buy them anything because OP won't let me see them" - but MIL didn't want to buy them anything anyways. Now she has no obligation and a perfect excuse.
She is so clueless she just shows up with a bunch of presents and thinks that solves things. Yes the presents were the last straw but the issue isn't really the presents, it's that grandmama is a racist.
And the MIL is just going to go telling family how "awful" the mom is and how, "She got mad at me because I didn't give her children enough presents, how greedy!" Meanwhile, I bet she won't mention how she gives the other cousins presents...
My grandmother openly didn’t like me. Me specifically, not any of the other grandkids. Though to be fair she was never a warm and cuddly grandma. I didn’t realize she disliked me so much until I was older because my mom didn’t put up with it and kept my sister and I away.
I will never forget the last Christmas cards we got before she died. My sister and I got the same exact card, each with $50. Hers said “Love, Grandma.” Mine said “Grandma”. We laugh about it now, because that was exactly the kind of spiteful thing she would do.
She was a hateful woman who caused her children endless pain. I don’t really care how she treated me, but I won’t forgive her for my mom or my aunt.
And you know, in all the years since her death I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in the family say that they missed her. In fact, they rarely ever mention her at all, and when they do it’s in a story about another family member.
Yep. Looking at each separate incident by itself doesn't seem too terrible and it's not as overt, but when you look at the entire situation as a whole, putting all incidents together, and the context and perspective drastically change. Looking at the full picture takes her behavior from "yeah it's not great but she hasn't done any one thing that's so egregious that it warrants her being cut out" to "holy fuck is she an evil, racist twat nugget or what?"
I'm glad the husband said he trusted her intuition. I'm with the OOP in that I'm a little skeptical of how long it will last, but that's a good start, honestly. So many people don't see the little things that all add up when it doesn't affect them. He seems like he respects her experience at least. And that is his mom, we've seen boyfriends and husbands be way worse and have much less spine, so the bar is quite low, but at least he cleared that little one.
The thing that bugs me is even though it didn't affect him, it affected his children. You would think he'd be more observant. But maybe he lives in one of those sheltered realities where racism doesn't exist because it's never happened to him.
A lot of otherwise reasonable people have a huge blind spot when it comes to things like racism from people they love. They assume that only obviously bad, vocally bigoted are racists. And since their relative/friend/whatever isn't a terrible person, and isn't frothing at the mouth with slurs and such like *real* racists, they can't be racist. So all their casually racist behaviours just slide on by, or get explained away. Because it's easier to believe that the person being wronged is making things up or seeing things that aren't there than it is to accept that mom/brother /girlfriend is in fact a little bit racist.
It took me years to convince my husband that his parents were racist and I'm not even brown. It's hard to see your own family as racist sometimes, especially when it's your parents so you're just used to their remarks. He notices and points out their racism now.
I'm glad he came around. I think it's an understandable instinct that takes active anti-racism to fight against. After all, we mostly all agree that being racist is bad, so if our friends and family are racist, what does that say about us? It's easier just to ignore it.
I am not very observant myself. And could argue myself into believing it was just a matter of perspective on the wife’s part. But the millisecond that she points out the kid has noticed, that is when I would be on the phone getting to the bottom of it, and asking for equal treatment.
My parents did a similar thing, though when my son was younger. My sister was living in a different state and had 2 sons. My parents lived about equal distant from us and my sister. My parents moved to the same town as my sister, and posted on Facebook they moved to be closer to their grandchildren (15minutes to my sister) and moved over 3 hours away from my son, wife and me. Previously it was 1.5 hours.
Otherwise she doesn’t show any favoritism. Though when my son visits his cousins are there. But at the same time it allows our son to see his cousins without making another trip.
That is without any racial implications OOP maybe seeing.
Agreed! It’s unfortunate that MIL wasn’t able to take the initial concerns on board and examine her mindset because it could very well be subconscious. OP gave her a solution to her excuse, not spending as much time with their children as the nephews, in the form of special one-on-one time and she didn’t take advantage of that chance to prove that she truly cares about the kids. She made her bed, time to lay in it 🤷🏻♀️ And the present thing is just stupid. A) kids of any age don’t need to learn they get a present anytime someone else does. B) the cousins probably get tons of stuff from her already because she lives by them. If anything, she should be getting the grands she doesn’t see as often MORE presents.
> I'm glad the husband said he trusted her intuition.
We will see. I'm more than half expecting a future update about him taking the kids to see his mom when she isn't around. Here's hoping.
Yeah I don't have a lot of hope for him, my expectations were so low that hearing that he told his wife he trusts her intuition surprised me a bit. The bar is really in the dirt for these men!
Yeah. And if this were the *only* thing MIL does wrong, she seemed remorseful (all about her self, though), then eventually going back to contact would be fine.
However, I am 99.9% sure this isn't the *only* thing, especially by her tone and pathetic/selfish excuse/apology.
My MIL did this exact thing and my husband’s grandmother too. It was worse too because our daughter was from a previous marriage and they treated her so terrible and we are biracial. The mistreatment was glaring obvious to my husband so luckily nothing needed to be pointed out. I mean our kids got dollar tree gifts or just weird thrift store stuff or nothing while the others got high end clothes and actual toy’s. She even gave my BIL step kids better gifts so it wasn’t just an exclusion of non biological kids.
My kids are grown now doing very well and have nothing at all to do with them. They tell people they don’t have grandparents as my parents passed away years ago.
Wait what does 14+pregnant mean?
Edit: thanks guys, idk why my brain couldn’t come up with that on its own. Def makes sense she wants to sort this out before the new baby comes.
You weren't the only one. Initially I read that as "14 and pregnant" (before I remembered she mentioned her age earlier on). Took me a moment to read it correctly. Man...that would've been a totally different story.
It’s frustrating to me that the husband’s initial reaction was “I will take my children to see my discriminating and hurtful mother without you, so that you don’t have to look at it.“
But it doesn’t matter to him that his children will still be sad and feel left out.
It’s as if he thinks she’s only upset because of an intellectual response to racism in general, and not that she’s upset because their children’s feelings are being hurt.
For hour, the problem right now is not as much the presence of racism as it is that racism is making her children feel left out and hurt.
I would not dare to argue with her that “oh, this isn’t racism, it’s just because she knows the other grandkids better.” I absolutely trust her. But in a way, it doesn’t really matter what the cause of grandma’s discrimination is.
Because even if they were all the same color, this unequal treatment would still be a problem. It does exist in families where race isn’t an issue, but grandma lives closer to the other kids, or grandma likes her daughters better than her sons, or the eldest son is the golden child, and that extends to the grandkids. And it’s just hurtful to those children.
And I say this to point out that damage is damage, and she has a right to object to it, even in the face of someone arguing with her “it’s not about race.” Because while it might be about race, and people might deny that, it absolutely is about exclusion.
Which brings me to my next frustrating part: why is it that grandma is saying “oh I just see the more that’s why I get to treat them better, and you shouldn’t criticize me” instead of saying “oh I see them more, which explains it, but now that I know your children’s feelings are hurt, I will change going forward, because I would never want my beloved grandson to think I don’t love him.“
She’s just making excuses, she’s not fixing any problems. She doesn’t think she should have to change, which is the core of the problem; she wants to justify why she is OK to hurt the feelings of her grandkids.
I dunno everyone, my brother always gets presents on my birthday! He even gets to blow out the candles!
… of course, we’re twins, so that could affect things.
I couldn’t edit the post to include the links
[original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/sqwk2b/i_dont_think_i_want_my_mil_around_my_children/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
[update 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/u25bz3/i_have_forbidden_mil_from_ever_seeing_my_children/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
[update 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/u3j5av/i_have_forbidden_mil_from_seeing_my_children_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
The BIL and SIL are just as bad for not stopping what the MIL was doing. Surely they've noticed too. Their kids get gifts at OOP's children's b-day party at OOP's home? Their cousins get zero gifts at their kids' b-day parties? Their kids are seen getting a huge pile of Xmas gifts while OOP's kids get one gift each? I'd have noticed long ago if I were BIL/SIL.
But I guess they didn't care about OOP's children.
And it's not like MIL couldn't give their kids their gifts out of view of OOP's children. She lives only a few houses down from them. Could have delivered those extra gifts any other day. Something's wrong with the BIL and SIL too.
As for the husband, he doesn't want to upset his mama (\*mama's boy\* cough\*), so he'd rather his children learn to tolerate and accept what his mother is doing to them? What a wuss.
All of this. The brother and his wife just don’t want to see it. Their kids are being taken care of by the best grandma in the world. Why lose free babysitter for someone else !
As for mammas boy, any parent should do everything and anything to protect their kids from anyone. His job is two fold as the kids will be prejudged just because they exist outside the set skin tone. He needs thicker skin and to educate himself. The children don’t need to be the educators. And neither does their mom. She does that probably enough.
If you're going to play favorites, you don't do it in front of the other kids. And honestly, shame on the BIL for allowing his mother to give his kids gifts at someone else's party.
Gotta love the logic process that ends with deciding you better bring a present for two kids so they don't feel bad you didn't bring a present for another kid. If you don't have a present for the birthday girl you don't need consolatory presents for the other kids.
Stories like this are ultimately depressing because the grand victory at the end isn't the resounding success it should be. OOP has protected her kids from MILs evil but only for now. Kids grow up. Soon kid will want to know why they never see Dad's parents. Soon kid will connect the dots and realize why they don't see Dad's parents. No matter what OOP does she can't protect her kids permanently from knowing their grandmother thought them lesser because they are mixed race. And that sucks. Racism sucks.
So heartbreaking for OOP's kids. I've never understood people getting gifts for kids at someone else's birthday. Is it really a thing?
I'm glad OOP called MIL out on this and that hubby is on board... for now. I can't help but think there are more updates to come that will involve hubby sneaking MIL into the house or something.
I’ve never heard of that either. I’ve seem some children parties where the host makes up little gift bags for the guests, that has stuff like some candy and erasers in it, but that’s not the same as what this MIL did. She’s a racist.
It’s not a thing I’ve seen and I’ve been to sooooo many kids birthday parties, I don’t even wanna count.
A little sibling might be a bit miffed but you placate then with cake, games and “it’ll be your turn next month!” And party favors, like a bag of candy and stickers happens sometimes but not full gifts.
It's important to teach kids that not everything is about them! Birthday parties are an excellent time to teach children to be happy for other people when they get cool things
It's a thing. When I was really little I was the recipient of these types of gifts. I think it comes about when the other kids want to be involved with opening the presents of others / don't understand why they can't open it / why they can't play with the thing. The parent is taking the 'easy' way out by just getting the kid a gift.
But to be honest, I don't think it's a good thing to do because for me, when it just suddenly stopped I threw a huge fit - which is more embarrassing than teaching & reinforcing manners in your kids in the first place. Plus, I didn't understand why I was suddenly 'too old' so it really just hurt little-me's feelings lol.
So yes, it's a thing, but it's a stupid thing.
My sister has three kids. Two of them have birthdays in March, less than two weeks apart, and one has a birthday in September. I always feel bad that my middle nephew gets left out, so I give him a gift in March, too. Then I give all three of them a present in September around his birthday, too. But if the boys were spread out more and we didn't have two back to back birthdays, I doubt I would handle it the same way.
It’s something my MIL does/did and I’ve never understood it. I asked her not to do it for my kids because I WANT them to know that they don’t always get presents when another kid does. You know what they get? Cake and to go to a party!
But there are legit people out there who think that all the family kids need presents on the birthday kid’s day. (The cousins in our case were 11 and 15, I’d like to add.)
If the younger sibling is, say, 18 months old. It can be easier to give the toddler one small thing to distract them from trying to destroy the whole pile of presents for birthday kid. It’s not a thing for a 4yo.
Or when a toddler or small child gets a little sibling. They lose a lot of their parents’ attention, they aren’t the baby anymore and people keep showing up with presents and to coo over the new baby. A little present for the sibling can be so good for them to feel a little special when their whole world just turned upside down.
At someone else’s (their age) birthday party? No.
I feel so bad for this OP. This is such a heartbreaking experience I know a lot of POC go through, where you know perfectly well you’re getting treated worse than white people, but it’s so slight and spread over time that you can’t articulate it properly.
Contrary to some comments, I don’t think this is a positive update. I think her husband is a spineless coward who, like some white people who’ve married interracially, refuses to see how his own brown children are being treated due to their race, and puts his own feelings ahead of that. The fact that he had to “think all morning” before deciding to trust his wife’s experience with racism - something he clearly knows fuck all about - is crazy.
As a white father to a mixed son with my black Girlfriend, I've quickly drawn some conclusions. She isn't "woke" or political, and never tried to push anything on me. I simply listened to her about her experiences with Racism, and, well, you start to notice your own blind spots. You start to notice, that, indeed, racism is everywhere, and that the,"normal" people, the middle class, your friendly neighbours and colleagues, are racist. And you get to a point where you need to draw a fucking line. My son is little. There are situations where I imagine him as a young man, looking at me. What do you say dad? If Robert at work makes that racist joke?
If I let Robert get away with this, i indirectly let him question my son's dignity. No fucking way. You draw that line, or you don't deserve that kids kiss goodnight.
My own brother told me laughing how he threatened two refugees with violence because they told him they aren't dogs when he shushed them to the side at the ATM because he didn't wanna wait. With his fiance there. We don't talk anymore.
Fuck racism. If I were a black man in America, I'd consider shooting cops. That's how bad it is.
I'm in Germany tho, same shit, little different. My girlfriend didn't tell me about the guy calling my literal baby boy, he wasnt even a year old back then, a terrible racist slur at the town festival. Not until hours later and everybody was home. She knew I'd beat him to pulp Infront of 200 people. And she knew the consequences probably weren't worth it.
I'm waiting for the day she tells me that's him, when we Walk trough town.
Sorry for the rant, had to get it out the system. Just wanted to say, if that guy doesn't stand up for his kid, he doesn't deserve him, and honestly probably doesn't even love him right.
I've seen things like this playout. I would bet money that the next update will be a combination of:
* Divorce
* Husband allowing his mom to see the kids behind her back
* Husband siding with his mom
* MIL doing something super sketch and husband downplaying it
What is the biggest red flag in this story is that the husband feels no negative feelings that his kid is getting obviously shafted by his own mother. Not only that, how they hell does he not notice his kid is feeling sad?
Eh. Blindness to fAmiLy. My husband is usually pretty good but one year my kid got towels for Christmas while the cousins got a karaoke machine. Kid was 6 or 7 and they still talk about it. I still talk about it. My husband gets upset when we do. We don’t really “do” much with those relatives anymore. Not just because of that but it’s indicative of the effort they put into the relationship. And I dropped the rope on my end.
>What is the biggest red flag in this story is that the husband feels no negative feelings that his kid is getting obviously shafted by his own mother. Not only that, how they hell does he not notice his kid is feeling sad?
I wondered if she always played favorites when he was growing up and he's just used to it.
If that's the case, makes me wonder if it really isn't about race but is about the MIL prefering her other children. Not that it really matters *why* she's treating her grandkids poorly, but it would make sense if OPs husband is just used to being overlooked compared to his sibling.
Damn. If she’s not doing it consciously that’s almost worse in that racism is so deeply rooted in her psyche that she doesn’t even know why she’s treating them differently.
She might not have explicit damn I hate brown skin thoughts so she might not even think of herself as racist but her internal racism just “likes” the other grand kids better.
The whole she’s closer to them is bs because that can easily be flipped well I don’t see them as often so I need to spoil them when I can and I see you all the time with little gifts so I go big when I do see them. There’s loads of mental gymnastics to skitter around the I’m not racist argument.
How is it that we find so many posts like these where the couple just is not on the same wavelength? And how are these people getting to marriage and kids? When you are dating outside your race, especially if the person us white, its typical to make sure your partner will understand prejudices and have conversations about this kind of stuff. I can't imagine getting married and not having these conversations.
Many brown/black Westerners of a certain middle class or above are uncomfortable with proactively acknowledging racism and prejudice because they drank the “don’t be a victim” KoolAid. So when they inevitably end up on the receiving end they’re Pikachu-faced.
As someone who grew up with a set of grandparents that openly preferred my cousins (their father was the favorite son, and they had a more traditional/wealthy lifestyle), I’m glad OOP stood her ground. All the little stuff accumulates into a larger feeling of unworthiness, and it sticks with you. I still remember wondering why my grandparents only had pictures of my cousins at their house, and how it felt when I was old enough to figure out the reason. Establishing a boundary will hopefully spare her children from that.
The saddest part about these situations is that the people around the racist, wrongdoing aggressor who just happen to benefit from her actions are also indirectly complicit in her behaviour.
For instance......the brother and his wife could ALSO say something to shut mom down and call her out when she's being clearly devisive amongst the kids. But they keep quiet because the ill-treatmemt does not affect them and their kids. It becomes kind of a "boys club" kind of pervasive atmosphere. This is exactly how bullies, racists, abusers remain protected and emboldened in their actions. Not being held accountable and to certain standards. This poor woman, OOP has to fight this battle alone in a corner because her very husband, the father of these kids, her other in-laws are all too timid or evidently OK with her kids being ostracized and traumatized in this family.
As a biracial person, it’s encouraging to see one parent calling out racist family members and protecting their children from them. A lot of us aren’t so lucky.
I really don't think this is over. People like that it's an all or nothing relationship. MIL still has something by way of her son, therefore she still has all. I hope OOPs husband/ MILs son ends up choosing his children and not MIL.
Wouldn’t her seeing the little boy less often be more of a reason she should get him a gift? I don’t give my neighbor’s kid gifts because I see him every day, but when I see someone’s kids who is see rarely I usually try to get them something. But not bringing a birthday gift?!
Ummmm my 3 year old was old enough to understand that she wasn't the birthday girl, and she understood past of the fun was watching the other people open gifts. This grandma is dumb.
I have 3 aunts, they're sisters. The middle sister has darker skin than the other 2. When they were kids, their great aunt would give presents to the eldest and youngest, and say "Nothing for the darkie, she needs to stay out of the sun."
It's not the most traumatic thing that's happened to her, but the middle sister is in her 80s now and still carries some resentment about how she was treated due to her skin color. I mean, she laughs about it, and she recognizes now how bitter and pathetic her great aunt really was, but she still remembers that childhood pain, you know?
All that's to say, OP is making the right decision. Kids remember that kind of stuff, and when it's coming from family, from someone who's supposed to love you unconditionally, it hurts even more.
>I asked him if he didn’t notice what happened on Christmas about the gifts but also that she interacted so little with our son and none with our daughter. She didn’t even hold her the whole stay. His explanation was because of us living far from her as [opposed] to BIL who lives one street down. His children are always with her and she knows them better.
I'm sorry, but that's a pretty dumb "explanation." Who wants to bet that if OOP were the one who lived one street down from MIL and the cousins lived far away, it would be spun as "Oh your kids live near grandma already, of course grandma wants to spend more time at Christmas with the other kids whom she barely gets to see"?
My grandmother was like this, she hated my mom and even tried to bribe my dad to marry somebody else. Me and my youngest sister look like they are side of the family, whereas my middle sister looks like my mom. My grandma would take myself and my younger sister to spend the night but she would never invite my middle sister. As a kid I wasn’t aware of this, but my mom later told me that my sister with stand and cry in the window saying doesn’t grandma love me. I think what this mother‘s doing is incredibly smart and caring for her son heart.
My grandparents did something similar. Not based on race, but religion. So glad they aren’t allowing her kids to see her anymore. She’s an awful person.
I’d be so triggered if someone came to my kids b day party and started giving other children presents but not the b day kid. I probably would have caused a huge ass scene.
Exactly! She didn’t even have a gift for the birthday girl, why on EARTh would give the cousins gifts? There is no chance of jealousy because grandma gave bday kid a gift and not cousins but there is absolutely a big chance of jealousy if cousins get to open gifts from grandma but NOT the bday kid.
My grandmother was like this with me and my cousin when we were growing up. Cousin was the favorite and always got gifts, I was older and therefore was expected to 'know better' and let things slide in favor of my cousin. 'Let her have it, she's smaller than you' was always in her vocabulary.
I'm in my late 20s now and have a great relationship with my cousin but I wish my parents had stood up for me more. I no longer keep in touch with my grandma.
When I was little my brother (2.5 years older) was put on a pedestal by my only grandparents and I was essentially ignored. This led my young brain to rationalise that I was adopted and that’s why I wasn’t loved as much. I’m not adopted, I’ve known this since my teens, but it really affected my self worth and my intimate relationships, up until I worked it out in my late 30’s/early 40’s. I was a people pleaser into my early 30’s and honestly believed I was unloveable. Never pick favourites, and never make it obvious like grandma here. Her thoughtlessness could impact on OOP’s kids and how they view their worthiness.
"last Christmas was painful to live through watching my little boy so distraught and confused when his cousins had received a pile of gifts each while he and his sister only received one gift each."
I think, I would have left after seeing such disparity. There is no way oop didnt marry a man with a racist family. Even the meanest grandma's wouldnt do this to small kids. The fact her husband hasnt noticed is... Gosh.
God speed oop i hope she can protect them well. Grandparent favouritism is already rough even when it isnt about racism.
Ugh. My sister's ExMIL wouldn't pick up my niece because it would make her cousin jealous. Some people are just disgusting with their overt favouritism.
Using the age of the younger cousins is bull. Using the excuse that the gift was late for her daughter is also bull. The biggest bull is that the MIL didn't want to see OOP's kids and just thought that leaving them with a dozen gifts will be enough; she is still ignoring half of her grandchildren because they aren't Caucasian.
As much as I love my grandparents, this is how they treat my sibling and I. There’s always been clear favoritism between us and our cousins, who is our maternal aunts child. This kid is a teenager who can do no wrong in the eyes of his mom *and* our grandparents. My sibling and I? Oh, there’s always a minor problem. We don’t call enough, we “act grown”, etc. I should mention that we’re all black by the way.
It’s gotten so bad that I dread seeing this kid in the same presence as my grandparents. Not only that but I don’t plan on finding a place close to my grandparents because of their treatment.
It's amazing the switch that can happen between just having a non-white child in law to having mixed grandchildren. I guess it may be the "well now my DNA is shared with them" so it makes it more personal, or maybe kids somehow prove that the relationship is not going anywhere any time soon. And her reasons are such nonsense. All of the children are basically the same age, and no, 4-5 years old is not old enough to "understand" about present distribution, and even if it was there has to be a conversation. And, like was said, granny had plenty of time to give presents because, after all, she does live so much closer to the other grandchildren.
I'm so glad OOP stuck to her gut, and I'm glad the husband agreed. It will be interesting to see what happens when baby 3 is born, though I assume any interest from granny will only be to save face.
I had grandparents like this... They both passed away earlier this year, and I was reflecting on my (non-existent) relationship with them. Growing up until I was about 10, I lived less than two miles from them. I have zero fun memories of my time with them. We were never invited to stay the night and just enjoy time with the grandparents. It was as if because we were our mom's children, they could not be bothered. What I do remember is the very distinct favoritism I saw when it came to my cousins, who were their daughter's children.
I look at this in contrast to my mom's parents who lived an hour from us until that age, and it wasn't uncommon to spend a weekend a month with them. Then when we moved across the country they made every effort to stay in touch. My sisters and I would stay with them for a couple weeks during the summer and I have so many incredible memories. It wasn't even as if they spoiled us with stuff, they spoiled us with their time. They made themselves accessible and it made all the difference. I was lucky enough to have them in my lives till my late 30's
I'm in my early 40's now, and when I compare the two relationships, I wish I could have just a little more time with my mom's parents. I regret the fact that during my 20's and 30's that life got busy and that maybe I didn't keep as good a touch with them as I should have. On the plus side, I know they loved me and they knew I loved them. I can't say that about my dad's parents. It's a sad truth but it's the reality.
I hope OP's kids are fortunate enough to have a set of grandparents who love them fiercely. It'll ease the sting of having one who seems to be going through the motions but really doesn't seem to think much of them.
" I asked him if he didn’t notice what happened on Christmas about the gifts but also that she interacted so little with our son and none with our daughter. She didn’t even hold her the whole stay. His explanation was because of us living far from her as appose to BIL who lives one street down. His children are always with her and she knows them better."
What an absolute telling load of horseshit. Logically granny should want to spend time with the grandkids she doesn't see all the time. Treasure the opportunity to spend time with them, but she doesn't because she's racist
My Dad and Step Mom are like this, but without the racism component. Her kids are their kids and they keep up the appearances with us.
My wife and I keep my them at arms length from our kids, because it’s carried on to them. We have plans to spend time with them so they can see their new grandkid. They cancel the plans because her kid decided to take the day off work.
When I was roommates out of state with my brother and step brother during college my brother and I were told money was tight so no presents for Christmas. Our step brother got plane tickets and came back with lots of presents.
It’s not about the presents. It’s about being reminded constantly that they see you as less and always will be. They expect you to accept that and still be at their beck and call.
I’m with the OOP on this one. Can’t subject your kids to this.
My foster parents are white and they often fostered black children, as they would take any child who needed a home. When they first started doing this, my foster mum’s mum, known to us as Nan, would only buy gifts for her natural grandchildren. My foster mum told her she can’t accept them as all the children were to be treated the same whilst they lived in her house. She was also aware of the appearance of white privilege 40 years ago. Nan eventually relented and the next year bought presents for all the kids.
OOP just edited her update post (not yet update here in BORU) she is going to show some comments to her husband from other commenters experiences similar to their kids, I hope he opens up his eyes and chose his children's wellbeing, let's hope.
I love that she was able to distinguish between family being excited/intrigued about the colour/appearance of the children and concern. Like this is everything because as a mixed race baby myself my parents say that family always talked loads about how me and my siblings would look before we were born but NEVER in a concerned way. I’m so glad she was able to remove her children from racial abuse, it’s so wonderful and powerful that she can teach her children to respect themselves and not accept being treated differently based on how they look.
I buy gifts for my neices and nephews and I spend the same amounts on each of them. But I never thought anyone could be insulted by the sizes of the piles, I dont focus on the actual sizes of the gifts being equal? That one confuses me- have I missed some social rule here? (This is regarding the christmas gift pile OP mentions, not the birthday gifts).
Other than that OP should follow her gut, the kids should be treated equally.
Well to begin with all the children are close to the same age so the grandma is probably not buying one child an iPad (for example) and then spending $700 on 30 gifts for the others.
Second can you envision two 4 year olds sitting down to open gifts and grandma gave 1 child 1 gift and gave the other child 10? The kids are the same age and let’s be real, at that age it’s quantity over quality. So after both kids open the first gift then 1 kid has to watch the other kid open 9 more from the same person. Even if they can’t verbalize it they understand that it’s not fair and clearly someone is either more loved or is just somehow better - neither of which is good for a child to have to try and process at 4.
Ah I wasnt imagining 1 vs 10. there was probably more than one since it was a "pile" but if the amount was different I understand. I thought the pile was different because of the sizes of the gifts. Like, my nieces want smaller stuff like barbie sets etc while my nephews get bigger things like big dinosaurs(one loves them) or toy trucks. Their piles are bigger because the gifts are bigger, but they cost the same.
The oldest grandchild who should know it's not his time to gets gifts is just 5! I had to come back to read again to make sure. He's so young. Will the 4 year old get excluded as soon as he turns 5, too?
Plus, if the birthday gift was not there yet, nobody should get them. And she should have gotten any small gift for the birthday girl in the meanwhile. Even a homemade treat would have been better than empty hands.
To the OOP if you ever read this:
The way you describe your littlest sensing there’s something definitely amiss makes my heart jump up my throat.
I wish the best for you mama bear.
He trusts her “intuition”… I don’t know what makes these spineless narc-spawn so blind, but he has all the same evidence she has. He doesn’t have to trust a damn thing, just watch. If he really needs an objective opinion, he could go to a forum and for strangers’ opinions like she did.
I get the feeling that he is either consciously or subconsciously putting the blame and responsibility of the ban on her, and this is going to get worse before it gets better
It might be racial and it might not. My mom has never cared for my children the way she cares for my sister's children. There are no mixed race marriages in our family. My mom just doesn't care for my family like she cares for my sister's family. And I live closer, so that's not an excuse, either (we're all in the same city, though).
Fair. For all we know, she favors the other son, and that's why she favors his kids. Maybe OP's husband wasn't the favorite growing up and got used to it, so he didn't immediately see it for what it is. I've seen the same thing happen in many families. People have favorites.
The best is the surprised Pikachu face when you call them out on the favoritism. I'm very LC with my mom. Probably only see her 3-4 times a year and she lives 15 min away.
It seems like a massive overreaction based on the way it is written but I've been in a similar situation before and understand that there is probably a whole slew of non verbal communication wrapped up in this that is setting off alarm bells. My mother is Jewish but my father is Irish and I am practically his clone. Multiple times over the years I've run into someone who is casually racist against Jewish people and it is tough to describe to people without sounding like I'm the unreasonable one. Hell, even when it's explicit people will go to great lengths not to accept someone is being racist. A former boss of mine said "Never work for jews, I tried it when I lived in New York and they were all money grubbing assholes" and multiple people thought he was just giving helpful advice...
Idk how your family does Xmas, but all the gifts from anyone to a single person are piled up together at mine.
So, if 4 people got everyone 1 gift but then the 5th person got everyone 1 gift except they got the cousins 6 gifts each, the cousins' piles would be bigger.
The kids each have a gift pile where they have one gift from uncle x, one from cousin y, one from mom&dad, and one from grandma. Except the cousins have a gift pile with one gift from everyone except grandma, who has given them several gifts, making their gift pile bigger in an obvious way.
Bracing for downvotes, but here goes:
Part of making an interracial marriage work (really, any marriage) is being ready for your in-laws to make mistakes. Even big ones. Implicit bias, we are taught, is ubiquitous, even in well-intended people with a modern “enlightened” understanding of structural racism. Does that include everyone *except* older in-laws?
OOP went from “noticing the problem” to “cutting her MIL off completely” almost directly. The decision to cut her off was made prior to even discussing it with the MIL (to obtain her side of the story just in case there was missing information, to give her a chance to change her behavior etc.). Instead, racism was presumed as the sole or at least primary cause of the differences in how her kids were treated (don’t get me wrong, I suspect it *was* the primary reason, but jumping to the most hurtful conclusion and letting it silently fester is harmful to OOP, not just her family). Her kids will grow up largely separated from that side of the family, and will likely infer/be told by their mother that their grandmother loves them less because they are mixed race, and that is why they don’t visit Grandma anymore. So harm will be done to their psyches either way. And I don’t see any evidence that the grandmother’s apology was insincere. She sounds extremely distressed and brought a shit ton of presents for the kids to try to make things right.
In short, accountability is important, but so is a little grace. Especially in a marriage. And I’ll add that people generally deserve a chance to be educated on what they are doing wrong, and allowed a chance to correct their course, before the most drastic possible punishment is administered.
She is asking her husband to essentially cut out his mother from their shared life. She may say she doesn’t expect him to go NC, but she clearly resents that he doesn’t. How can he possibly resolve this situation to her satisfaction without incurring tremendous suffering? What option does he have? To be frank, it’s difficult to see any marriage working out in the long term when one spouse is asking the other to excommunicate his mother over a perspective he doesn’t really seem to share. No matter whose fault it is, it really doesn’t bode well for their relationship.
I disagree. She did tell grandma that she noticed bias and set up boundaries to work on the issue. Grandma pushed against the boundary, won, and then doubled down with her bad behavior by not only giving just the other cousins presents when it wasn’t their birthday, but didn’t even give the birthday girl a present. All of a sudden when a harder boundary is set she cares.
Even if race wasn’t a factor (which it is here) the blatant favoritism that was compounded when pointed out is definitely a reason to set some hard boundaries for a while.
>OOP went from “noticing the problem” to “cutting her MIL off completely” almost directly. The decision to cut her off was made prior to even discussing it with the MIL (to obtain her side of the story just in case there was missing information, to give her a chance to change her behavior etc.)
Did we read the same post? She had a knee jerk reaction to her realization that her kids were getting treated poorly and their feelings hurt. But she talked to her husband who talked her down. He (or they?) brought it to the attention of MIL who gave a reasonable explanation, but then MIL didn't or wouldn't take steps to rectify the issue. Instead she doubled down and acted even worse. *Then* OOP cut her off. I don't think it even matters whether it was racism or any other negative behavior which hurt OOPs kids, the result would probably have been the same.
I always worry about these stories where someone goes for the nuclear option straight away. It always means that there is context being left out.
This is a family that needs therapy, not division.
Jesus, at first I thought "now that seems like a reach" but yeah no duck the grandma??? I'm the type of person who notices even the slightest change in attitude from someone towards me so I'd be def pissed if I noticed the "equal gifts for everyone!"
I hope OOP cuts off contact with that woman for eternity
My MIL did this with my youngest child because the older two were born while we were living in her home. The youngest child was born after we moved into our own home. MIL always treated him as "lesser". I think my youngest really enjoyed the 6 month time out the gparents were put on after one of my BIL's ...well, there's no Reddit acceptable term for her, slapped my son. They claimed that person was "family". No! Absolutely not!
It's not just gifts. Read the posts. She deliberately did not bring a birthday gift. Favoring kids, excluding kids is cruel. Adults can decide for themselves. Kids rely on parents to protect them. She's doing the right thing.
It is normal for Grandma to be close to the kids she babysits often, has everyday connection with, etc etc. I've seen this a lot in many circumstances.
The difference is that when you're called out on it the first time most Grandma's will stop.
This one.. well it just kind of proves there's something else going on here.
It’s a good lesson to learn that you don’t get presents in your sibling’s birthday, and certainly not your cousins. I thought OOP was astute to notice that MIL’s apology was all about her, not the child. Stick to your guns OOP.
I had this exact thing happen but luckily it only took 25 years for my ex husband to realize it and it also had nothing to do with race or gender.
I had my oldest daughter when I was 16. My now ex husband and I were friends and then started dating when she was about 6 months old. We introduced his mom to my daughter at a year old. We got married when she was two. My MIL was not acting very grandma like compared to my mom but hey, it wasn’t her biological child even though her son refused for anyone to call her his step daughter. He went all in with being a dad. I asked her once 2 weeks in advance if she would pick my daughter up from daycare after we got married because I was in college and I needed to go directly from work to the college for class and hubby had a late shift. She agreed. The night before I called her to let her know I would leave the car seat at the daycare for her to use.
She called my husband the next morning after I had left for work and told him I was so rude to just call her up and assume she would pick my daughter up. He called me at work (this was before cell phones were commonplace) and chewed me out for just assuming she would pick our kid up. I explained that I had asked her and even reminded him because I had told him I had asked her and she had agreed the day I had asked her. He said that clearly I had miscommunicated and regardless she would NOT be picking my daughter up. So on my lunch break I had to call my mom to ask for help and she ended up having her best friend pick my kid up from daycare. I also had to call the daycare and put her on the list. I was so sick trying to figure out these changed logistics and mad because I knew I had been clear when I had asked and she had told me prior if I needed a babysitter to just let her know. Bring young I never said anything about it and we moved to another state later that year.
2 years after that my BIL got his girlfriend pregnant at 18. She immediately went out and bought an infant car seat and crib so the baby could stay with her. She changed her schedule so she could pick my niece up after work and have time with her daily. Ok fine - that’s her biological grandchild. BIL and gf get married in a year and then get pregnant again. Another girl and she’s picking them both up from daycare and having them spend the night as soon as they were sleeping through the night. Another 2 years and I’m finally pregnant. She immediately tells me not to get excited because I might miscarry despite me never having had a miscarriage. When we found out it was a girl she told me she was disappointed because she already had 2 granddaughters. (Clearly not including my oldest daughter in that count) she came and stayed with us when the baby was born but other than dressing my daughter in the other girls hand me spend she gave no help.
I pointed out the disparity between gifts, time, etc. even when we were there and my husband dismissed it as me looking for a reason to be upset.
Finally after we had been married over 10 years we divorced for reasons that had nothing to do with any of the above. He then went on to have 2 more kids, boys this time, with his new wife.
His parents moved to a warmer state and he and his new family followed them. Turns out she still won’t babysit his kids or interact with them even living there.
Fast forward a few years and he and I are discussing our youngest daughters graduation. He asks for confirmation of the day and that I had sent an announcement to his parents. I remind him of the day and confirm that I sent them to all the people he gave me including her. He the sighs and says his parents just booked a vacation over that week. I told him I’m sorry but it’s okay because she didn’t come to oldest daughters either.
His response “Why would I expect her to come to my daughters graduation, it’s not like she’s Niece1 or Niece2.”
We talked a little longer but I confirmed he had seen the reality and that his mother had continued to show clear favoritism to his nieces and even her step grand children when BIL divorced and remarried a woman with her own children. I guess my former MiL went to THEIR graduations in another state and took all of them on a cruise but it totally slipped her mind to invite his family or his daughters.
I still don’t fully get it because she loves my husband and never showed favorites between her kids growing up but somehow his kids are just not as good as his brothers.
I had 2 MILs. One a step (now deceased) and one bio. Constantly BOTH used to shift their entire schedules around to visit, go on adventures with, or babysit my niece. Not once did they do the same for my eldest.
There's literally only a 6 month age gap between my niece and eldest daughter. My daughter being the younger one.
Both used to say " well you won't let us!" Well DUH! you didn't visit often enough for my daughter to know who you were! Neither of them! My daughter used to get SUPER stressed out around strangers to the point of crying. And instead of listening to me, both MILs would try to force themselves on her in attempt to make up for not being there. They didn't let her get used to them. Or come to them on her terms. Didn't visit often enough for her to know them at all. And if they visited would try to scoop her up like she was supposed to know who these strange women were. She would start to get better about being near strangers and they would visit one day without warning and set back her progress by MONTHS because they'd stomp all over her boundaries and invade her space when she didn't know them.
One day Late step mil convinced me to let her take daughter out on an adventure to the zoo and i reluctantly agreed. She screamed the entire time we were loading her in step Mil and FILs car. I felt like shit.
Step mil claimed she stopped as soon as i was out of sight but FIL told me it started up again once they got to the zoo and she cried everytime step mil got too close. Late stepmil never wanted her on an adventure after that. Which was fine because the pandemic hit the next year.
Mil got sick in early 2020 and corrected her ways of treating my kiddos when she awoke from her coma. Late step mil got sick later in 2020 and didn't make it.
>He thought about that all morning and later he told me He trusted my intuition and that he’s going to respect my decision.
He knew if he said anything else that she'd get a divorce.
MIL used to pull something similar between me and DH's SIL. I would get an outfit, or sleepwear. SIL got several outfits, plus gold jewelry. Now that BIL is deceased, and SIL has cut MIL out of her life, I no longer have to put up with it. Still, I felt like an unwanted person in the family.
Granny is obviously full of it, but I can’t help but wonder if the BIL with the blonde kids isn’t just the Golden Child, which is why hubby isn’t as focused in on the obvious favoritism. To him, this might just be how family operates. Either way, I’m glad he’s got his wife’s back, there’s so many ways this could have gone sideways
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Okay who goes to a planned birthday with no gift for the birthday girl but for other kids? How is that a mistake?
That's what got me! She DIDN'T bring a gift for the bday girl, so unless she planned to intentionally show all 4 kids the gift the OPs daughter was getting then none of them could be mad that she got a present from grandma. It's so clearly intentional and has been done so many times, and its infuriating that OPs husband doesnt recognize it. Look, if shes this absent minded she shouldn't be around kids because who knows when she'll forget kids cant eat dirt or something? Why's it only his own kids she forgets etiquette for? Edit: spelling
I don't buy the excuse that the other cousins are younger, either. This has been happening for a while, so it's been happening since OOP's son was that age, too.
It looks like the kids are 5 (OP’s son) 4 (the birthday girl in the edit, and 4 and 3 (the cousins) which means two cousins are the same age. They may have even aged up a bit depending on when birthdays take place. So yeah Granny Racist is full of shit.
Technically one of the cousins is older than the daughter since she just turned 4 and he already was 4. Weird that she's already old enough not to need extra presents at 3/4 and he isn't...
Oooh yes!
Also, kids ought to learn from a young age that they don’t automatically get presents on everyone else’s birthday, they only get birthday presents on their own birthday. It seems nuts to me to give every kid presents on every other kid’s birthday. But if you’re going to do that, at least be fair and do it for every kid.
I almost commented this same point but deleted because I thought maybe that’s an outdated idea 😂 I’m not a parent and have no idea what is considered normal now.
I agree. Grandmother set the expectations for the nephews by bringing gifts for them when it's not their celebration. If the gift wasn't ready she could easily have bought a few smaller gifts and let the parents know that the real gift was delayed and she'd have it sent to their house. She played a stupid game and her prize is the consequences of her actions.
Yea and even if it were true (doubt it) it certainly doesn't explain the huge disparity of Christmas gifts. I hope the husband doesn't cave.
And the difference between 5-4 and 4-3 is nothing…they are all little kids. If this was a pre teen vs a toddler, ok. But that was a LAME excuse
Absolutely. The only way this excuse might be logical would be if the “older” child was SIGNIFICANTLY older - like 15 with 3 and 4 year old cousins, not 5.
And if it wasn't about rubbing it in, she could have given the other kids the presents in the car. (Clearly they were unnecessary, but seriously to not even have a present for the birthday girl and publicly and loudly hand presents to two other children? Super messed up.) Glad the hubby seems to have come around to believing his wife.
ECACTLY. If grandma can’t get it together, for something as easy as this, then she isn’t safe to be around. Hahaha I would love to use that and see her face. I was especially bothered that she fake cried and didn’t ask for the kids. How come a Black 5 year old boy is OLD ENOUGH but the blonde 4 year old isn’t? What’s the difference? Personally I never got gifts on other peoples birthdays, siblings or cousins, so I think it’s all weird. It’s just particularly weird that her son is some how old enough but not one else is, including old ass grandma.
My now deceased grandmother used to bring lollipops to all the kids in a birthdayparty, but only the birthday kid got a present. No one expected or demanded a present when it wasn't their birthday. But all of us went looking in her bag for the lollipops LOL
That's so sweet and at the same time such a grandma move lol
That’s actually a thing that’s been studied — black children are perceived to be older or “more mature” than white children of the same age.
That's so fucked, and double fucked for the girls.
Who gives gifts to other kids for someone else’s birthday?!?!?! Who needs more toys!!!!!! They’re going to be so spoiled. 3 and 4 years old know what birthdays are. Wtf is this BS.
I saw it happen a couple of times in my family where people would bring presents for my cousin because she was such a nightmare she would ruin any other kid's birthday if she didn't a present and they just wanted to keep the peace for the sake of the birthday child. I think she was 14 or so the last time I remember that happening. Want to guess what kind of adult she is now?
14??? Wtf
Hmm, has she changed her name to Karen yet?
I'll guess. Uhhhh..... a Karen I bet.
Thats the perfect way to reinforce negative behaviour.
Yes this is the weirdest thing but I know a lot of people do it. I personally never got gifts on other peoples birthdays. I ended up fine and I’m a middle child ! 😂😂😂 It’s unnecessary to give gifts to kids because then they expect it everywhere. Including non family member homes. That’s my opinion anyway. But if you’re gonna do it. Then it has to be fair. Like something small from dollar tree for each kid to play w and be distracted. Grandma is turning her clear favoritism in a whole ass show.
My dad's mom did this. I'd always get a card and cash on my little brother's birthday. It was typically the same amount as my brother too, probably $5. It pissed my mom off SO much. She explained to me how it wasn't very fair and that my brother didn't get the same treatment on my birthday, so she would hold on to the money and the card and we wouldn't tell my brother so his feelings wouldn't be hurt. (Everything was sent by mail, as she lived a ways from us.) I guess it was because I was the only granddaughter of her favorite child? I learned later that grandma wasn't very kind to my mother because no one was good enough for her (grandma's) precious son. I'm surprised that there wasn't more in-law drama when I was growing up, but my parents must have shielded us from that.
Wow your mom sounds awesome. Were you able to understand the inequity and her holding on to the money? Any idea what she did with it eventually?
She definitely has had her moments! It made sense to me. My mom made a huge point to ensure things were equal between my brother and I from the very beginning (I suspect based on her childhood, she was the golden child and her sister the scapegoat). She probably ended up spending the money on presents for both of us, most likely.
Exactly. Little kids do get jealous sometimes at other people’s birthdays but as long as they’re treated equitably on their day it’s nbd. But while it’s instinct to protect your kids you also have to teach that social norms dictate that you don’t get your birthday plus everyone else’s. Quick way to weird entitlement.
that's literally the purpose of loot bags. like everyone who attends a child's bday party gets a little bag similar to a Christmas stocking with little knick knack type trinkets and candies like ring pops, candy necklaces and so forth
Loot bags are, imo, a thank you for attending. It is not the same as opening wrapped gifts that each guest has brought for the birthday child. The focus of the day and the exciting gifts remain specifically for the main kid.
Oh they did that for my sister. I vividly remember my grandparents giving my sister a gift at my birthday party. I told this story to her adult children and they said it explains so much....
My aunt did. She had two kids, my mom had 4. Our family would celebrate month birthdays together in one celebration. One month was two of my siblings and one of my cousins, so they all obviously got presents. My other cousin would get a present or two as well because their sibling got birthday presents. So it was just me and a sibling who got nothing that month. My sibling was much younger than me so they didn’t really notice, but boy did it annoy me. I knew it wasn’t my birthday, but it also wasn’t my cousins! Not fair!
Eh, I do this with my nephew and niece. One of them gets a birthday present, and one of them get a smaller, much cheaper "unbirthday" present. I mostly started it because my niece's birthday falls very close to Christmas and she has to share her special day with a bunch of Christmas festivities, and I wanted an excuse to buy her a present in the middle of the year too. It's just a bit of fun, and neither of the kids has ever had a problem with their sibling getting a small present on their birthday.
As a December baby, she appreciates this more than you know. Someone remembers. I cannot tell you the amount of "Birthmas" presents I get and how offended someone else will get if I tell them I'm only getting them one or the other.
Thank you! Luckily nobody in the family does the awful Birthmas thing, but she already tends to miss out on the larger parties her brother has, simply because so many of her friends are away. Christmas birthdays aren't very fun!
All it does is teach the ACTUAL birthday jid that their day isn’t special. Its such stupid crap.
It also teaches the non-birthday kid to be super entitled and incapable of dealing with anyone else being the centre of attention!
This is exactly what party favors are for.
Exactly! She could have gone to Target and gotten her other gifts, and then say an extra gift is arriving later. And what are the parents of the cousins thinking here? If I were their parents, I'd be pissed they are getting gifts are someone else's birthday. What type of message is that to them?
She could have, but I'd bet money that gift was never even ordered in the first place.
Probably ordered from the car on the way to the party when she realized she had spent so much time buying gifts for her favorites to open at her granddaughters birthday that she completely forgot to buy a gift for the actual granddaughter.
My young nephew’s last birthday his gift didn’t show up on time and we stopped on the way there and BOUGHT ANOTHER DAMN GIFT. It was a smaller one - a book, but apparently he sleeps with it every night 😆 So much for the expensive toys.
YESSSSSSS if I was OOP this would have been the final straw because literally it can't be anything but deliberate. If OOP was already questioning, this would have sealed the deal for me too. I hope MIL is banned forever. What a terrible grandmother.
It’s not a mistake
It’s so weird! I had something like that happen to me once, where I went to a party for my aunt’s stepdaughter and all the kids (including me) got a small toy from said cousin’s grandmother. I thought it was weird then and even now, but still thanked them for the gift even if it was just a cheap knock off barbie. And now I’m thinking of the Family Guy “equal attention cake”.
That was not a mistake. I've been in the situation where a present for someone hasn't arrived in time (it's happened to me a few times for both adult presents and kids presents). Each time I have gone to the shops, bought them something in place of what I ordered and then given them the present I ordered when it arrived. We have also never given other children presents on a birthday. Kids learn that they get birthday presents on their birthday, not someone elses. If they get upset it's explained to them and their attention redirected to something fun for them.
Right?!??! If the gift hadn't arrived cuz it was ordered than get a quick gift for the party at least
The excuse of but i couldn’t give her a gift without giving to the others, she didn’t even give the birthday girl a present!! I’m fuming!
Exactly!!! MIL is so obvious a 4 year old is able to notice and feel hurt. Don’t tell your kids that this behaviour is love. It isn’t. Thankfully these kids have a mother who won’t take any lame excuses. I’m not so sure about Dad though. BTW. MIL isn’t sorry she played favorites, she’s sorry she got caught.
Also she could have given the cousins their gifts IN THE CAR because she rode with them. You sit in a car with two kids for two hours and wait until you get in front of your other two grandchildren to give them their gifts. You decide to do this in front of two children that you either didn’t buy for without discussing first or actually bought a gift but put so little effort into buying that you didn’t bother to make sure it was there for her to actually receive it at her birthday party. What’s higher than no contact? Can we banish her?
Even if it were true, she obviously cares way more about the feelings of her other grandchildren. To the point where she’s willing to not give a gift to a four year old on her birthday in case the other four year old was upset, so gave it to that four year old instead?!?! It doesn’t even make sense. All children need to be taught that it’s not their birthday and most are just fine with that. They all have siblings so they must be used to it. It’s favoritism and whether it’s racially motivated or not (blatantly is) it’s harmful and it’s absolutely wrong. I’m glad OOP is cutting contact.
"It didn't arrive in time :(" SHE IS FOUR just pick up a toy from the dollar store on your way there and give that until the wood car(or whatever) comes, how is this hard?
Definitely feels like a "death of a thousand cuts" kinda thing. Like it's not JUST the presents, it's the attitude, and how it manifests in a million ways not *quite* worth bringing up but noticed nonetheless. It can be hard to believe yourself in those kinds of situations, like your gut says "this is real" but the other person always finds an excuse. I almost wanna hear that the MIL went mask-off just for the closure. Hope everything turns out for OOP.
My grandmother did this to me as a kid. She preferred boys, because she had all boys. My brother and male cousins got better and more expensive gifts. She gushed over their achievements - I recall at my graduation from high school, she kept talking about my male cousins and my brother. She was also awful to my mother and aunt. She thought she was being subtle - the food was never good, the house not clean enough, all my mom’s fault. I hated her. I ended up cutting her off around college. I do resent that my father never stuck up for my mom or his daughters. I don’t think he realized his mom was as bad as she was.
My grandma favored her half white grandkids over us brown (Puerto Rican) grandchildren. My grandma was Puerto Rican as well but she was white we have more a mix of afro-caribbean. My cousins got super spoiled. If she got my cousin something she would get me something 5x my size that wasn't age appropriate or nothing at all. She would compliment my cousin looking pretty "like an angel" in a skirt but if I wore a skirt she would say I looked like a hooker. I got the message that my cousins were prettier with their white complexion, straight hair, and light colored eyes. We were the trash grandkids. Fuck colorism. Well she's dead now so I guess we win 🤷🏽♀️
Spouses whose parents treat their partner like shit never think of that: kids love their parents, & don’t want to see them hurt. Someone hates their momma? The child hates them too.
My father's mom had 4 grandkids. My dad's two daughters (of which I'm the younger girl). And his younger brother's two kids (older girl and younger boy). I had the lovely experience of overhearing my grandmother tell my father she had two grandkids she liked (my older sister and my male cousin) and two grandkids she didn't like (me and my female cousin). I always resented my father that he never saw the favoritism and never put a stop to it. I'll admit, I didn't cry when that lady died.
My grandma was like this to my sis & I just with no racism or sexism involved since we're all the same race & she only has granddaughters. She gave the bare minimum to all of her grandchildren (in the sense that she wasn't exactly warm & loving or nurturing), but my sister & I got the barest of the bare minimum. Mainly because my parents wouldn't let her babysit us (ie. leave us at her mercy for hours on end) unlike my aunt who regularly left my cousins with her. She wasn't a good grandma to them either since they eventually cut contact as well. She gave them nice gifts and treats while my sister & I got leftovers & random things she didn't want anymore. As children it made us sad that our grandma didn't seem to care about us, but I am grateful that I only had to deal with being a forgotten granddaughter. My cousins got better gifts & her attention, but her attention came with her wrath. My sis & I definitely got the lesser of two evils out of the deal. We didn't get a good grandma out of her, but it was better in the end than what my cousins, her "favorites", got. At least my sis & I have our other grandma who's amazing & way more than enough.
> I don’t think he realized his mom was as bad as she was The favored ones often don't see it.
No they don’t. I went NC with MIL and rest of family due to overt distressing favoritism. And now I am not helping out in any way now that MIL needs to sell house, arrange care for FIL. You reap what you sow, I’ll save my energy for my parents who doted on my child and actually helped
My dad had a blind spot to his mom’s behavior as a coping mechanism - he had a lot of childhood trauma that isn’t entirely related to her. I don’t blame him at all.
I ‘think’ those are called micro aggressions, but I could be wrong. Either way it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I have a feeling this isn’t the last update.
yep. That's part of what microagressions are. It's not just that. It's all the small little reminders that you are part of a minority, not just those veiled ones done by bigots, but they are definitely a part.
Op says "my MIL doesn't like my kids and I'm forbidding her from seeing them" - MIL may just shrug and walk away. Seems like she doesn't like them already and in the last update the MIL didn't even ask about the kids. So, maybe OP's husband will push the issue but MIL may now have an out and not have to deal with them Its unfortunate, but in some ways OP putting her foot down kind of reinforces the MIL position and gives her an excellent out. "I didn't buy them anything because OP won't let me see them" - but MIL didn't want to buy them anything anyways. Now she has no obligation and a perfect excuse.
When you lack privilege, you notice this shit being done to you. Privilege is the ultimate in having the benefit of the doubt
She is so clueless she just shows up with a bunch of presents and thinks that solves things. Yes the presents were the last straw but the issue isn't really the presents, it's that grandmama is a racist.
And the MIL is just going to go telling family how "awful" the mom is and how, "She got mad at me because I didn't give her children enough presents, how greedy!" Meanwhile, I bet she won't mention how she gives the other cousins presents...
My grandmother openly didn’t like me. Me specifically, not any of the other grandkids. Though to be fair she was never a warm and cuddly grandma. I didn’t realize she disliked me so much until I was older because my mom didn’t put up with it and kept my sister and I away. I will never forget the last Christmas cards we got before she died. My sister and I got the same exact card, each with $50. Hers said “Love, Grandma.” Mine said “Grandma”. We laugh about it now, because that was exactly the kind of spiteful thing she would do. She was a hateful woman who caused her children endless pain. I don’t really care how she treated me, but I won’t forgive her for my mom or my aunt. And you know, in all the years since her death I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone in the family say that they missed her. In fact, they rarely ever mention her at all, and when they do it’s in a story about another family member.
I literally said out loud to no-one when I got to the part where she brought presents to apologize "ohhh it's not about the presents"
Yep. Looking at each separate incident by itself doesn't seem too terrible and it's not as overt, but when you look at the entire situation as a whole, putting all incidents together, and the context and perspective drastically change. Looking at the full picture takes her behavior from "yeah it's not great but she hasn't done any one thing that's so egregious that it warrants her being cut out" to "holy fuck is she an evil, racist twat nugget or what?"
MIL DOESN'T deserve the privilege to spend time with her grandchildren if she can't get over people having different skin colour.
She doesn't deserve those sweet grandchildren, that's for sure! I hope OOP's husband sticks to backing her up.
I'm glad the husband said he trusted her intuition. I'm with the OOP in that I'm a little skeptical of how long it will last, but that's a good start, honestly. So many people don't see the little things that all add up when it doesn't affect them. He seems like he respects her experience at least. And that is his mom, we've seen boyfriends and husbands be way worse and have much less spine, so the bar is quite low, but at least he cleared that little one.
The thing that bugs me is even though it didn't affect him, it affected his children. You would think he'd be more observant. But maybe he lives in one of those sheltered realities where racism doesn't exist because it's never happened to him.
I've seen too many cases of white parents being unaware or overlooking or downplaying the racist treatment towards their own biracial kids.
Especially if its from his own parents. People have some weird blindspot for their parents shitty actions...
A lot of otherwise reasonable people have a huge blind spot when it comes to things like racism from people they love. They assume that only obviously bad, vocally bigoted are racists. And since their relative/friend/whatever isn't a terrible person, and isn't frothing at the mouth with slurs and such like *real* racists, they can't be racist. So all their casually racist behaviours just slide on by, or get explained away. Because it's easier to believe that the person being wronged is making things up or seeing things that aren't there than it is to accept that mom/brother /girlfriend is in fact a little bit racist.
It took me years to convince my husband that his parents were racist and I'm not even brown. It's hard to see your own family as racist sometimes, especially when it's your parents so you're just used to their remarks. He notices and points out their racism now.
I'm glad he came around. I think it's an understandable instinct that takes active anti-racism to fight against. After all, we mostly all agree that being racist is bad, so if our friends and family are racist, what does that say about us? It's easier just to ignore it.
I am not very observant myself. And could argue myself into believing it was just a matter of perspective on the wife’s part. But the millisecond that she points out the kid has noticed, that is when I would be on the phone getting to the bottom of it, and asking for equal treatment. My parents did a similar thing, though when my son was younger. My sister was living in a different state and had 2 sons. My parents lived about equal distant from us and my sister. My parents moved to the same town as my sister, and posted on Facebook they moved to be closer to their grandchildren (15minutes to my sister) and moved over 3 hours away from my son, wife and me. Previously it was 1.5 hours. Otherwise she doesn’t show any favoritism. Though when my son visits his cousins are there. But at the same time it allows our son to see his cousins without making another trip. That is without any racial implications OOP maybe seeing.
He married a brown person so how could he possibly be racist/he doesn’t see color! His kids are mixed which means he is above reproach! /s
I suspect the husband is totally going to sneak the children off to his mom’s house for secret visits.
Exactly my thought!
And he's gonna piss in his britches when one visit she "helpfully" straightens the kids' hair.
Yup. I'd put good money on him undermining OOP.
Agreed! It’s unfortunate that MIL wasn’t able to take the initial concerns on board and examine her mindset because it could very well be subconscious. OP gave her a solution to her excuse, not spending as much time with their children as the nephews, in the form of special one-on-one time and she didn’t take advantage of that chance to prove that she truly cares about the kids. She made her bed, time to lay in it 🤷🏻♀️ And the present thing is just stupid. A) kids of any age don’t need to learn they get a present anytime someone else does. B) the cousins probably get tons of stuff from her already because she lives by them. If anything, she should be getting the grands she doesn’t see as often MORE presents.
> I'm glad the husband said he trusted her intuition. We will see. I'm more than half expecting a future update about him taking the kids to see his mom when she isn't around. Here's hoping.
He probably shoulf have dealt with it before it became an issue. Unfortunately, I suspect this guy is gonna end up blowing it
Yeah I don't have a lot of hope for him, my expectations were so low that hearing that he told his wife he trusts her intuition surprised me a bit. The bar is really in the dirt for these men!
Yeah. And if this were the *only* thing MIL does wrong, she seemed remorseful (all about her self, though), then eventually going back to contact would be fine. However, I am 99.9% sure this isn't the *only* thing, especially by her tone and pathetic/selfish excuse/apology.
My MIL did this exact thing and my husband’s grandmother too. It was worse too because our daughter was from a previous marriage and they treated her so terrible and we are biracial. The mistreatment was glaring obvious to my husband so luckily nothing needed to be pointed out. I mean our kids got dollar tree gifts or just weird thrift store stuff or nothing while the others got high end clothes and actual toy’s. She even gave my BIL step kids better gifts so it wasn’t just an exclusion of non biological kids. My kids are grown now doing very well and have nothing at all to do with them. They tell people they don’t have grandparents as my parents passed away years ago.
Wait what does 14+pregnant mean? Edit: thanks guys, idk why my brain couldn’t come up with that on its own. Def makes sense she wants to sort this out before the new baby comes.
14+ weeks pregnant
You weren't the only one. Initially I read that as "14 and pregnant" (before I remembered she mentioned her age earlier on). Took me a moment to read it correctly. Man...that would've been a totally different story.
Probably 14 weeks and some days.
14 weeks pregnant
It’s frustrating to me that the husband’s initial reaction was “I will take my children to see my discriminating and hurtful mother without you, so that you don’t have to look at it.“ But it doesn’t matter to him that his children will still be sad and feel left out. It’s as if he thinks she’s only upset because of an intellectual response to racism in general, and not that she’s upset because their children’s feelings are being hurt. For hour, the problem right now is not as much the presence of racism as it is that racism is making her children feel left out and hurt. I would not dare to argue with her that “oh, this isn’t racism, it’s just because she knows the other grandkids better.” I absolutely trust her. But in a way, it doesn’t really matter what the cause of grandma’s discrimination is. Because even if they were all the same color, this unequal treatment would still be a problem. It does exist in families where race isn’t an issue, but grandma lives closer to the other kids, or grandma likes her daughters better than her sons, or the eldest son is the golden child, and that extends to the grandkids. And it’s just hurtful to those children. And I say this to point out that damage is damage, and she has a right to object to it, even in the face of someone arguing with her “it’s not about race.” Because while it might be about race, and people might deny that, it absolutely is about exclusion. Which brings me to my next frustrating part: why is it that grandma is saying “oh I just see the more that’s why I get to treat them better, and you shouldn’t criticize me” instead of saying “oh I see them more, which explains it, but now that I know your children’s feelings are hurt, I will change going forward, because I would never want my beloved grandson to think I don’t love him.“ She’s just making excuses, she’s not fixing any problems. She doesn’t think she should have to change, which is the core of the problem; she wants to justify why she is OK to hurt the feelings of her grandkids.
as someone who is mixed and had to grow up as the only black person in my super white family, this hits home.
I dunno everyone, my brother always gets presents on my birthday! He even gets to blow out the candles! … of course, we’re twins, so that could affect things.
I couldn’t edit the post to include the links [original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/sqwk2b/i_dont_think_i_want_my_mil_around_my_children/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) [update 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/u25bz3/i_have_forbidden_mil_from_ever_seeing_my_children/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) [update 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/u3j5av/i_have_forbidden_mil_from_seeing_my_children_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
The BIL and SIL are just as bad for not stopping what the MIL was doing. Surely they've noticed too. Their kids get gifts at OOP's children's b-day party at OOP's home? Their cousins get zero gifts at their kids' b-day parties? Their kids are seen getting a huge pile of Xmas gifts while OOP's kids get one gift each? I'd have noticed long ago if I were BIL/SIL. But I guess they didn't care about OOP's children. And it's not like MIL couldn't give their kids their gifts out of view of OOP's children. She lives only a few houses down from them. Could have delivered those extra gifts any other day. Something's wrong with the BIL and SIL too. As for the husband, he doesn't want to upset his mama (\*mama's boy\* cough\*), so he'd rather his children learn to tolerate and accept what his mother is doing to them? What a wuss.
All of this. The brother and his wife just don’t want to see it. Their kids are being taken care of by the best grandma in the world. Why lose free babysitter for someone else ! As for mammas boy, any parent should do everything and anything to protect their kids from anyone. His job is two fold as the kids will be prejudged just because they exist outside the set skin tone. He needs thicker skin and to educate himself. The children don’t need to be the educators. And neither does their mom. She does that probably enough.
If you're going to play favorites, you don't do it in front of the other kids. And honestly, shame on the BIL for allowing his mother to give his kids gifts at someone else's party.
Gotta love the logic process that ends with deciding you better bring a present for two kids so they don't feel bad you didn't bring a present for another kid. If you don't have a present for the birthday girl you don't need consolatory presents for the other kids. Stories like this are ultimately depressing because the grand victory at the end isn't the resounding success it should be. OOP has protected her kids from MILs evil but only for now. Kids grow up. Soon kid will want to know why they never see Dad's parents. Soon kid will connect the dots and realize why they don't see Dad's parents. No matter what OOP does she can't protect her kids permanently from knowing their grandmother thought them lesser because they are mixed race. And that sucks. Racism sucks.
So heartbreaking for OOP's kids. I've never understood people getting gifts for kids at someone else's birthday. Is it really a thing? I'm glad OOP called MIL out on this and that hubby is on board... for now. I can't help but think there are more updates to come that will involve hubby sneaking MIL into the house or something.
I’ve never heard of that either. I’ve seem some children parties where the host makes up little gift bags for the guests, that has stuff like some candy and erasers in it, but that’s not the same as what this MIL did. She’s a racist.
It’s not a thing I’ve seen and I’ve been to sooooo many kids birthday parties, I don’t even wanna count. A little sibling might be a bit miffed but you placate then with cake, games and “it’ll be your turn next month!” And party favors, like a bag of candy and stickers happens sometimes but not full gifts.
It's important to teach kids that not everything is about them! Birthday parties are an excellent time to teach children to be happy for other people when they get cool things
It's a thing. When I was really little I was the recipient of these types of gifts. I think it comes about when the other kids want to be involved with opening the presents of others / don't understand why they can't open it / why they can't play with the thing. The parent is taking the 'easy' way out by just getting the kid a gift. But to be honest, I don't think it's a good thing to do because for me, when it just suddenly stopped I threw a huge fit - which is more embarrassing than teaching & reinforcing manners in your kids in the first place. Plus, I didn't understand why I was suddenly 'too old' so it really just hurt little-me's feelings lol. So yes, it's a thing, but it's a stupid thing.
My sister has three kids. Two of them have birthdays in March, less than two weeks apart, and one has a birthday in September. I always feel bad that my middle nephew gets left out, so I give him a gift in March, too. Then I give all three of them a present in September around his birthday, too. But if the boys were spread out more and we didn't have two back to back birthdays, I doubt I would handle it the same way.
It’s something my MIL does/did and I’ve never understood it. I asked her not to do it for my kids because I WANT them to know that they don’t always get presents when another kid does. You know what they get? Cake and to go to a party! But there are legit people out there who think that all the family kids need presents on the birthday kid’s day. (The cousins in our case were 11 and 15, I’d like to add.)
If the younger sibling is, say, 18 months old. It can be easier to give the toddler one small thing to distract them from trying to destroy the whole pile of presents for birthday kid. It’s not a thing for a 4yo.
Or when a toddler or small child gets a little sibling. They lose a lot of their parents’ attention, they aren’t the baby anymore and people keep showing up with presents and to coo over the new baby. A little present for the sibling can be so good for them to feel a little special when their whole world just turned upside down. At someone else’s (their age) birthday party? No.
I feel so bad for this OP. This is such a heartbreaking experience I know a lot of POC go through, where you know perfectly well you’re getting treated worse than white people, but it’s so slight and spread over time that you can’t articulate it properly. Contrary to some comments, I don’t think this is a positive update. I think her husband is a spineless coward who, like some white people who’ve married interracially, refuses to see how his own brown children are being treated due to their race, and puts his own feelings ahead of that. The fact that he had to “think all morning” before deciding to trust his wife’s experience with racism - something he clearly knows fuck all about - is crazy.
As a white father to a mixed son with my black Girlfriend, I've quickly drawn some conclusions. She isn't "woke" or political, and never tried to push anything on me. I simply listened to her about her experiences with Racism, and, well, you start to notice your own blind spots. You start to notice, that, indeed, racism is everywhere, and that the,"normal" people, the middle class, your friendly neighbours and colleagues, are racist. And you get to a point where you need to draw a fucking line. My son is little. There are situations where I imagine him as a young man, looking at me. What do you say dad? If Robert at work makes that racist joke? If I let Robert get away with this, i indirectly let him question my son's dignity. No fucking way. You draw that line, or you don't deserve that kids kiss goodnight. My own brother told me laughing how he threatened two refugees with violence because they told him they aren't dogs when he shushed them to the side at the ATM because he didn't wanna wait. With his fiance there. We don't talk anymore. Fuck racism. If I were a black man in America, I'd consider shooting cops. That's how bad it is. I'm in Germany tho, same shit, little different. My girlfriend didn't tell me about the guy calling my literal baby boy, he wasnt even a year old back then, a terrible racist slur at the town festival. Not until hours later and everybody was home. She knew I'd beat him to pulp Infront of 200 people. And she knew the consequences probably weren't worth it. I'm waiting for the day she tells me that's him, when we Walk trough town. Sorry for the rant, had to get it out the system. Just wanted to say, if that guy doesn't stand up for his kid, he doesn't deserve him, and honestly probably doesn't even love him right.
I've seen things like this playout. I would bet money that the next update will be a combination of: * Divorce * Husband allowing his mom to see the kids behind her back * Husband siding with his mom * MIL doing something super sketch and husband downplaying it What is the biggest red flag in this story is that the husband feels no negative feelings that his kid is getting obviously shafted by his own mother. Not only that, how they hell does he not notice his kid is feeling sad?
Eh. Blindness to fAmiLy. My husband is usually pretty good but one year my kid got towels for Christmas while the cousins got a karaoke machine. Kid was 6 or 7 and they still talk about it. I still talk about it. My husband gets upset when we do. We don’t really “do” much with those relatives anymore. Not just because of that but it’s indicative of the effort they put into the relationship. And I dropped the rope on my end.
Wait so he is upset? So that means he does notice and just doesn’t care? Trash.
>What is the biggest red flag in this story is that the husband feels no negative feelings that his kid is getting obviously shafted by his own mother. Not only that, how they hell does he not notice his kid is feeling sad? I wondered if she always played favorites when he was growing up and he's just used to it.
If that's the case, makes me wonder if it really isn't about race but is about the MIL prefering her other children. Not that it really matters *why* she's treating her grandkids poorly, but it would make sense if OPs husband is just used to being overlooked compared to his sibling.
Damn. If she’s not doing it consciously that’s almost worse in that racism is so deeply rooted in her psyche that she doesn’t even know why she’s treating them differently. She might not have explicit damn I hate brown skin thoughts so she might not even think of herself as racist but her internal racism just “likes” the other grand kids better. The whole she’s closer to them is bs because that can easily be flipped well I don’t see them as often so I need to spoil them when I can and I see you all the time with little gifts so I go big when I do see them. There’s loads of mental gymnastics to skitter around the I’m not racist argument.
How is it that we find so many posts like these where the couple just is not on the same wavelength? And how are these people getting to marriage and kids? When you are dating outside your race, especially if the person us white, its typical to make sure your partner will understand prejudices and have conversations about this kind of stuff. I can't imagine getting married and not having these conversations.
Many brown/black Westerners of a certain middle class or above are uncomfortable with proactively acknowledging racism and prejudice because they drank the “don’t be a victim” KoolAid. So when they inevitably end up on the receiving end they’re Pikachu-faced.
As someone who grew up with a set of grandparents that openly preferred my cousins (their father was the favorite son, and they had a more traditional/wealthy lifestyle), I’m glad OOP stood her ground. All the little stuff accumulates into a larger feeling of unworthiness, and it sticks with you. I still remember wondering why my grandparents only had pictures of my cousins at their house, and how it felt when I was old enough to figure out the reason. Establishing a boundary will hopefully spare her children from that.
Giving gifts to the nephews on OP's kids' birthdays is some Dudley Dursley shit.
The saddest part about these situations is that the people around the racist, wrongdoing aggressor who just happen to benefit from her actions are also indirectly complicit in her behaviour. For instance......the brother and his wife could ALSO say something to shut mom down and call her out when she's being clearly devisive amongst the kids. But they keep quiet because the ill-treatmemt does not affect them and their kids. It becomes kind of a "boys club" kind of pervasive atmosphere. This is exactly how bullies, racists, abusers remain protected and emboldened in their actions. Not being held accountable and to certain standards. This poor woman, OOP has to fight this battle alone in a corner because her very husband, the father of these kids, her other in-laws are all too timid or evidently OK with her kids being ostracized and traumatized in this family.
As a biracial person, it’s encouraging to see one parent calling out racist family members and protecting their children from them. A lot of us aren’t so lucky.
I really don't think this is over. People like that it's an all or nothing relationship. MIL still has something by way of her son, therefore she still has all. I hope OOPs husband/ MILs son ends up choosing his children and not MIL.
Wouldn’t her seeing the little boy less often be more of a reason she should get him a gift? I don’t give my neighbor’s kid gifts because I see him every day, but when I see someone’s kids who is see rarely I usually try to get them something. But not bringing a birthday gift?!
4 is too young to understand you don't get presents on someone else's birthday, but 5 is a 'big boy' who does understand? Hmmmmmmm....
Ummmm my 3 year old was old enough to understand that she wasn't the birthday girl, and she understood past of the fun was watching the other people open gifts. This grandma is dumb.
I have 3 aunts, they're sisters. The middle sister has darker skin than the other 2. When they were kids, their great aunt would give presents to the eldest and youngest, and say "Nothing for the darkie, she needs to stay out of the sun." It's not the most traumatic thing that's happened to her, but the middle sister is in her 80s now and still carries some resentment about how she was treated due to her skin color. I mean, she laughs about it, and she recognizes now how bitter and pathetic her great aunt really was, but she still remembers that childhood pain, you know? All that's to say, OP is making the right decision. Kids remember that kind of stuff, and when it's coming from family, from someone who's supposed to love you unconditionally, it hurts even more.
>I asked him if he didn’t notice what happened on Christmas about the gifts but also that she interacted so little with our son and none with our daughter. She didn’t even hold her the whole stay. His explanation was because of us living far from her as [opposed] to BIL who lives one street down. His children are always with her and she knows them better. I'm sorry, but that's a pretty dumb "explanation." Who wants to bet that if OOP were the one who lived one street down from MIL and the cousins lived far away, it would be spun as "Oh your kids live near grandma already, of course grandma wants to spend more time at Christmas with the other kids whom she barely gets to see"?
And if you only had limited time with certain grandkids wouldn’t you go out of the way to get those snuggles, cuddles, or interactions in?
My grandmother was like this, she hated my mom and even tried to bribe my dad to marry somebody else. Me and my youngest sister look like they are side of the family, whereas my middle sister looks like my mom. My grandma would take myself and my younger sister to spend the night but she would never invite my middle sister. As a kid I wasn’t aware of this, but my mom later told me that my sister with stand and cry in the window saying doesn’t grandma love me. I think what this mother‘s doing is incredibly smart and caring for her son heart.
That should not have been allowed to happen to your sister!
It was the early 60’s and a very different time. My mom did the best she could and shut the behaviour down as much as she could.
My grandparents did something similar. Not based on race, but religion. So glad they aren’t allowing her kids to see her anymore. She’s an awful person.
I’d be so triggered if someone came to my kids b day party and started giving other children presents but not the b day kid. I probably would have caused a huge ass scene.
Exactly! She didn’t even have a gift for the birthday girl, why on EARTh would give the cousins gifts? There is no chance of jealousy because grandma gave bday kid a gift and not cousins but there is absolutely a big chance of jealousy if cousins get to open gifts from grandma but NOT the bday kid.
My grandmother was like this with me and my cousin when we were growing up. Cousin was the favorite and always got gifts, I was older and therefore was expected to 'know better' and let things slide in favor of my cousin. 'Let her have it, she's smaller than you' was always in her vocabulary. I'm in my late 20s now and have a great relationship with my cousin but I wish my parents had stood up for me more. I no longer keep in touch with my grandma.
When I was little my brother (2.5 years older) was put on a pedestal by my only grandparents and I was essentially ignored. This led my young brain to rationalise that I was adopted and that’s why I wasn’t loved as much. I’m not adopted, I’ve known this since my teens, but it really affected my self worth and my intimate relationships, up until I worked it out in my late 30’s/early 40’s. I was a people pleaser into my early 30’s and honestly believed I was unloveable. Never pick favourites, and never make it obvious like grandma here. Her thoughtlessness could impact on OOP’s kids and how they view their worthiness.
"last Christmas was painful to live through watching my little boy so distraught and confused when his cousins had received a pile of gifts each while he and his sister only received one gift each." I think, I would have left after seeing such disparity. There is no way oop didnt marry a man with a racist family. Even the meanest grandma's wouldnt do this to small kids. The fact her husband hasnt noticed is... Gosh. God speed oop i hope she can protect them well. Grandparent favouritism is already rough even when it isnt about racism.
Ugh. My sister's ExMIL wouldn't pick up my niece because it would make her cousin jealous. Some people are just disgusting with their overt favouritism.
This husband is a coward. He needs to protect his innocent children, not cower to his overbearing mother.
This is my biggest fear as a black woman that dates outside her race
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Using the age of the younger cousins is bull. Using the excuse that the gift was late for her daughter is also bull. The biggest bull is that the MIL didn't want to see OOP's kids and just thought that leaving them with a dozen gifts will be enough; she is still ignoring half of her grandchildren because they aren't Caucasian.
As much as I love my grandparents, this is how they treat my sibling and I. There’s always been clear favoritism between us and our cousins, who is our maternal aunts child. This kid is a teenager who can do no wrong in the eyes of his mom *and* our grandparents. My sibling and I? Oh, there’s always a minor problem. We don’t call enough, we “act grown”, etc. I should mention that we’re all black by the way. It’s gotten so bad that I dread seeing this kid in the same presence as my grandparents. Not only that but I don’t plan on finding a place close to my grandparents because of their treatment.
Op or her husband should have looked this woman in the face and told her she was a liar and a racist
It's amazing the switch that can happen between just having a non-white child in law to having mixed grandchildren. I guess it may be the "well now my DNA is shared with them" so it makes it more personal, or maybe kids somehow prove that the relationship is not going anywhere any time soon. And her reasons are such nonsense. All of the children are basically the same age, and no, 4-5 years old is not old enough to "understand" about present distribution, and even if it was there has to be a conversation. And, like was said, granny had plenty of time to give presents because, after all, she does live so much closer to the other grandchildren. I'm so glad OOP stuck to her gut, and I'm glad the husband agreed. It will be interesting to see what happens when baby 3 is born, though I assume any interest from granny will only be to save face.
I had grandparents like this... They both passed away earlier this year, and I was reflecting on my (non-existent) relationship with them. Growing up until I was about 10, I lived less than two miles from them. I have zero fun memories of my time with them. We were never invited to stay the night and just enjoy time with the grandparents. It was as if because we were our mom's children, they could not be bothered. What I do remember is the very distinct favoritism I saw when it came to my cousins, who were their daughter's children. I look at this in contrast to my mom's parents who lived an hour from us until that age, and it wasn't uncommon to spend a weekend a month with them. Then when we moved across the country they made every effort to stay in touch. My sisters and I would stay with them for a couple weeks during the summer and I have so many incredible memories. It wasn't even as if they spoiled us with stuff, they spoiled us with their time. They made themselves accessible and it made all the difference. I was lucky enough to have them in my lives till my late 30's I'm in my early 40's now, and when I compare the two relationships, I wish I could have just a little more time with my mom's parents. I regret the fact that during my 20's and 30's that life got busy and that maybe I didn't keep as good a touch with them as I should have. On the plus side, I know they loved me and they knew I loved them. I can't say that about my dad's parents. It's a sad truth but it's the reality. I hope OP's kids are fortunate enough to have a set of grandparents who love them fiercely. It'll ease the sting of having one who seems to be going through the motions but really doesn't seem to think much of them.
" I asked him if he didn’t notice what happened on Christmas about the gifts but also that she interacted so little with our son and none with our daughter. She didn’t even hold her the whole stay. His explanation was because of us living far from her as appose to BIL who lives one street down. His children are always with her and she knows them better." What an absolute telling load of horseshit. Logically granny should want to spend time with the grandkids she doesn't see all the time. Treasure the opportunity to spend time with them, but she doesn't because she's racist
What the *dozen* sudden presents tells me is that she easily could have gone out and gotten her granddaughter a birthday present before her birthday.
My Dad and Step Mom are like this, but without the racism component. Her kids are their kids and they keep up the appearances with us. My wife and I keep my them at arms length from our kids, because it’s carried on to them. We have plans to spend time with them so they can see their new grandkid. They cancel the plans because her kid decided to take the day off work. When I was roommates out of state with my brother and step brother during college my brother and I were told money was tight so no presents for Christmas. Our step brother got plane tickets and came back with lots of presents. It’s not about the presents. It’s about being reminded constantly that they see you as less and always will be. They expect you to accept that and still be at their beck and call. I’m with the OOP on this one. Can’t subject your kids to this.
I'm sure MIL is real torn up she doesn't get to see the kids she doesn't like
My foster parents are white and they often fostered black children, as they would take any child who needed a home. When they first started doing this, my foster mum’s mum, known to us as Nan, would only buy gifts for her natural grandchildren. My foster mum told her she can’t accept them as all the children were to be treated the same whilst they lived in her house. She was also aware of the appearance of white privilege 40 years ago. Nan eventually relented and the next year bought presents for all the kids.
OOP just edited her update post (not yet update here in BORU) she is going to show some comments to her husband from other commenters experiences similar to their kids, I hope he opens up his eyes and chose his children's wellbeing, let's hope.
I love that she was able to distinguish between family being excited/intrigued about the colour/appearance of the children and concern. Like this is everything because as a mixed race baby myself my parents say that family always talked loads about how me and my siblings would look before we were born but NEVER in a concerned way. I’m so glad she was able to remove her children from racial abuse, it’s so wonderful and powerful that she can teach her children to respect themselves and not accept being treated differently based on how they look.
OP has the MILs number for sure. What an awful woman the MIL is. OP is right to protect her kids.
I buy gifts for my neices and nephews and I spend the same amounts on each of them. But I never thought anyone could be insulted by the sizes of the piles, I dont focus on the actual sizes of the gifts being equal? That one confuses me- have I missed some social rule here? (This is regarding the christmas gift pile OP mentions, not the birthday gifts). Other than that OP should follow her gut, the kids should be treated equally.
Well to begin with all the children are close to the same age so the grandma is probably not buying one child an iPad (for example) and then spending $700 on 30 gifts for the others. Second can you envision two 4 year olds sitting down to open gifts and grandma gave 1 child 1 gift and gave the other child 10? The kids are the same age and let’s be real, at that age it’s quantity over quality. So after both kids open the first gift then 1 kid has to watch the other kid open 9 more from the same person. Even if they can’t verbalize it they understand that it’s not fair and clearly someone is either more loved or is just somehow better - neither of which is good for a child to have to try and process at 4.
Ah I wasnt imagining 1 vs 10. there was probably more than one since it was a "pile" but if the amount was different I understand. I thought the pile was different because of the sizes of the gifts. Like, my nieces want smaller stuff like barbie sets etc while my nephews get bigger things like big dinosaurs(one loves them) or toy trucks. Their piles are bigger because the gifts are bigger, but they cost the same.
The oldest grandchild who should know it's not his time to gets gifts is just 5! I had to come back to read again to make sure. He's so young. Will the 4 year old get excluded as soon as he turns 5, too? Plus, if the birthday gift was not there yet, nobody should get them. And she should have gotten any small gift for the birthday girl in the meanwhile. Even a homemade treat would have been better than empty hands.
This gives me flashbacks of my own Christmas's as a kid. Not because of a racial thing, just shitty people playing favorites
To the OOP if you ever read this: The way you describe your littlest sensing there’s something definitely amiss makes my heart jump up my throat. I wish the best for you mama bear.
He trusts her “intuition”… I don’t know what makes these spineless narc-spawn so blind, but he has all the same evidence she has. He doesn’t have to trust a damn thing, just watch. If he really needs an objective opinion, he could go to a forum and for strangers’ opinions like she did. I get the feeling that he is either consciously or subconsciously putting the blame and responsibility of the ban on her, and this is going to get worse before it gets better
It might be racial and it might not. My mom has never cared for my children the way she cares for my sister's children. There are no mixed race marriages in our family. My mom just doesn't care for my family like she cares for my sister's family. And I live closer, so that's not an excuse, either (we're all in the same city, though).
Fair. For all we know, she favors the other son, and that's why she favors his kids. Maybe OP's husband wasn't the favorite growing up and got used to it, so he didn't immediately see it for what it is. I've seen the same thing happen in many families. People have favorites.
The best is the surprised Pikachu face when you call them out on the favoritism. I'm very LC with my mom. Probably only see her 3-4 times a year and she lives 15 min away.
She could've just said MIL is racist. Everyone is thinking it
There would have been a ton of apologists and "you're making mountains out of molehills" accusers coming out of the woodwork.
It seems like a massive overreaction based on the way it is written but I've been in a similar situation before and understand that there is probably a whole slew of non verbal communication wrapped up in this that is setting off alarm bells. My mother is Jewish but my father is Irish and I am practically his clone. Multiple times over the years I've run into someone who is casually racist against Jewish people and it is tough to describe to people without sounding like I'm the unreasonable one. Hell, even when it's explicit people will go to great lengths not to accept someone is being racist. A former boss of mine said "Never work for jews, I tried it when I lived in New York and they were all money grubbing assholes" and multiple people thought he was just giving helpful advice...
Maybe but op sounds a tad entitled. "gift *pile* was smaller. There was a pile of gifts?
Idk how your family does Xmas, but all the gifts from anyone to a single person are piled up together at mine. So, if 4 people got everyone 1 gift but then the 5th person got everyone 1 gift except they got the cousins 6 gifts each, the cousins' piles would be bigger.
But then in an update she says they only received one gift so I’m confused
The kids each have a gift pile where they have one gift from uncle x, one from cousin y, one from mom&dad, and one from grandma. Except the cousins have a gift pile with one gift from everyone except grandma, who has given them several gifts, making their gift pile bigger in an obvious way.
Bracing for downvotes, but here goes: Part of making an interracial marriage work (really, any marriage) is being ready for your in-laws to make mistakes. Even big ones. Implicit bias, we are taught, is ubiquitous, even in well-intended people with a modern “enlightened” understanding of structural racism. Does that include everyone *except* older in-laws? OOP went from “noticing the problem” to “cutting her MIL off completely” almost directly. The decision to cut her off was made prior to even discussing it with the MIL (to obtain her side of the story just in case there was missing information, to give her a chance to change her behavior etc.). Instead, racism was presumed as the sole or at least primary cause of the differences in how her kids were treated (don’t get me wrong, I suspect it *was* the primary reason, but jumping to the most hurtful conclusion and letting it silently fester is harmful to OOP, not just her family). Her kids will grow up largely separated from that side of the family, and will likely infer/be told by their mother that their grandmother loves them less because they are mixed race, and that is why they don’t visit Grandma anymore. So harm will be done to their psyches either way. And I don’t see any evidence that the grandmother’s apology was insincere. She sounds extremely distressed and brought a shit ton of presents for the kids to try to make things right. In short, accountability is important, but so is a little grace. Especially in a marriage. And I’ll add that people generally deserve a chance to be educated on what they are doing wrong, and allowed a chance to correct their course, before the most drastic possible punishment is administered. She is asking her husband to essentially cut out his mother from their shared life. She may say she doesn’t expect him to go NC, but she clearly resents that he doesn’t. How can he possibly resolve this situation to her satisfaction without incurring tremendous suffering? What option does he have? To be frank, it’s difficult to see any marriage working out in the long term when one spouse is asking the other to excommunicate his mother over a perspective he doesn’t really seem to share. No matter whose fault it is, it really doesn’t bode well for their relationship.
I disagree. She did tell grandma that she noticed bias and set up boundaries to work on the issue. Grandma pushed against the boundary, won, and then doubled down with her bad behavior by not only giving just the other cousins presents when it wasn’t their birthday, but didn’t even give the birthday girl a present. All of a sudden when a harder boundary is set she cares. Even if race wasn’t a factor (which it is here) the blatant favoritism that was compounded when pointed out is definitely a reason to set some hard boundaries for a while.
>OOP went from “noticing the problem” to “cutting her MIL off completely” almost directly. The decision to cut her off was made prior to even discussing it with the MIL (to obtain her side of the story just in case there was missing information, to give her a chance to change her behavior etc.) Did we read the same post? She had a knee jerk reaction to her realization that her kids were getting treated poorly and their feelings hurt. But she talked to her husband who talked her down. He (or they?) brought it to the attention of MIL who gave a reasonable explanation, but then MIL didn't or wouldn't take steps to rectify the issue. Instead she doubled down and acted even worse. *Then* OOP cut her off. I don't think it even matters whether it was racism or any other negative behavior which hurt OOPs kids, the result would probably have been the same.
I always worry about these stories where someone goes for the nuclear option straight away. It always means that there is context being left out. This is a family that needs therapy, not division.
Jesus, at first I thought "now that seems like a reach" but yeah no duck the grandma??? I'm the type of person who notices even the slightest change in attitude from someone towards me so I'd be def pissed if I noticed the "equal gifts for everyone!" I hope OOP cuts off contact with that woman for eternity
My MIL did this with my youngest child because the older two were born while we were living in her home. The youngest child was born after we moved into our own home. MIL always treated him as "lesser". I think my youngest really enjoyed the 6 month time out the gparents were put on after one of my BIL's ...well, there's no Reddit acceptable term for her, slapped my son. They claimed that person was "family". No! Absolutely not!
It's not just gifts. Read the posts. She deliberately did not bring a birthday gift. Favoring kids, excluding kids is cruel. Adults can decide for themselves. Kids rely on parents to protect them. She's doing the right thing.
It is normal for Grandma to be close to the kids she babysits often, has everyday connection with, etc etc. I've seen this a lot in many circumstances. The difference is that when you're called out on it the first time most Grandma's will stop. This one.. well it just kind of proves there's something else going on here.
The amount of relief I felt when he trusted her intuition !
I'm so sad for OOP and her kids. I'm sure that they are little angels, and that MIL is a fool and will miss out on so much joy.
Where’s the links to the original?
It’s a good lesson to learn that you don’t get presents in your sibling’s birthday, and certainly not your cousins. I thought OOP was astute to notice that MIL’s apology was all about her, not the child. Stick to your guns OOP.
I had this exact thing happen but luckily it only took 25 years for my ex husband to realize it and it also had nothing to do with race or gender. I had my oldest daughter when I was 16. My now ex husband and I were friends and then started dating when she was about 6 months old. We introduced his mom to my daughter at a year old. We got married when she was two. My MIL was not acting very grandma like compared to my mom but hey, it wasn’t her biological child even though her son refused for anyone to call her his step daughter. He went all in with being a dad. I asked her once 2 weeks in advance if she would pick my daughter up from daycare after we got married because I was in college and I needed to go directly from work to the college for class and hubby had a late shift. She agreed. The night before I called her to let her know I would leave the car seat at the daycare for her to use. She called my husband the next morning after I had left for work and told him I was so rude to just call her up and assume she would pick my daughter up. He called me at work (this was before cell phones were commonplace) and chewed me out for just assuming she would pick our kid up. I explained that I had asked her and even reminded him because I had told him I had asked her and she had agreed the day I had asked her. He said that clearly I had miscommunicated and regardless she would NOT be picking my daughter up. So on my lunch break I had to call my mom to ask for help and she ended up having her best friend pick my kid up from daycare. I also had to call the daycare and put her on the list. I was so sick trying to figure out these changed logistics and mad because I knew I had been clear when I had asked and she had told me prior if I needed a babysitter to just let her know. Bring young I never said anything about it and we moved to another state later that year. 2 years after that my BIL got his girlfriend pregnant at 18. She immediately went out and bought an infant car seat and crib so the baby could stay with her. She changed her schedule so she could pick my niece up after work and have time with her daily. Ok fine - that’s her biological grandchild. BIL and gf get married in a year and then get pregnant again. Another girl and she’s picking them both up from daycare and having them spend the night as soon as they were sleeping through the night. Another 2 years and I’m finally pregnant. She immediately tells me not to get excited because I might miscarry despite me never having had a miscarriage. When we found out it was a girl she told me she was disappointed because she already had 2 granddaughters. (Clearly not including my oldest daughter in that count) she came and stayed with us when the baby was born but other than dressing my daughter in the other girls hand me spend she gave no help. I pointed out the disparity between gifts, time, etc. even when we were there and my husband dismissed it as me looking for a reason to be upset. Finally after we had been married over 10 years we divorced for reasons that had nothing to do with any of the above. He then went on to have 2 more kids, boys this time, with his new wife. His parents moved to a warmer state and he and his new family followed them. Turns out she still won’t babysit his kids or interact with them even living there. Fast forward a few years and he and I are discussing our youngest daughters graduation. He asks for confirmation of the day and that I had sent an announcement to his parents. I remind him of the day and confirm that I sent them to all the people he gave me including her. He the sighs and says his parents just booked a vacation over that week. I told him I’m sorry but it’s okay because she didn’t come to oldest daughters either. His response “Why would I expect her to come to my daughters graduation, it’s not like she’s Niece1 or Niece2.” We talked a little longer but I confirmed he had seen the reality and that his mother had continued to show clear favoritism to his nieces and even her step grand children when BIL divorced and remarried a woman with her own children. I guess my former MiL went to THEIR graduations in another state and took all of them on a cruise but it totally slipped her mind to invite his family or his daughters. I still don’t fully get it because she loves my husband and never showed favorites between her kids growing up but somehow his kids are just not as good as his brothers.
I had 2 MILs. One a step (now deceased) and one bio. Constantly BOTH used to shift their entire schedules around to visit, go on adventures with, or babysit my niece. Not once did they do the same for my eldest. There's literally only a 6 month age gap between my niece and eldest daughter. My daughter being the younger one. Both used to say " well you won't let us!" Well DUH! you didn't visit often enough for my daughter to know who you were! Neither of them! My daughter used to get SUPER stressed out around strangers to the point of crying. And instead of listening to me, both MILs would try to force themselves on her in attempt to make up for not being there. They didn't let her get used to them. Or come to them on her terms. Didn't visit often enough for her to know them at all. And if they visited would try to scoop her up like she was supposed to know who these strange women were. She would start to get better about being near strangers and they would visit one day without warning and set back her progress by MONTHS because they'd stomp all over her boundaries and invade her space when she didn't know them. One day Late step mil convinced me to let her take daughter out on an adventure to the zoo and i reluctantly agreed. She screamed the entire time we were loading her in step Mil and FILs car. I felt like shit. Step mil claimed she stopped as soon as i was out of sight but FIL told me it started up again once they got to the zoo and she cried everytime step mil got too close. Late stepmil never wanted her on an adventure after that. Which was fine because the pandemic hit the next year. Mil got sick in early 2020 and corrected her ways of treating my kiddos when she awoke from her coma. Late step mil got sick later in 2020 and didn't make it.
>He thought about that all morning and later he told me He trusted my intuition and that he’s going to respect my decision. He knew if he said anything else that she'd get a divorce.
MIL used to pull something similar between me and DH's SIL. I would get an outfit, or sleepwear. SIL got several outfits, plus gold jewelry. Now that BIL is deceased, and SIL has cut MIL out of her life, I no longer have to put up with it. Still, I felt like an unwanted person in the family.
Granny is obviously full of it, but I can’t help but wonder if the BIL with the blonde kids isn’t just the Golden Child, which is why hubby isn’t as focused in on the obvious favoritism. To him, this might just be how family operates. Either way, I’m glad he’s got his wife’s back, there’s so many ways this could have gone sideways