If having kids is a blessing, many elders agree that having grandchildren is even better.

There’s many reasons for this, but the fact that you can dote on your grandchildren, at a time in your life when your professional and personal responsibility load may have lightened too, is a real joy.

And the fact that you’re not really responsible for the tough parts of child-rearing (disciplining them, having to deal with them at their worst) adds even more sparkle to the situation.

The grandmother in this story was absolutely overjoyed to have a granddaughter, her eldest grandchild.

But her daughter-in-law noticed that over time, this joy didn’t seem to be matched in her approach to her younger grandsons.

Read on to find out how this situation came to a head.

WIBTA for turning down gifts from my mother-in-law because of favoritism towards my daughter?

I am a 33-year-old woman, and my husband (32, male) and I have three children together.

Our eldest (seven, female) is the only granddaughter in the family, but our boys are also the only grandsons.

I point this out because over the years, I have noticed obvious favoritism towards my daughter.

She is the only one my MIL calls to talk to, despite the fact that both boys speak just fine, at the age of five and three years old, respectively, and my daughter is the only child they’ve ever taken for even an afternoon out.

But the favoritism doesn’t stop there.

My daughter is also the only one that gets social media posts made about her for up to a month before her birthday, and her birthday gifts are things like big doll houses or something extremely personal to her interests.

My mother-in-law recently made a post about “missing her baby girl, oh and her brothers,” which to me makes it seem like the boys aren’t even her grandchildren. I really disliked the way they were just thrown in at the end of her post.

Last night I received a text from my mother-in-law, showing me gifts she had made for the three kids.

I immediately took issue with them.

Let’s see what was so wrong with the handmade gifts.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re extremely well made adorable crocheted characters. However my daughter’s is of course customized with one of her favorite characters, and the boys’ are just generic gingerbread men.

I don’t know if I’m just projecting my own childhood issues, or if it is favoritism. I’m also not sure if it’s simply that she’s the “oldest grandchild,” but unfortunately to me that’s still just unfair.

If you’re not going to put the extra effort in for my sons, then do the same for my daughter.

It is not fair for my boys to see their sister getting “special” gifts while they get matching generic gifts. Just do them all generic at that point.

Read on to find out how her husband feels about the situation with his parents.

My husband agreed with how it looks and always has, but also I don’t have an involved family so he isn’t keen on ruffling feathers with his ‘barely present but better than nothing family dynamic.’

Would I be wrong for saying thanks but no thanks to the gifts? My mother-in-law makes these and more for her vendor shows, and I would more than willingly accept even just a little girl gingerbread over the character-based one for my daughter.

WIBTA?

This is clear favoritism, and it’s something that if the boys haven’t picked up already, will upset them in the long run.

It’s not fair to show the extra special attention to the granddaughter whilst treating the grandsons like an afterthought, and it’s totally understandable that this mom took exception to that.

Perhaps the Grandma doesn’t know how she’s coming off, but it’s about time that she finds out.

Let’s see how folks on Reddit felt about this.

This person thought that a carefully-worded conversation with her mother-in-law would be the best way to go.

While others thought she’d be wrong to reject the gifts.

Meanwhile, this Redditor urged it to play it by ear, and tackle the problem only if her sons became upset.

It’s possible that the grandmother isn’t aware of the impression that she’s creating, or even dotes on her eldest grandchild for other reasons, perhaps never having had a daughter of her own.

She needs to know exactly how the attention looks though, so that she can rectify her approach if she isn’t intending it. If that’s the case, she’ll likely be mortified and determined to change her ways.

If she does deliberately favor the granddaughter, at least she’ll know that her family are onto her, and be given the opportunity to behave in a fairer way.

And if she doesn’t? That wouldn’t be very grandmotherly of her, now would it?

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.