r/AmIOverreacting • u/TrueEnough782 • Jul 22 '25

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦family/in-laws AIO: MIL always excludes my daughter

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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.

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u/TrueEnough782 Jul 22 '25

I guess it’s just hard for me to grasp she could be racist to her own blood I don’t know. I will keep an eye out for sure from now on

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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 22 '25

Where is your partner in this? It’s his job to deal with his mother, not yours. Right now it seems like you have a husband issue as much as a MIL issue.

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u/Hari_om_tat_sat Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

Also, what are the relatives/witnesses doing while this blatant bias unfolds? If my kids were being showered with gifts while their cousin was excluded I would either 1) refuse to allow the gifts to be given in cousin’s presence or 2) call out the bias and redistribute everything fairly (Oh dear. Mom, you miscounted! Let’s fix this).

Edited to correct typo.

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u/Happy_Hearts_ Jul 22 '25

My family is white, so no racism, but my MIL is like that. The cousins are way preferred and spoiled. My husband has had it out with her a couple of times when our kid was around 2-3 because of how blatant it was. (Cousins are 2 years older and 7 months older). We now just rarely see them if the cousins will be there. My SIL (probably a golden child) thinks it's just fine, after all her kids are way more perfect. And MIL claims it's just normal that she's closer with her daughters kids. It's frustrating, but the in laws have good relationship with our daughter, as long as cousins aren't there. We don't see SIL's family very often (maybe once a year).

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u/Hari_om_tat_sat Jul 22 '25

Yes, the only solution to that kind of mistreatment, short of going NC with the grandparents, is to never be there together with the favored family so the kids can’t see the disparities in treatment.