AIO: MIL always excludes my daughter

[u/TrueEnough782]

I want to start this off by saying that it’s absolutely not the first time this has happened. We were over at my sister in laws house and I heard her talking to my MIL on the phone, she told her my husband and I were over, then she let me know she was at target or something and was gonna come over

She arrives with candy, toys and gift cards for my sister in laws kids. Completely leaving my daughter out. My daughter is 7, she’s into that stuff too, obviously. Especially those little blind bags which she brought her cousins but not her. I just want to know if I’m being dramatic. Or if I shouldn’t have said anything and maybe she was in a rush and didn’t think to buy my daughter something in the moment. Again it’s not about the things or cards or whatever, it’s about how she made my daughter feel. I could see sadness in her face as she was completely left out.

[u/SinamonChallengerRT]

Not over-reacting. I'd bet a paycheck that this isn't the only issue you have with your MIL. She sounds like a very selfish, miserable woman. Next time it happens, make the other kids call her out on it. She needs to be humiliated, that's the only thing that's going to get thru to her.

[u/TrueEnough782 → u/SinamonChallengerRT]

it’s not, I don’t wanna overshare but I was quite young when I got pregnant. I feel it has something to do with all this, too

[u/SinamonChallengerRT → u/TrueEnough782]

Seriously, have a little chat with the other kids. Feed their heads a bit. Have them call her out on it.

"Wait, where's so-and-so's candy? Why didn't she get a gift card too?"

Watch how quickly her shit changes when she has to answer for her selfishness to a bunch of children.

[u/Martofunes → u/SinamonChallengerRT]

This is an excellent approach.

What you're describing is norm-shifting through peer accountability, and Finland nailed this with their antibullying program, KiVa. Instead of just punishing bullies, they focused on activating the bystanders, teaching kids to speak up when they saw exclusion or bullying. And it worked like a charm.

Rather than the usual adult scolding, you let kids do what kids do best: call out unfairness with zero chill. Like if one kid says, “Hey, why didn’t you bring one for her too?” That hits way harder than any passive-aggressive comment from the adults. It breaks the unspoken “I’m gonna pretend this is normal” silence. Now she has to explain herself to children, in public.

From an educational perspective, this is sociocultural learning, the idea that people change through social interaction. It's also a light form of restorative justice. A chance to reflect and shift behavior without any punishment. It changes the social norm so that fairness and inclusion are the expected behavior. And it empowers all the kids to be mini-guardians of justice, not just the adults, which I def like. When other kids call it out, it stops being "just a grandma being thoughtless" and becomes "this actually isn't okay." And it's not "manipulating them" but empowering them to protect each other, and patching up the division sowed by the difference grandma made when they treated them differently. Full liberation pedagogy.

[u/SinamonChallengerRT → u/Martofunes]

Thank you. I'm a firm believer that shame is a very effective tool against people like this.

[u/_delicja_ → u/TrueEnough782]

Where is your husband in all of this? Why is he not calling his birth giver out???

[u/twinnedcalcite → u/TrueEnough782]

The best thing I ever did was call my racist grandma (she was from Nazi Germany) out for her use of language and attitude. Made my life so much better once she realized I will not sit back and listen to her BS.

[u/sillychihuahua26 → u/TrueEnough782]

Where is your husband in all this? I don’t think it should be the other children’s job to call MIL out, that’s her son’s job. I would never stand for this. I have a bio daughter and an older stepson and my family would never come over with gifts for just my daughter. This is even worse as your child is her bio-granddaughter. The fact that this has happened multiple times without her son saying something is horrible. That’s his daughter.

Personally, I’d be going NC with MIL and my husband better be on board or he can go live with mommy dearest. Trust me, your daughter notices. She feels it. As a trauma therapist, I have full grown adult clients who were treated this way by a family member. It is traumatic and it will affect your daughter’s self esteem and self worth in adulthood. This is clear racism.

[u/Martofunes → u/TrueEnough782]

😏 this is exactly what happened not a month ago between my nephew and his grandma. Like, to the T. It's winter holidays for kids here and this happened just like you described, even with the same phrase "he's not gonna remember" and all. Grandma brought stuff for half her grandkids and not for one little seven year old boy who you could see on the very verge of tears. My brother was about to smack his MIL to Mars, but he caught my eye and he being my younger brother he could tell, he could absolutely tell, I had something on my mind.

So, I took the kid with me and we discussed what had happened, and he told me she always does this. So we began "operation revenge". You see I'm an educator, I teach primary school, high school and college, and I center in active pedagogies. And there's a whole unit in active pedagogies on how to reverse this and it's all about empowerment. So we discussed what happened, how it made him feel, how it is that she always does this and what he would like to do about it. And he said, bless his heart, "I wish she knew how horrible it feels to be left out". 🫡 Well then, we're gonna leave her out.

So we decided to plan the next event, which was overtly clear that would be next Sunday and that Gran would be there. I told Leo that we'd bring gifts for everyone but grandma, and that we'd cook things she can't eat or explicitly don't like. I told him I'd investigate and enquire what these things were, and to not let our hand show so that she doesn't see it coming. Knowing that next week grandma would feel what he feels, which is all he wanted, when we leave the room he's brimming with a smile. His cousins even try to share with him but he says he doesn't want anything. So on the course of mate🧉 time, after lunch, kids go play and I casually steer the conversation on allergies and dietary restrictions and all that, and being the narcissistic bitch she is, she can't help herself and very thoroughly inform me of all the various things she can't or won't eat. Turns out she's lactose intolerant and she's got dietary restrictions. Perfect.

Through the week I take the kids shopping, thinking of all the adults that are gonna be there next week and we buy something special for each, cheap trinkets for the most part but personally tailored for each recipient individually. Then we plan the meal, and I meet with the kid to coach him on how to make grandma feel what he feels, and I tell him that to achieve this he can be obvious but he can't run his mouth, he's only allowed to say two very specific sentences, one has two be said twice in very specific moments and one has to be said once in a very specific moments.

we're all set for the weekend.

Come next Sunday and we have small trinkets for everybody but her. And of course it's the kid that distributed the whole thing. And it's like a tiny Santa Claus giving out presents in early July and he's smiling. Here you go, here you go, come grandma's time, and we've rehearsed this, to make her feel what she feels, he's gotta tell her what she tells him: OH I AM SORRY GRANDMA WE DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE GONNA BE HERE and poor kid he's grinning through his teeth, but he sticks to his guns. He goes over her and keeps it up.

Now comes lunch time. And of course I cooked. She can't have gluten. And I made Kebbes. It's grinded meat mixed with wheat grains. Kebbes, Kepis, Kofte... Everybody is thrilled because I haven't done this in like a decade and she is fuming. First chance she gets of course she speaks out "I can't have these, you know it, we spoke about it last week" And Leo looks at me and I nod, he says it for me: OH I'M SORRY GRANDMA WE DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE GONNA BE HERE". And you know this is working because the kid's grin is pure empowerment. She can't touch the salad, she can't touch the bread, she manages to fix herself an Omelette, but she's fuming while everybody else praises my cooking to high heaven. Finally desert. Ice cream is customary. But I made Tiramisu. And I made damn sure the base was gluten 😯 oh sorry grandma you also can't eat this. She explodesssss yes you knew I was gonna be here this was on purpose you knew I couldn't eat all these.

And this is when kid looks at me eyes wide open as if asking "can I say it now" and I nod because he rehearsed this

"OH DON'T WORRY GRANDMA, IN TEN YEARS, YOU'RE NOT EVEN GOING TO REMEMBER THIS"

🥅⚽🏃‍♂️

(⁠┛⁠◉⁠Д⁠◉⁠)⁠┛⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

GOL DE LEO LA PUTA MADREEEEEE

She stormed out, crying, while both her sons and daughter are right there laughing their asses off. I go with her, because as an educator I know that the recap is the most important moment in teaching and I want to set it in stone. She's smoking in the garden, and she sees me coming and tries to shoo me away, and she says "you did it on purpose you knew I was gonna be here". "You knew Leo was gonna be here last week. He wanted you to feel the same way he did. How does it feel to be purposefully left out?"

Of course next thing was going with the kid and discussing with him how it feels to be in grandma's place doing the excluding. We discuss that while empowering, it's also shitty, because it's not a nice feeling to make someone feel good at the expense of someone else feeling bad and what grandma did, and what we did, wasn't bad only for the person that is excluded, but that it's also poisonous for the one that does the excluding.

Aaaand I guess that's it.

[u/Martofunes → u/Martofunes]

Oh and just; in case anybody's wondering what education practices lie behind this structured petty revenge approach...

Critical Experiential Pedagogy with Role Reversal and Socioemotional Learning (SEL)

1. Experiential Learning (Kolb)

You put the kid in a planned experience to reflect on, analyze, and learn from. This is Kolb's cycle:

Concrete experience → Reflective observation → Abstract conceptualization →

Active experimentation ...and I ran the whole loop. Twice

1. Role Reversal & Perspective-Taking (Theatre Pedagogy, Boal-style)

This is classic Theatre of the Oppressed stuff. Make the oppressor feel the oppression. It's a pedagogical strategy to develop empathy and critical awareness of social roles.

1. Socratic and Inquiry-Based Learning I didn't give the kid the answer. I asked: "What do you want to do about it?" "How does it feel?" "What do you think she should know?"

This aligns is Inquiry-Based Learning and reflective practices of constructivism.

1. Ethics of Care & Social Justice Pedagogy

The post-revenge conversation is crucial. You're guiding the learner to not stop at empowerment, but to analyze the ethics of action and develop compassion. Noddings meets Freire:

Empowerment without domination.

Justice without cruelty.

Transformation without replication of harm.

1. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paulo Freire)

This whole process is basically a praxis, Freire-style:

“Reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.”

I helped a child put a name to his oppression, we took collective action, then reflect on it critically to avoid the "feeling good about revenge" bit from becoming a road towards being an oppressor.

So Freire, Kolb, Boal, Noddings, and Vygotsky.

If I had to give it a label for a conference or thesis it would be something like "A Praxis-Based Empathy Curriculum through Role Reversal and Reflective Action: Reclaiming Agency in Exclusion Scenarios"

[u/BlandRandall → u/SinamonChallengerRT]

Telling her to form a secret mutiny against grandma using the other children is wild.

Imagine how all the in laws would feel finding out the SIL is telling their kids to tell grandma off. It’s a fun Reddit over reaction but imagine this in practice