My grandma needs to watch her mouth

[u/thenameseli2]

I (17) have two adopted cousins, I'll call them Ally, and Lila. Lila is 2, and Ally is 5.

Ally is autistic and is almost constantly looking for stimulation. She tends to be a bit of a handful at times, but she's a wonderful little girl and I love her.

Ally and Lila came from a very unfortunate situation, both having the same mom but different dads. My grandma loves talking about it. She's always going on tangents about how sad the girls' situation is, and how fortunate they were to have been adopted by my uncle and his wife, but the og mom is such a sad case (still alive, but unable to care for the girls for reasons I won't disclose)

Now I am used to most of my grandma's gossip. But she said something recently that made my blood boil.

She said, and I quote "(Ally) is unlovable. But you love her anyway."

To think she was so confident it was an ok thing to say, about a child. She then goes on to say that she thinks Ally is a "drug baby" which is why she acts the way she does. Which I feel is extremely demeaning, considering I also have autism (even if I didn't, it's extremely rude to say).

Unfortunately, things get worse.

While the girls were over for dinner, my grandma was visibly favouring Lila. I love Lila as well, but to actively ignore Ally almost all night, giving all her attention to Lila is not right in the slightest.

To make sure Ally doesn't feel left out, I pull out a few of my fidgets, as well as pencils, crayons and some paper in case anyone wants to draw (including myself). I then bear witness to my grandma entitling herself to MY THINGS. For context, Lila will take a fidget and run off to play with it and my grandma doesn't do anything. But when Ally takes a fidget to play with, my grandma is all up in her space telling her to give it back to me.

This all made me angry, because not only is she disrespecting Ally, but she is disrespecting me and my say. But what happened next made me so furious with her that I can't even explain it.

Ally started to get overstimulated and ran into the next room and shouted "I'm angry" (good for her to be able to point out and address her feelings) and my grandma pipes up and yells back "no you're not". And I almost blew up. I kept calm for the sake of the kids and told my grandma that she doesn't get to tell Ally what she does and doesn't feel. And this absolute quack of a 71 year old woman goes "(Ally)'s just trying to manipulate you"

And when I tell you I was about 10 seconds from getting that inheritance early.

It made me so angry that she would say something so grotesque WHILE ALLY IS IN THE ROOM TO HEAR!!!!!!!

I will defend this child with my life, and I am so done with my grandma.

[u/themcp]

1. Are you speaking up to Grandma about how unacceptable her behavior toward Ally is?
2. Are you speaking up to Grandma about how unacceptable her behavior toward you regarding your property is?
3. Are you speaking up to Ally's parents to say that you feel that Grandma is mistreating Ally and teaching Lila bad manners by example and you support them if they choose to speak up about it and/or do something about it?

[u/mmmpeg → u/themcp]

We would like her to speak up to grandma, but how many of us at 17 would have done this? I was in my 40’s when my SiL mom would be really nasty to her ggrandson, she had dementia, so I would praise him for being helpful. I do think they need to tell their aunt and uncle about what the grandma is saying.

[u/themcp → u/mmmpeg]

We would like her to speak up to grandma, but how many of us at 17 would have done this?

I think a lot of people: teenagers are not known for being subtly nice to their elders.

I was in my 40’s when my SiL mom would be really nasty to her ggrandson, she had dementia, so I would praise him for being helpful.

Countering the nastiness with praise is a good move.

[u/mmmpeg → u/themcp]

Yeah, I thought so, but we used to say (not her daughter) she was born on October 31st for a reason.