Carolyn Hax: Forgive, ignore Grandma’s power trip
Carolyn: My grandmother has always played favorites with me and my sister and made it painfully obvious that she disapproves of me. This has been going on since I was a child, and I am now 27. When I was 6, I wrote a letter to my mother while my sister and I were staying at my grandmother’s house, detailing how “yucky” grandmother was and begging my mother to come get me. My grandmother had been treating me badly and also badmouthing my mother. I accidentally left the letter in the typewriter, and my grandmother found it. I have made numerous attempts to win the love of my grandmother since, but it never happened and her behavior escalated after The Letter. Her recent birthday card to me contained a jab about my husband and me, about “not having a plan for your life,” and it really bothered me. I want to clear the air and tell her that I won’t take her abuse any longer, but it feels cruel to tell off an old woman. What should I do? – The “Other” Granddaughter
No, no. Cruel is mistreating a 6-year-old. Telling off an old woman, or at least this old woman, is merely pointless.
It’s almost impossible to imagine what would motivate a grandparent to show love to one baby but not another. But we have to try, because there are two things I can promise you: that Grandma isn’t going to let you “clear the air,” and that you’ll need to put this monster to rest on your own. And to do that, it’s essential to understand how monsters behave.
No one has exactly the same love for everybody. People who care about the well-being of small children (or grown ones, for that matter) not only recognize the unevenness of their feelings, but also take great care not to betray it. They may show different love for different children, but not more or less, not in any way they can control.
So from this we can deduce not only the obvious – that Grandmother Dearest is not concerned with your well-being – but also the less obvious: that she wasn’t looking out for your sister’s, either. Playing favorites breeds resentment among siblings that hardly benefits them.
Which leaves us with Grandmother Dearest looking out for only herself. In its sick way, playing favorites does give her a boost – she gets an easy bond with the favored one, and the needy, unflagging attention of the unfavored one. Case in point: You’re 27 with no feelings for her except pain and resentment, and you’re still bucking for her approval.
Stop. Stop granting her this power. This isn’t about your deficiencies, real or perceived, in her eyes or yours – it’s about her need for the cheap gratification of having power over somebody else. It’s a need so strong she played mind games with children to satisfy it, probably as someone else did to her, forging a need so basic she probably can’t even see it.
But you can recognize it, and stop feeding it, with attention or anger. Don’t tell her, tell yourself you won’t take her abuse any more. See the monster, know it, understand it. Then, decline to engage with it. Forgive it even. And don’t pass it down to your kids.