# Pitting a certain relative with dingbat social skills **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 13, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355 "2010-03-13T16:35:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/21 "2010-03-16T14:03:13Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > My grandmother did that. You, your wife, your sister and your children have my sympathies. Mine did too. My brother and I were decidedly not the favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/22 "2010-03-16T14:36:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I did very well in school and horribly in college and am still in the process of enrolling in grad school at the age of 27, six years after I finished college and said “I’m going to grad school”. I make about thirty grand a year, and have no kids. > > Why the hell am _I_ the favorite? He’s the successful one! Dad, you’re an idiot. Because you’re not giving up? This is so hard to deal with for me. I adore our two children. But our son is grandmas’ favorite, and our daughter was grandpas’. Unfortunately, grandpa is no longer with us. I would love for our daughter to be as close to her grandma as I was with mine, but I don’t think that will ever be the case. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/23 "2010-03-16T14:46:29Z")
I’m having this problem, too. I definitely love my nephew far, far more than I love my niece. She is so used to being the center of attention, too, that I don’t even feel like she needs it but she will realize it soon enough. She is very keen to attention not being paid to her and rather jealous of her baby brother. Now all of those traits are why she is not my favorite and why the happy baby is my favorite. She has been whiny and needy since birth and still won’t even come to me except for brief hugs, and the baby is happy anywhere and smiles all the time, whereas she whines. I’ll do my best not to show it but it’s difficult, to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/24 "2010-03-16T17:47:22Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > This specific pit was about how my mother expresses how happy she is about a certain event by casually exclaiming how it changes the way she feels about other people. We’re having a new baby, ergo my sister doesn’t matter anymore. I know she doesn’t even MEAN that. She just thinks it’s cute way to express how incredibly happy she is. I love her but she just doesn’t put an ounce of thought into anything she says, ever. Can you keep a straight enough face and say "Why, bless your heart Mama, I’m sure you don’t mean that!?! " when mom spouts off with her ill-advised comments? and perhaps a follow up on how marvelous it will be for baby to have an auntie? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/25 "2010-03-16T17:55:03Z")
In my world-o-rama mama, I speak up about such things. Forcefully, if necessary. I love my mother and would give her the world except that she now knows that my kids = my rules. She doesn’t want to follow the rules, she doesn’t get grandchildren privileges. I’d nip this in the bud if I were you. I can see the problem growing much bigger the longer it goes on, my sympathies. FTR, it was much easier for me to lay down the same laws with the in-laws! RNATB, it is always the problem children that are the favorites… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/26 "2010-03-16T18:41:18Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > People like that wonder why they end up in a convalescent hospital with no visitors… She spent her later years in a wheelchair. Someone (daughter, maybe?) was helping her use the bathroom, and she was being her normal abusive self. Her helper had had enough and just walked out, leaving her stranded in the bathroom for a couple of days. Apparently even that didn’t help her to get it. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/27 "2010-03-17T01:25:14Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Can you keep a straight enough face and say "Why, bless your heart Mama, I’m sure you don’t mean that!?! " when mom spouts off with her ill-advised comments? and perhaps a follow up on how marvelous it will be for baby to have an auntie? I’m not one to come up with snappy comebacks on my feet like that. I’m usually struck speechless, then I let my anger simmer for months and let it out on a messageboard. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/28 "2010-03-17T02:44:16Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I definitely love my nephew far, far more than I love my niece. […] > > I’ll do my best not to show it And that right there is the crucial difference between you and the asshole relatives who unkindly **flaunt** their favoritism regardless of others’ feelings. Or the dingbat relatives like the OP’s mom who think that it’s somehow witty or cute to **pretend** favoritism as a way of complimenting somebody (at the expense of somebody else). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355/29 "2010-03-17T04:46:12Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > I’m not one to come up with snappy comebacks on my feet like that. I’m usually struck speechless, then I let my anger simmer for months and let it out on a messageboard. A few comebacks planned in advance might help then. I’m sure Dopers on the Staircase will be a great help. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-a-certain-relative-with-dingbat-social-skills/532355.md?page=1)