Her mother-in-law brought cookies for one of her daughters, leaving the other one neglected only because she got a lower SAT score. She can keep denying it, but it’s clear she has a favorite!
Test Your Knowledge!
OP’s (Original Poster) twin daughters are 18-year-olds and took the SAT a month prior. The results came back just a day before OP shared this story.
Results Are In!
Laura, one of OP’s daughters, did excellently as she got 1540 and is incredibly proud, as she should be. On the other hand, her sister, Emily, didn’t do so well, as she got somewhere in the low 1300s.
Extra Effort
OP is aware that Emily’s score wasn’t bad at all, but she worked very hard for the test and was disappointed with her results.
OP shared, “She has always struggled more with schoolwork than her sister, who does better without having to try quite as hard. Not to minimize her effort. Laura does work hard as well, but it does come a bit easier for her.”
Playing Favorites
However, OP’s mother-in-law has always favored Laura because she does better in school. Although she doesn’t show it out in the open, she does in little ways.
Laura Comes First
For instance, OP’s mother-in-law bakes her twins a birthday cake most years, and she always writes Laura’s name first and bigger than Emily’s. But OP always made her own cakes for each of her daughters separately.
Emily resents that treatment a bit but doesn’t seem to mind much because they don’t see their grandmother often. Only Laura and her dad regularly video calls her grandma.
Checking Up on the Outcome
The day before OP posted on Reddit, her mother-in-law called to ask her twins about the SAT results, and Emily told OP that she didn’t want to talk to her grandma, so OP only handed the phone to Laura. OP’s daughter then told her grandmother her score and was happily congratulated.
Afterward, OP’s mother-in-law asked Laura how Emily did, and Laura said she did “alright.”
Permission to Visit
When OP got her phone back, her mother-in-law asked if she could visit the next day to congratulate Laura. Then, OP said she’d quickly check if they had anything to do that day, but she was really asking Emily if that was okay, and her daughter said it was fine, so she told her mother-in-law she could come.
Sweets for Her Sweet
When her daughters’ grandma came over, OP’s husband was at work. She brought a box of cookies and gave it to Laura, saying she was proud.
Better Results Equals Better Cookies
Emily was also there standing, looking hurt, so OP asked her mother-in-law if she had brought anything for Emily, and the old woman laughed a little. She said, “Not this time,” but reasoned that she’d make even better cookies when Emily did her resit.
OP noted, “No one told her she was resitting. My mother-in-law just assumed.”
What a Mother Would Do
After that, Emily went upstairs, and OP thought she cried. So, OP told her mother-in-law that she could “take her d*** cookies and get out.”
OP wrote, “She was shocked and angry, but she left. Laura is also upset because she says she earned it, and I’m ruining her relationship with her grandma. My husband says I had no right.”
High-Achiever Mindset
Eventually, OP spoke to her mother-in-law, who said she was just “simply being honest” as school is very important.
OP shared, “She immigrated to the United States when my husband was in high school, and she has very strong ideas about how to ‘succeed’ in the world.”
No Longer Welcome
OP then told her mother-in-law that she shouldn’t keep being unfair to Emily, and she said she wasn’t. Because OP couldn’t change her mind, she just stopped letting her visit more often, like during holidays.
Her husband was upset but agreed it would be impossible to convince his mother to act differently. He added that if OP were sure it was hurting Emily, his mother wouldn’t have to visit.
What Redditors Think
The community called out OP for being silent for years despite the mistreatment Emily faced from her grandmother. People said she and her husband are also to blame for any trauma Emily is currently facing or might face in the future.
The top commenter wrote, “Not the a**hole. Not for this post’s subject. You stood up for Emily against her cruel grandmother. Laura is angry because she demands her golden child status. Both grandmother and Laura told Emily, loud and clear, that she was not good enough. But you have been silent all these years, letting your mother-in-law diminish and degrade Emily. She spent her entire life knowing, not thinking, knowing that she is less than her sister. At this point, you can’t undo this.”
The same person said, “No matter what she accomplishes, she will always feel less than. Both you and your husband are solely responsible for this. It’s not about what her grandmother did to her. It’s about what her parents allowed her grandmother to do to her. Being mistreated is painful. Being mistreated while your parents sit silently by is devastating.”
In Plain Sight
People disagreed that OP’s mother-in-law wasn’t obvious about her favoritism because she actually was.
A Redditor wrote, “The woman displays her favoritism very clearly. Ask Laura how she would feel if she were treated so unfairly. Explain to your husband that he should be defending Emily as well as you. You were more polite than I would have been. I would have told her where to stick her miserable biscuits. Not the a**hole.”
An Appreciation for Emily
Someone pointed out that everyone in the story is wrong except for Emily, who’s actually doing her best and thriving on her own.
One person commented, “Everyone sucks here. I mean, especially your mother-in-law, but it’s clear you also favor Laura, and the only person here who isn’t an a**hole is Emily. Low 1300s is empirically a great SAT score!”
Do you have anything to say about OP’s problem? What advice can you give her?
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This post first appeared as She Kicked Her Mother-In-Law Out of Her Home for Favoring One Twin Over the Other and Gave Cookies to the Granddaughter Who Got a Higher SAT Score. She’s Obviously Unfair! on Quote Ambition.
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