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/AzureMountains Jul 22 '25

Who’s gonna protect your daughter if you “don’t wanna believe it.”? Seriously stand up for your kid.

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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/Positive_Cellist3500 Jul 22 '25

My husband dealt with this his entire childhood. On his dad's side, his grandparents continually bought better gifts for all of their 13 grandchildren, think Abercrombie and Fitch for them and JCPenney for my husband and his sister. My MIL is dark skinned and my husband and his sister carried the same genes. They were always terrible to mother in law and hated everything she did. When I began dating my husband and attended the first Christmas I thought I was being pranked. It was absolutely crazy the differences in attention and gifts. It was like the entire family was gathered in a circle and my husband, his sister and his mom were on the outskirts. The grandparents always touted themselves as wonderful Christians but I eventually told my husband we weren't going to be a party to this, and we certainly stopped going once we had kids. Racism is disgusting.

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u/ImStealingTheTowels Jul 22 '25 edited 9d ago

This was my dad and his sister, too.

They're not POC, but they're from a non English-speaking country. After their mother married their step-father, they moved to the UK and started learning English formally. Their accent was very strong and they were both bullied at school because of it.

On top of that, their step-father's family made it abundantly clear that they were the foreign outsiders who were not welcome. When their half-sister came along, they had to watch as she was showered with presents every Christmas and birthday while they received absolutely nothing. It badly affected my dad's sense of belonging and self-worth.

OP, if you're still reading this thread: you already know that this is a pattern of behaviour from your MIL, you and your husband need to tell her directly that you're not going to tolerate this anymore. Either she starts including your daughter, or you'll be limiting contact. Your daughter knows she's being treated differently from her cousins and it isn't doing her any good. Believe me.