Resist Feeling Jealous of Your Mother-In-Law's Closeness To Your Kids

Question I got via email:
My mother-in-law does a special birthday for my kids at her house even though we throw them a birthday party at our house. Isn't this rude, isn't she overstepping her bounds? How do I politely tell her to stop?

My MIL does this, and it used to be on my silly long list of grievances against her until I got over myself. She just does a cake for the kids at her house and small birthday dinner.

I used to get all worked up about it until I got that my kids truly were touched by the special attention and they liked having the huge party at home and then the small party at grandma's house. She just makes them their favorite dinner and gets an ice cream cake and they just chill at her house for an evening. Parties at home are a big, wild, large affair, we have a big back yard so I let them invite as many kids as they want. They love these parties too, they just get really really excited and it can be overwhelming and intense to have so many friends over running and jumping about. And there's never any cake left over, whereas with a grandma party they have lots of cake left over and they like sharing it out with us the rest of the week.

I used to resent the special things my MIL did for and with my kids because on some level I thought she wanted to take them from me or usurp my place as their mother. But I realized that she just loves our kids so very much, and part of being a grandparent is that you get to spoil your grandkids in ways you couldn't with your own children. So I try not to feel threatened by her closeness to my kids. They all love her so much and their lives have been enriched by having her for a grandma.

Let your mother-in-law do a birthday party for your kids. It won't hurt them and they will treasure those memories forever. You won't regret not standing in the way of their grandparent/grandchild relationship.