[Leslie]

Originally Posted by sara1215

That's what I'm afraid of, that saying something would make it worse.

My thought is that the favoring grandparent is often blind to what's going on. You, as the parent of the non-favored cousin, may be seen as overly sensitive or whining, which could make your own children less appealing, because often favoritism or not is an extension of a favored child.

My grandparents loved boys. They had two boys - my father, who was very responsible and upstanding, and then six years later, another little boy who she spoiled. My grandmother was proud of my father and they exchanged letters weekly until she died, but she always had a soft heart for her "baby." When her "baby" had his first child, a boy, she spoiled him rotten. Candy, treats, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. Even after he had two little sisters, the girls were pretty much ignored.

We were seven hours away, and we would spend a week at my grandparent's house every Christmas, so we observed this going on. Even as kids, we could see it. When our cousins would visit (they lived near my grandparents), she would send them all home with candy -- the two little girls might get a pack of Lifesavers, and the boy would get a pint container filled to the brim with candy! When she had just the girls, if they got anything nice (cake, or anything), she would be sure to set aside a piece to take home for their brother. The same consideration was never made for them. Even as children, we saw the unfairness of it (though the little girls seemed to accept it as a matter of course).

When we made the seven hour drive home, she would do something similar -- she would pack little cups of candy for me and my sisters for the drive, but for my little brother, she would pack a large bucket and bags of chips. Because he was the boy. It was just . . . weird. Yet she was kind to all of us, a very loving woman. I have nothing but fond memories of her. She was just completely blind to what she was doing.

In later life, my two girl cousins did very well. They graduated, married, held down jobs. One of them even moved in to care for my grandfather in his old age after my grandmother died. The boy grew up into an irresponsible man. He was awful to my grandfather, even though he had been the favored grandchild. He would use my grandfather's house as a crash pad, and talk about him disrespectfully, even in front of him! It was his younger sister, who had been the unfavored grandchild, who moved in and cared for him.

I don't know whether any of that is relevant to your situation because in your case, it sounds like being the favored grandchild is probably a good thing for the boy, where in my cousin's case, I think it was part of what ruined him because of the type of spoiling -- never setting boundaries and filling him with sugar. I am certain that if my girl cousins had complained, it would made them less in their grandaprent's eyes -- partly because they would have been seen as "difficult" and partly because any criticism of the favored child would not have been tolerated. I remember eating dinner at my grandparent's and the favored cousin was there. He was about 8. Or maybe 10. He was complaining because his teacher told him he couldn't be on the football team unless he got passing grades in his academic subjects. And my grandmother, buttering him yet another slice of jelly bread, was talking about going to the school to tell this teacher that it wouldn't be right to be so mean to the poor boy(!) Even then, to my childish ears, it sounded outrageous, but I wasn't about to tell my grandmother that the teacher sounded pretty fair to me and my grandmother sounded unreasonable.