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

I would hope that I brought them up to behave properly in social situations. I can’t force them to do anything as adults. But they have their own moral compass and ideas of social norms, which I would hope they would use for good.

Well, yes. To you, but not to many.

I'd know better than to double book my son. He has all the brutality and no filter of a typical teen with the added spice of ASD.

He would definitely see it as a punishment to push a virtual stranger with a baby on him 😂

Yes I am sure you have got the dictionary definitions correct. But I will never think of my kids as guests or visitors. I am pretty sure my Asian extended family feel the same about their kids.

Adult children occupy a weird limbo between guests and residents in my view. They can shift towards one category or the other depending on the situation/what's convenient.

Well that’s what I have said all along. My adult kids would have said hello. Because that’s the right thing to do. I would not have been impressed if they refused.

It’s embarrassing to be embarrassed by a show of emotion. We aren’t living in the dark ages.

How embarrassing for you and your colleagues.

You said that adults should be allowed to express emotions and I gave examples of expressing emotions, violence being an emotion.

As you seemingly don't agree that punching someone who annoys you is acceptable, it would therefore appear that you do indeed agree that emotions should be suppressed in some circumstances.

I agree that your kids aren’t guests, but at the same time this house is no longer their home. Their parents had a guest, their cousin, and it’s basic manners to come and say hello to your parents’ guest when you’re stopping at their home.

But in your family home is not such a place. You should be able to freely express your emotions there, not worry that it might upset your mother because it’s “rude.”

But she didn’t have to. Her mother wanted to, for her feelings to make her feel good.

It wasn’t frankly important.

@Buxusmortus You're a strange person.

🤣🤣🤣🤣
I've been called worse!

Yes, she did. She said he was sitting with her.

Ok so don’t view them as guests but that also doesn’t mean you get to expect them to act and behave how you wanted them to at 12 and 14 years old as they are now adults with their own feelings.

If you live with and among others, wherever you are there will always be times when you might just have to keep a lid on it for a while. A well-regulated person should be able to do that. It’s not akin to being forced to squash those emotions forever.

He was in his own room! Nowhere did OP say he was looking after his sister, just that he didn’t think cousin’s new baby was a big deal.

Nope. My kids are my kids. They will never ever be ‘guests’ in my eyes, regardless of where they live.

Ds clearly used his sister’s situation to get out of saying hello to the cousin.

Anyway, the daughter may have felt better by going down and saying hello and being distracted. It may not have been as traumatic as others are suggesting.

I do believe there is a balance between suppressing emotions and developing resilience. And as a nation we are going the wrong way. I am v close to my uni age kids. But they also know how to behave in social situations.

Anyway, I can’t imagine being stuck up in the bedrooms was much fun for the dd and ds here. Bet they regretted their decision to hide away.

I was being sarcastic. You can’t have things both ways if a breakup isn’t important because it happens all the time, then neither is having a baby, and it doesn’t seem like OPs kids are even close to the cousin, so it’s not like they’d be particularly bothered by this particular baby.

But they don’t live there. Anyone who doesn’t live in your house is a guest or visitor. It’s not their home.

Perhaps both she and Keir should have stayed in number 11, her sobbing and him “supporting her” for three hours, instead of coming to PMQs?

”Why the fuss”, seriously? Because it’s a new member of their family, not the sprog of some woman from Mum’s knitting circle. It would have taken ten minutes. Staying upstairs is saying to their cousin that they don’t care about her or her child. That’s really sad.

I don’t know, maybe sone people don’t see cousins as close family, can’t explain sone of the comments in this thread otherwise.

OP, I think it’s perfectly normal that you were disappointed for your niece. I hope it’s not too long until the next time they cone home and have another chance to meet the baby.

You're a strange person.

Manners oil the wheels of society and always have done, that's why they were invented. Most people would prefer that others were polite to them as they go about their business, rather than have to be bombarded by others' emotions in the name of being genuine.

Correct, she should not have been crying. And yet she was. Because people are not robots.

This is family. All this talk of ‘guests’ is just weird. I will never think of my adult kids as guests!

Or he was using that as an excuse not to greet his cousin.