MIL planning her own party and didn’t invite me!

Not sure what the problem is adult children can spend time with there parent alone you know. Clearly she would enjoy this for one day get a grip

Completely on board with your way of thinking and really hope to be like your MIL.

This hard and pretty equal division has made me think about posts on other threads here commenting about married in people not feeling like real family. Which is alien to me but something I do observe a lot.

I wonder how much this is a factor. Lots of but she's not YOUR Mum happening.

I suspect OP would have been happy to share Mother's Day plans if she wasn't being excluded. I don't get a sense this is a jealousy thing or monopolising Mother's Day from OP.

Noone has even said MILs shouldn't see their children independently, which has been thrown around. Just that perhaps when your 5 adult children have their own kids, MD isn't that day!

Hilarious behaviour. Does she have form for this kind of thing?

Your right. I'd completely forgotten that the mother church preceded visiting mothers. Flu is messing with my brain as well as the rest of me!

But I don't think that there's been any real change to who it's for in recent times. Mothers are mothers, and they don't cease to matter when the children are no longer primary age.

The historical meaning was not connected to mothers in the maternal sense but visiting one's mother church (i.e. where one was baptised). Over time this transmuted into people in service visiting their mothers. But the original religious meaning is the reason it moves because the timing is linked to Easter. A complete tangent to the thread, but shows that it has changed meaning over the years.

And it might be that she meant that her children might otherwise make plans for her

Having typed that, I actually think that's the more likely explanation.

She didn't say nobody CAN make plans. She said so nobody else makes plans. There's a difference. And it might be that she meant that her children might otherwise make plans for her

But mother's Day is not just for mothers of young kids. It never has been. I'm 70 and when I was a child we'd have the morning with our mums and the afternoon visiting our grandmothers.

Unfortunately we lived too far away from my mum and MIL to do the samev reverb we had children, but they were always factored into mother's day with cards, gifts and a decent phone call.

No-one who's the mother of small children now, gets to dictate what Mothers Day is about. You can decide for your family, but not for everyone else.

Nothing, if her children were not grown ups with children of their own.

But she's not your mother? Not specifically for mother's day, but a couple of times a year me, my brother and my mum get together without our partners or kids. Sometimes the whole family gets together, sometimes its just us. I don't see the problem.

Don't you occasionally want some solo time with your kids without the solution of friends or family?

I’m not jealous of my MIL, I love her, that’s why I arrange to take her out on MD and sort her card & gift. The reason I love her is that she welcomed me into her family and supported me from the start. That energy is reciprocated. She would never try to exclude me from a family event, especially on Mother’s Day of all days.

And yes, my DH is a grown man with agency, who understands the natural order of things. He adores his mother but she is not the woman he will grow old with. My feelings come first, always. It works both ways. I would not entertain my dad excluding him from a Father’s Day event.

I “manage” solo parenting my 9 month old and 2 year old 5 days a week. Doing that on Mother’s Day would not be a treat.

From the OP:

She called dh to invite him today and made it clear the invite is ONLY for him ! He’s one of 5. She only wants her dc there ! Told him she’s arranged it early so that nobody else makes plans and we (the partners) all have notice 😂😂 she’s mad !

When she's saying that it's so no-one else can make plans (presumably that's her DC with their own wives/husbands and children) and giving the partners notice (why would they need notice? What is she expecting them to do - other than not expect their partners to be around) she may have termed it an invitation but it does seem more like a summons. Given the way she's presented it I also suspect that it wouldn't be an hour or two for sandwiches and cake but a lot more would be expected.

Society works very differently now. None of these people celebrating Mother’s Day on this thread nor any of the family they are talking about are ‘in service’ so the historical meaning isn’t relevant.

I'm not a MIL (in the Mumsnet sense) as I only have sons in law. But I am so grateful that they're both really laid back and have no problem either spending time with me, or enabling my daughters to spend mum and daughter time occasionally.

@MynameisJune oh sorry, earlier on in the thread you said that you don’t really put any relevance on Mother’s Day

No. Her feelings are just as important as anyone else. What a world.

To get back to OP's original question, given we've established everyone's feelings are equally valid here.

It's not unreasonable of OP to feel that her MIL issuing an invitation to her DH that excludes her on mother's day (given her mother passed away fairly recently) is rude and not considerate of her feelings.

It's not unreasonable of OP's DH to decline his mother's invitation and to put his wife and children first on this day and make his own plans (he is popping around with a gift the day before so he's being quite nice, just on a different day which suits him better).

OP's MIL is free to make such an invitation. Other people are free to decline it.

She invited her children. She didn’t hold a gun to their heads. That is in no way selfish, self absorbed, batshit or any of the other accusations thrown at her. No one has suggested that her children’s feelings don’t matter either so what’s your point?

I'm with you on this one. I'll want to see my adult son on Mother's Day, but can't imagine saying "I want to see you, but Jenny can't come" (name changed there obviously)
It's different when they're adults with their own relationships. You have to adapt or be "that" MIL which I try hard not to be 😬

It’s a tea party. No one needs to compete for limelight.. she your husband’s mother, you don’t need to be jealous.

What are you on about no one’s talking about monopolising the whole day? If that were the case MiL could be spared a short visit for a couple cakes and sandwiches.

You don’t need to accept anything. I’m guessing your husband is a grown man with agency? It’s not about him being “treated” it’s not about him at all, it’s Mother’s Day. I’m sure you could manage “solo parenting” (or in my world “spending time with my children”) for a short while (who said ALL afternoon), so your MiL can share in Mother’s Day.

Actually it's the opposite. Mothering Sunday was the day that adult children in service were given off work to visit their mothers. That is the entire origin of Mother's Day.

He told her that he already has plans and he will pop round the day before with her gifts!

Perfect response from him! It sounds like he has the measure of her and knows how to avert her attempts to be petty/unpleasant and exclude her DILs. I’ll have to remember to point to this on Mother’s Day when we have the inevitable plethora of hurt women whose husbands are useless.

It’s poor form of your MIL to go ahead and organise but I’m assuming she feels the need to organise as nobody else does?

its also a weird concept to me that a man should stop seeing his own mum in Mother’s Day just because he has a wife and dc.

im a mum but still go and see my own mum on the actual day as opposed to spending 100% of the day with my DH and dc

No I’m a mum, of course it has relevance. I just don’t think I’m the only mum in my family. Or that I deserve special treatment over my own mum or DH’s mum just because I have young kids.

My issue isn’t that the op wants Mother’s Day to herself, it’s that she’s so pissed off her mil also wants the same thing.

Mainly my issue is that so many people have called the mil nasty names just for wanting to see her own child on his own on Mother’s Day.

Her feelings aren’t just as important as anyone else’s. She’s his mother; OP is his wife and the mother of his children. MIL’s feelings are secondary.