.... to be so upset about DS's 21st birthday

Tbh, I would have anticipated this might happen, and would have kept them in my own home, and either asked him to come down to yours on the day to open them, or taken them to your mums the day of his birthday, unfortunately your ds is now going to remember his 21st for the drama. I would have been upset but not caused a big issue about it on the day, but maybe mentioned a few days later that you were upset, and why.

Well I'd be upset too, op.
Of course you'd expect to be there to see your son open his presents (only on MN is a 21st birthday not a special occasion 🙄) especially as you'd put a lot of thought and effort into it.
I think your mum needs to back off a bit, and your son needs to grow up and think about other people a bit more

I’m sorry you are upset op but I think this is more than about opening presents. I think you may be slightly jealous that your ds is choosing to stay with your dm most of the time and not with you.

Tbh I think if you wanted to be sure of having the big opening event with cake and photos etc then you should have planned a lunch or dinner or tea at your house and invited everyone there and then you would have had more control over how things went.

The fact you didn’t do this leads me to think that maybe you were unsure whether ds and your dm, one or the other, would turn up or not and respect your boundaries around this event in some way.

Yes it would have been nice if your mum had said “wait for your mum to get here”
but do you think this was done with malevolence or did she just not fully understand the brief?

You said you needed a lot of support from your mum with raising your ds so maybe boundaries have become a bit blurred over the years?

By letting your mum plan lunch there, or by not taking the initiative and doing it yourself, and by taking presents over in advance, then you basically ceded control to your mum.

Also, although you were upset, and you understandably reacted negatively in the moment, sorry to say, but you alienated your ds further, because from his pov you were more interested in the photo and having “your moment” with him rather than understanding that none of that mattered to him as much as it did to you.

Easy to say in hindsight but it would have been better if you had paused when hearing he’d opened the presents, swallowed down your disappointment, enjoyed lunch together and celebrated his birthday with good grace. At one point you could have joked and said “casually” “thanks for opening your presents before I got here mate” but tbh, you know that as your ds has ADHD, impulsivity comes with the territory.

Sorry to say op, but I think you all need to apologise to one another here and you need to be the first one to reach out and be the bigger person.

And after that, you need to re-establish your relationship with your ds away from your dm.

Not easy at his age when he is probably more focused on his friends. But try and establish a little “ritual” when you invite him out regularly on a Sunday evening for spag bol or just a coffee or whatever and you have one on one time together. Be flexible about it, keep it casual, as there will be times he won’t be able to come, but try and re-establish an adult non-judgmental relationship together, where you are not so much a mother figure but a loving concerned friend who is interested in his life, not trying to control it.

Good luck op 💐

I don't blame you for being upset, I would be too.
It's your little family tradition to open presents together, so I don't know what your mum was thinking to allow him to open them without you being there - especially as they were gifts from you! And especially as you were 5 minutes down the road! Your DS doesn't come out well in it either. Yes he's 21 and not 5 as people keep saying but why wouldn't he want you there to see him open his gifts when it's the norm for your family.
I'd be pretty bloody pissed off with them both!

I was really looking forward to giving DS his surprise gifts, making sure that the best ones were saved for last, seeing his face when he opened the special ones, explaining why and how some of them were designed and made, wanting to see him excited and happy, and taking a few photos of it all.

It sounds like he didn't want that though because if he did he would have waited.

Why did you take the gifts over in advance if you weren't going to give them until you were there? That would have made me think you wanted him to open them as soon as his birthday started rather than waiting. A bit of a misunderstanding maybe.

Him not waiting five minutes for you to say Happy Birthday in person I would find very inconsiderate. Did he know at that point that you were annoyed about the present debacle and didn't want to face you?

You shouldn't have 'had a go' at him at all. Regardless of whether it was his birthday or your hormones.

You dropped some presents off at his house. He opened them on his birthday.

As an adult, I've long found it embarrassing and hate the pressure to meet the giver's expectations. I do the "Oh, lovely, thank you!" response but inside I'm often cringing.

I understand why you were upset.

With the benefit of hindsight, I expect you wish you hadn't taken the presents over in advance.

I think it was pretty thoughtless of both your mum and your son to not give you a call to say he was going to open the presents.

That said, he is 21 and an adult and ND. PP's have pointed out that gift giving is meant to be for the benefit of the recipient and not the giver. I would encourage you to try and calm down so that you are able to talk to one another. Then perhaps he can tell you what he thinks of the gifts and appreciates the thought that went into them.

I would try to take this as a sign of seeing how he is living his life as an independent adult and that where there are important things that you want to share with him, that needs to be communicated clearly in advance.

All the best OP, I would be disappointed too.

I'm not a big fan of present opening as a performance in general. At 21 I can see why he's getting fed up of doing this. I understand wanting to be close when you don't have a lot of family but be careful of smothering him.

I can understand you were disappointed but having a go at your child on their birthday was not on. They probably didn't think that their 21st was a big deal because it isn't nowadays. My children are in their 20s and there's no way I would make the fuss you do on their birthdays. They are adults now and they can choose how they celebrate.

There wasn't a "family celebration". There was nothing planned at all. OP had no idea when she was going to see her DS and was only going to her DM's house for lunch because that was a regular thing.

This is DS's birthday. There has been no conversation about when OP will see him, will there be something "special for lunch or maybe they could go out to celebrate", perhaps they could get him a cake ... you know, normal birthday things? No plans at all. Can't really blame DS for opening presents that had been left for him.

I was 3000 miles away on my 21st! He needs to spread his wings.

Next time if he is around, ask him to come over and open presents. DM can come too. Cake and drinks and start taking the lead by organising special events yourself. If he wants presents, money etc he can come to you next time!

I was with you until this post.
You and your mum are babying your adult son. (different to giving extra support to an ND adult child in helping them navigate the world)

He in return has been enabled to be thoughtless…as in this example with gifts to you and this has extended to his behaviour in opening his birthday gifts without you there when he knows that is how your family ‘do’ birthdays. Your mum and son have reacted defensively because they know they are out of order.

So you not being unreasonable to feel hurt… your feelings have been discarded by your mum and son. You are unreasonable however to be shocked that this has happened.

He's 21!
He's an adult and it sounds like you're babying him to be honest.

I think you've blown this out of proportion. So it's "tradition" for everyone to sit around and open presents together (and presumably look happy and amazed). Will you do this for every event for ever? Or are people allowed to make their own traditions?

I don't understand why you left the presents at your DM's house if you didn't want them opened and you were going round later.

A 21 year old is unlikely to get super excited about what you've bought. You were wanting the "occasion" to be more than it was.

Sadly, the most memorable thing about your DS's birthday is now going to be that his mum had a go at him. You couldn't have swallowed your feelings to make his birthday special? Or had a quiet word tomorrow?

It’s not acceptable but that’s what is underneath. Op on some level has lost her son, and the 21st birthday situation has only brought this deep feeling to the surface.

'What underpins the shouting sounds like a deep rooted resentment that the son has chosen to live with op’s mother and not her. It must feel like a rejection'

Exactly. Nan should have shown a teensy bit of sensitivity and said let's wait til your dm comes round. Most people on here wouldn't care about what was opened when but the difference here is the living situation. The op no doubt feels second best and pushed out, shit like this reinforces those feelings.

Her ADULT son chose to live there

I'm sure there must be some resentment that he finds DM's house better but it's no excuse for screaming at the poor woman in her own home and disrespecting her and its certainly no reason for DM to now bow and scrape to OP to make amends

She took the gifts to his primary residence and didn't communicate that she would be round for him to open them

He doesn't need them "presenting" to him!

What underpins the shouting sounds like a deep rooted resentment that the son has chosen to live with op’s mother and not her. It must feel like a rejection.

So her DM should bend over backwards to apologise and build bridges when her DD was the one who came into her house and started shouting and berating her, disrespecting her?

There's no "allow" with a 19 year old.

All that effort isn’t for his benefit because he couldn’t care less. It all sounds performative and like you haven really come to terms with the fact that he is older now and not at an age where you have had as much control as you once did.

Be upset but for your own sake, step back.

You should apologise to your mother, I get your disappointment but shouting at her in her own home wasn’t right.