<p>botw, the question you ask in post #26 (whether you should accept or decline the offer of a bed whose structure doesn’t work in your space, whose style doesn’t fit your taste, which was custom-designed to reflect the interests of a different child and is not easily adapted to any other child) is entirely different from the questions you posed in post #1.</p>
<p>The answer to the question in post #26 is that you should decline the offer (of what the MIL may see as a potential family heirloom/keepsake) saying how much you appreciate it but that the bed isn’t right for your space.</p>
<p>The answer to the questions in post #1 have nothing to do with a piece of furniture and everything to do with past family dynamics and what you want to set up as future family dynamics (to the extent you can influence them).</p>
<p>I didn’t have in-law problems, so I can’t help there. Others have provided thoughts.</p>
<p>I also never knew my grandparents. I would have liked to. From everything I can see from those around me who had grandparents and those who are grandparents, I missed something very special. If I were you I’d focus on what you can do to help create that or at least not get in the way of it.</p>
<p>First - ellebud’s ILs are / were toxic, terrible people. But that is not the situation that babyontheway is describing.</p>
<p>I know it galls you, BOTW, to perceive that they are spending more money on the other grandchildren than on your daughter. But I beg of you, listen to musicamusica and cartera and others on here – let it go. Don’t keep score. Find the place inside yourself where you can accept that you have no control over their actions, no control over how they spend their money, and that the only person you have control over is yourself. </p>
<p>My parents were the type that were always scrupulously fair between my sister and me. My H’s parents were not always fair. I spent the first 10 or so years of my marriage dutifully keeping score, and seething if I perceived that H / I didn’t get as nice of an anniversary gift as his siblings (or whatever). It was SO not worth it. All it did was drive me mad. Once I got to the place that I could truly accept that they were going to do what they were going to do and I didn’t need to let it affect me – it was like a weight lifted, I was so much happier.</p>
<p>I beg of you, don’t keep score. It won’t change anything.</p>
<p>Adding: If their desire is truly to play favorites and show you that you are the unfavored ones … well, they’ll win if they perceive that you’re aware of the discrepancy.</p>
<p>And BOTW, this isn’t about the aesthetics of the bed not being to your liking. Come on now. Be honest with yourself. If it was simply that they offered you a bed that was not to your taste, you would have said no thanks and not posted about it. You’re jealous that they made an elaborate gift for your niece without making such an elaborate gift for your daughter.</p>
<p>BOTW, I may have missed this. Do you have siblings? Are there grandparents from your side of the family? Favoritism that you perceive there as well?</p>
<p>The in-laws in my family (brother and sister’s spouses) never could understand my mother’s philosophy, which is that she does play favorites. Her favorite child is whichever one needs her most at the time. YOu’d have to look at the pattern of a lifetime to see that it does balance out, but at any snapshot in time you might perceive something unfair. My mom babysat my kids when they were little because I worked while my sister didn’t. My brother had serious money trouble, so my mother did many things for them financially that she didn’t do for anyone else because we didn’t have that need. My sister was widowed last year and my mother has been spending time with and tasking my sister in a way that she doesn’t for the rest of us. Because my sister is, for the first time (she married very wealthy and always lived a charmed life until her husband died much too young) the child in greatest need, the outside perception would be that she is the favorite. Right now she is, but I carry with me the gratitude for my mother providing the safest and most loving childcare possible, and my brother knows that his wife would have spent them into homelessness if my mother hadn’t bailed them out, and out of his gratitude he has become responsible and secure. I’m much luckiier in my birth parents than in my in-laws!</p>
<p>Okay, here is the thing. You need to be able to differentiate the actions of others that ACTUALLY effect your child from the actions that YOU perceive as a slight to your child. In other words, the situations that Ellebud reports were situations that delivered FIRST HAND damage to her children because her children understand the slights and feel the sting. This situation that you describe is not effecting your baby. You need to be able to recognize the difference for the sake of your child and her relationships with her grandparents. This relationship may or may not flourish but whether it does or it doesn’t shouldn’t be decided by the chip you have on your shoulder.</p>
<p>This is a bit off topic, but it reminds me of an article I read where a mother said (gasp!) - “Of course I have a favorite child. Every parent does”. </p>
<p>But then she went on to explain that the favorite status rotated around, depending on which kid was at an easier phase of childhood and in better spirits.</p>
<p>Thanks guys for your post. I see I have a clear path that I need to do:</p>
<p>1) Make sure that my children can have a good relationship with their grandmother and do my best ensure that any inequality in treatment doesn’t impact their relationship with their grandmother.</p>
<p>2) Try to identify something special, unique, and on-going in our family that we can talk about with the grandmother so she can talk with us about things besides the issues the other parents face.</p>
<p>Actually, more importantly, our kids take their cues from us more than you might realize. Try to really be open and understanding the people love and give by their abilities that may not be as even and generous as we might wish. Try to be more loving and understanding about the warts in those we love and/or are related to. This helps our children to understand that there is good to be found in many situations which will stand them in good stead as the face future challenges.</p>
<p>people who do “relationship math” have a difficult time stopping keeping score. But, the first step in this process is to simply and resolutely look only at what you are “getting” and not what you are not getting.</p>
<p>That is first step in developing a postive balance sheet for those who keep score. One step at a time, you can move away from this one orientation of lack and towards the orientation of prosperity. Anyway, as was shown in quantum physics years ago, the nature of what you see will be determined by what it is you are looking for. Good luck.</p>
<p>BOTW, as I mentioned, my cousins received more gifts, but I was the one who played Scrabble and braided rugs with her. My grandmother believed in taking a nap every day and I had to nap with her. She would take her hair out of the bun and let it hang off the side of the bed so I could brush it right before we napped - one of my favorite memories. When the time came for family members to choose a memento, I chose that silver brush and comb set. Perhaps your children can come up with rituals or hobbies or just fun things to do with grandmother.</p>
<p>OP, I hope you’re really listening to the good advice here about not keeping score. You’re young enough to save yourself years of heartache, while most of us had to learn the hard way. And some people, like my sister, never learn. </p>
<p>Growing up, I also was the capable one and so didn’t “need” as much, my parents thought. My seven-years-older sister had had a horrible accident right before I was born, and my mom is convinced that that accident has been the cause of all the “problems” my sister has (she also thought the stress she underwent while I was still in utero is why I’m “different”). When I was in my 20s, their relationship use to drive me mad. I’m not sure why mom couldn’t see the messes my sister got herself in – financial and emotional – were of her own making. But a mom is a mom, and my sister got a lot out of being the “victim” and I decided to just separate myself from their co-dependent relationship. At 24, I moved three hours away to put some physical and emotional distance between myself and them. The physical distance allowed me to not let the day-to-day stuff get to me, and I was much happier despite the fact that the “favoritism” continued long distance (Ex: My parents gave my sister a token amount toward a down payment for her house; I got nothing). My sister, meanwhile, remains miserable. And now her 20-something son is the “victim” – she thinks my sons are my parents’ favorites and is jealous of them, doesn’t give them birthday or Christmas presents when they’ve done nothing wrong. </p>
<p>NO. You haven’t heard us if this is what you think we said. You need to stop keeping track of the inequality in the first place. Stop keeping score. Accept that these people aren’t perfect and have their flaws, and let it not be your problem. If you hear they gave your niece some fancy gift, say “Great! Hope she enjoys it!” and LET IT GO, instead of mentally tallying up whether they spent the same amount on your daughter. Rise above it all.</p>
<p>When we are not satisfied with who we are inside, we are more likely to get caught up in external measures of worth.
Find what it takes to make you feel like you are living your values & you will have an easier time raising your child to find their place in the world.</p>
<p>Note: I want to agree with most posters on one thing: do not keep score. Be aware (if certain behavior continues) that you child is not a “favorite” and make your child(ren) know that they are loved by the most important people in the world: the parents. But also do not let your child (should the second hand rose stuff continue) think that are only worth seconds, if the seconds are unwanted.</p>
<p>The answer as to what we did when my in laws acted up: We removed our family from the situation. We went years without seeing my in laws. After my fil’s death my mil wanted to set things “right”. Not the way you’re thinking: she wanted us to have dinner(s) with the other side and to give her the mythical sense of “family”. Three different dinners (including her ninety) and …well, not so much. The good news: my kids sized up the other side (who thought that they were complimentary that my kids didn’t look Jewish) and found them lacking. THEY don’t like their “aunt and uncle”. Kind of awkward when the uncle asks my son and my daughter to read scripts for representation. REALLY awkward when the sil tells my youngest family secrets that should never be told.</p>
<p>Consensus from my kids: (obviously they know the history so there is some prejudice) classless duo with delusions of grandeur.</p>
<p>I don’t keep score about things. I know the score about them.</p>
<p>Well, I think botw’s post #68 is a nice step in the right direction from someone who is getting at least some of what is being said here.</p>
<p>Isn’t your child practically a newborn? So there’s really no way to know if there is “inequality in treatment.” So far, you’ve noticed differences in material gifts. But as your child grows, it may turn out that she and her grandmother have a special bond. They may, due to personality traits, end up being closer than any other grandchild with this grandmother. Who’s to predict? But if this were to happen - and wouldn’t that be wonderful? - there will be “inequality of treatment” if they spend more time together, do certain special things together.</p>
<p>Will everyone be counting? Will there be an accounting system that weights time spent together vs. gifts given and their monetary value? I imagine you can probably see the silliness, or possible destructiveness, of that.</p>
<p>When my MIL died last year, we had a very private “memorial” at the family cabin on the lake. Just family, no officiant. Anyone who wished to speak could do so. One of her adult grand daughters spoke of her memories of special times with her grandmother at the cabin - my SIL (her aunt) was taken aback and touched at the same time. She had no idea of the depth and specialness of the relationship between that granddaughter and grandma. So there is a lot that the “accounters” do not and cannot see.</p>
<p>jm’s story made me think of something else.</p>
<p>When I decided to move to get away from the dysfunction, I didn’t know that my mom blamed all of my sister’s issues on the long-ago head injury. I had come to accept the situation, but it was only about 6-7 years ago when I tried to talk to my mom about my feelings that I learned how much she attributes my sister’s poor decision-making and victim mentality to that accident. What do you say to that? I’m never going to convince her otherwise, and I’m not going to try. I’m a mom and understand how complex that relationship is. Since that day we’ve had lots of interesting conversations about her life (I knew she had to quit school after 8th grade, for instance, but I didn’t know why) and I just came to learn so much about my mom as a person. None of us can change the other; all we can change is our reaction to them. We don’t always know why people do the things they do, but I really believe that 99% of the time parents are trying to do what they think is right, whether it is or not.</p>
<p>It’s difficult, I know. Thankfully, I had a wonderful dh who helped me be kinder and less bitter. Be that for your wife (assuming she feels slighted, as you do).</p>