I had no idea so many people had such small hearts. Would adding a couple kids to the grandkids roster and care about them hurt anyone in anyway? How emotionally anemic does one need to be? I was unwanted. I was the step kid. I was the one treated as different. I love every kid that crosses my path, and apparently a bunch of you think love needs to be doled out on an 'if they're related or deserve it' basis. Shame on you.

I can see how this can get twisted. I just want to put myself in the grandparents shoes here for a moment. They had a daughter who married and gave them 2 grand kids. Their daughter died but what remained of her was the 2 grand kids. Their widowed SIL, remarried (the parents had no say in that, they extended love because he was their daughters husband and the father of their daughters children, thats it, that all the choice they had). The husband and new wife have no biological connection with these grand parents and her children especially have 2 sets of grandparents that are not these 2. The grand parents had no say in the choices the widow made and who this woman or children were had nothing to do with anything they wanted, wished or planned as who were considered their heirs. Nobody asked their opinion and they had no right to one frankly as they had no biological relationship with any of these people. Why would they be forced to change what mattered to them at this deep level?

It is cruel and uncessary of the family to not let the step grandkids sit with the other kids at the funeral. I'm not saying she HAS to cut off her extended family, but a bit confused how she doesn't see what nasty people they are, even if they treat her in particular nicely. Standing by watching someone get hurt is not a good look.

They hurt the wrong people. There's nothing in the post indicating that the step siblings asked or demanded to be part of OP's maternal family. They were still very little when this mess was created, and of course they grew to see themselves as part of that maternal family due to the charade everybody around them had to put up for the dad and stepmother. THOSE TWO should've gotten their comeuppance, not the children that were mislead into bonding with strangers. OP telling them point-blank that THEY are the ones who caused all this is correct, but not enough in my book. I want the step siblings to realise this and detest them for it. That's not to say that I like what OP's maternal family did. I understand that their resentment had a lot of time to brew, but they still took it out on the wrong people. I can't really think of a way for them to get to the dad and stepmother, though. This just sucks all around.

There's a big difference between your child's stepchildren and your late child's husband's stepchildren, who you are blackmailed into seeing in order to have access to your own grandchildren. The grandparents were obviously not unkind to the interlopers, but they were never their grandchildren or stepgrandchildren. The Dad here is a complete a*****e.

There's no way this was really surprised to dad and step mom. Not only is there a pretty obvious difference between general kindness and loving affection over years of interaction, but 19 months from burial to remarriage is definitely something that would have come up with late wife's immediate family at some point. I think the parents are just feigning shock so they don't have to admit wider family dynamics to the kids.

Poor step-kids. I don't understand why people lucky enough to have any children in their lives choose to parcel out their love. And make it so obvious. All the adults in this situation are petty.

Sounds like Dad and Stepmom wanted all the kids to be taken by the grandparents for free childcare. Blew up in their faces, didn't it. Life isn't the Brady Bunch, people.

The only people I feel sorry for in this scenario are the two stepkids. From the sound of it, they have no family on their mother's side, and the dad doesn't, either. Yeah, it sucks that the dad basically forced them onto the grandparents, but it equally sucks that it had to be forced in the first place. Imagine the pain and disharmony if the younger two -- who were so very young they probably have little to no memory of life before their mom married the dad -- constantly had to see how their step-siblings were lavished with attention while they were left out in the cold. These kids have no other family, and completely rejecting them because they're not blood kin is just...massively heartless. This entire family sounds toxic as hell, father and stepmother included.

The grandparents are the arseholes here. How can you be involved in kids lives from the age of 2 and 4 and not become attached. It's stone cold. The parents were just trying to be family and none of the kids share any blame.

OP is completely innocent.

The step-kids lost their dad and had no other relatives except for their new step-dad. They are really fortunate they have such a loving and devoted stepfather. How devastated they must have felt to not even be allowed to sit in the grandkid section, when those were the only grandparents they had known. The mother's family was wrong in this. Excluding the kids was just plain wrong and hurtful. I'm not saying the step-kids should have gotten an inheritance, but what would it have taken for the grandparents to have created a small sentimental book for them too? What would it have taken for the family to welcome them in the grandkid section? OP shouldn't have to choose sides. They are all her family. But, if I was OP, I would be upset with my extended family for being so cruelly exclusive.

This is heartbreaking for the non biological children, but technically…although the OP’s father and his wife forced the OP’s late mother’s parents to accept the stepmother’s children as their own grandchildren in order to see their biological grandchildren…:these children were not even their step grandchildren. The were the step-grandchildren of the OP’s father’s parents….their late mother/daughter had no connection to these precious children who came into the family after her passing Perhaps if OP’s father and stepmother had not forced her children into a contrived relationship with OP’s mother’s side of the family…the relationship might have grown organically and the grandparents might have come to love these children as their own grandchildren. Having them used to either force visits with all the children or deny visitation with the biological grandchildren weaponized the children in a horrible way It was not any of the children’s fault. The father and stepmother caused this

Honestly ESH. Grandparents and parents obviously, but the OP seems like they have kinda a nasty attitude.