Adult children didn’t come down to meet their cousins baby

I think they were very rude not to just come down and say hello.

How long ago was DD’s break up? Recently one of my DC had a long term relationship break up and a week later was going to a good friend’s wedding. The friend said they understood if DC couldn’t face it, but they went. DC said it was a good distraction!

I thought the same to be honest. If I went to visit a relative and her adult children hid in their bedrooms without very briefly popping down to say hi I would assume they were either neurodiverse or just plain odd. It's not normal behaviour in the slightest.

It's something I would expect from an awkward 13 year old, not two grown adults with their own homes.

I was really responding to the “they can do what they like” posters rather than the OP to be honest.

But even given the circs I think they were rude.

And given that DD is 24, she might have been harbouring fantasies about one day having a child of her own with her boyfriend - despite saying she doesn't like holding babies.

See, I think asking is where you went wrong. I'd have been TELLING them, 'Come downstairs and say hi to your cousin. I don't care if you like babies, you're being bloody rude. Wash your face, come down, say hello and congratulations on the baby, then you can politely excuse yourselves. If you won't conduct yourselves politely, you can leave and be ill mannered in your own houses.'

Everyone should be able to fake it for a few minutes for the sake of being polite.

I don't see the problem. There were enough people fussing over the baby. Why do they have to do the same if they don't want to?

There are absolutely times you can though, and OP’s son and daughter decided that this was one of them.

You were raised to suppress your own emotions under the facade of some bullshit social contract

Others would say it's rude to force people to suppress their emotions

Depends how upset she was. I don’t see why her needs are less important than the cousin’s.

DD is 31. 1 baby so far in her friend group. All 31 and over. No one owns a home, higher on their priority list.

Maybe she did, so she could have spent five minutes making small talk couldn’t she?

This is a cruel and insensitive attitude to have to your daughter's pain. There's evidence that break ups can be just as emotionally devastating as the loss of a loved one, it's a real grief and cannot be 'pushed aside' on a whim for the sake of politeness.

It’s self-absorbed to expect everyone to drop everything and fawn over you and your baby too though (not that we have any evidence the cousin was expecting that).

If I were one of your visiting children I'd find it quite rude that you'd invited another guest at the same time without asking if I minded and then expected me to help entertain them. They came for their dad.

Lots of things in life are shit and tedious, but that doesn’t mean you can just opt out.

Maybe she wanted to stay with her family for some support. But like I said. I’m not sure we’re getting an accurate picture here anyway

A break up with a boyfriend is not a major crisis in the grander scheme of things.

And self-care just means self-one session, self-absorption here, doesn’t it?

She’d do herself far better in the care front if she got on with life.

She’s a 24 year old woman with her own home - she could either have gone back to said home or dried her eyes and sucked it up for five minutes. Neither are particularly outrageous suggestions, yet by some of the responses, people are acting like she was forced to go out for dinner or perform a concert.

Meeting babies is incredibly tedious. And whilst ordinarily you might think they should come down and say hi to their cousin on this occasion all it is going to be is bloody baby chat and being expected to fawn over infant and mum. Boring and I'd imagine especially shit if you are going through a breakup.

@IwasDueANameChange , I would have thought a young woman who’d recently had an abortion deserves abit more consideration than your oh ffs reply.

Oh, please.

”Self care” isn’t a reason to be rude and opt out of basic social niceties. If she didn’t want to see her cousin, which is totally fair enough, she should have gone home as planned, or gone out, not hidden away upstairs in her childhood bedroom and ignored everyone.

Hell of a lot of people on here who are seriously lacking expectation of their kids to have a bit of backbone and resilience.

Then she's still sobbing in her childhood bedroom isn't she?

And it's nothing to do with the birth (which yes, normal people do celebrate whether they like babies or not) and everything to do with manners.

I'd be seriously concerned that a grown woman was unable to plaster on a smile for thirty seconds to pop her head around the lounge door to say hello and congratulations to her own cousin. If she can't cope with her ex seeing someone else without shutting herself away and dissolving into tears constantly, how on earth will she cope with actual real life problems further down the line?