Sara - posted on 01/09/2010 ( 10 moms have responded )
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My MIL has 5 grandchildren. The two oldest are step-grandsons. The next is her first biological grandchild ( just over a year old) from her youngest daughter. Next her other daughter had a girl ( 9 months) and then I had her youngest with her son ( a boy 7 months old).
All of her grandchildren live within a ten minute drive except for my son. We live three hours away in another state because I'm in school. We plan to move closer once I finish and if I'm able to find a job around where she lives. These last holidays were my son's first Thanksgiving and Christmas and were very exciting times for my family. We just recently made the trip to visit my MIL for the holidays. We spent a great deal of money ( we can't stay with anyone because nobody has spare beds at their house) to spend three days near her and the rest of that side of the family.
My main issue is that we didn't even see family until the second day we were there and then my husbands oldest sister and her daughter only stayed for an hour and we only saw his mom and youngest sister for three hours. It seems rediculous to me to travel six hours round trip and spend hundreds of dollars for a three hour visit.
While we were visiting we exchanged Christmas presents. I already knew what the MIL had given her other grandchildren from seeing the pictures of their holiday get together. When my son started opening his presents everything he received seemed like things you'd buy at the dollar store. Plus he didn't receive any toys or things you would think a seven month old would receive. Instead everything he got were either not appropriate for a baby at all or were things he won't use for at least another year.
My MIL made the comment that she didn't know what kind of toys he would play with. Seriously? Seven month olds play with anything. She should have known to get him something age appropriate and that would have been fine. And of course she never bothered to ask us what to get for him.
I don't want to bring it up with my husband but it really seems like my MIL prefers her other grandchildren over our son and it really bothers me. Does anyone else have this issue?
And I'm not imagining things or trying to be materialistic about christmas presents. My son really is treated differently.
When she visited us in the hospital the third day after my son was born which was also the day I was being released from the hospital. Where I live children are not allowed in the maternity wing unless they are the children of the couple who just had the baby. We did not know this at the time. My MIL and SIL came to visit. My MIL waited in the waiting area with the three kids that they brought while my SIL visited us. She took pictures and told us how excited she was and acted excited for us. She left to allow the MIL to come visit, she spent the entire time complaining about how they wouldn't allow the kids into the room, she didn't take any pictures (even though she recorded the birth of the other two grand kids) or even congratulate us.
Also, since my son has been born we have been able to visit my MIL and the rest of the family around five times. Except for this last time my MIL has spent a total of maybe three hours with my son. She always seems to have some sort of excuse for not spending time with my son. The first time we went to visit she had us come over to her place about thirty minutes before she had to leave for work. The second time we visited she took one of her step-grandsons to a local fair that was in town during the time we were suppose to visit. We didn't see her at all during that trip because of it. Also, that evening while we were driving home she called and left us a message that she was so mad we didn't see her and how we shouldn't bother coming for Christmas because she didn't want to see us anymore.
The next visit was to go to my nephews first birthday. Once we got there she grabbed my son from us ( he had just woken up from a nap and was very unhappy) and started carting him around the room telling everybody that she had never seen him before (she actually said that to people) and how she wished we visited more often. My son ended up crying a few minutes into this and she refused to give him back. After maybe twenty minutes of this I got my son back and she didn't have anything else to do with him the entire time we were in town. The party was the first day of a three day stay in town.
My MIL is driving me crazy, before I got pregnant and while I was pregnant she expected us to drop everything we were doing everytime she wanted something and now she never has time for her own grandchild. It's rediculous.
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