To think lateness is the rudest thing?

[slatternlymother]

It says 'my time is more valuable than yours'.

I just don't understand this attitude where it is ok to be late. It's so flakey! And yet it seems that so many people think it's alright.

I feel like there's this perception that it's a little bit cool, and if you pick someone up for it, then you need to 'relax'.

Well, it's bloody not alright. It is RUDE.

Grr.

[curryeater]

AGH I shouldn't be on mn, but for some reason I have blanked out MIL's consistent and appalling lateness up to now, and now I can't resist coming on here and ranting about it.

Day before DP's birthday - was going to be quiet one, just us - MIL invites herself over - ok, fair enough, she is his mum, tell her "great! come for birthday cake at about 4"
Next day: make DP's birthday cake with small children. They are dying to do the candles (and eat it obv). It cools, we ice it, they go mad with anticipation.
No MIL.
No MIL.
No MIL.
Children whine.
Give children bits of cucumber and apple.
Children whine. put on Peppa Pig
No MIL.
Quarter to 6 - MIL shows up. Can't serve cake to small children at this time, so invite MIL to dinner so that we can all have cake and candles after dinner.
MIL accepts. I go into kitchen to scare up a bit of extra food.
Message arrives with me in kitchen 5 minutes later that MIL is not hungry and will not stay to dinner after all.
Come out of kitchen to find MIL rather huffily gathering her things and giving off appearance of being disappointed not to be offered cake.
We wave her off happily and go and have dinner and cake.

Who was right? Who was wrong?
Anyone who thinks I should have served cake at 5.45, to un-dinnered small children, to please MIL, you and I will have WORDS

[DontmindifIdo]

You were wrong - you should have called MIL at 4:15 to find out where she was, if you got voicemail, left a message saying you are doing cake and candles at 4:30pm. Then done cake and candles without her. "UP will only learn to modify their behaviour if they miss out on things" is the general concensus of this thread.

Next year, tell her you are lighting them at exactly 4pm. She misses it, she misses it. Make sure you tell your DH that you are doing things at set times and he should check his mother knows when those are, then go ahead and do them at set times with a breezy, "it's such a shame your mum wasn't able to make it, I wonder why she didn't call to say she wasn't coming?" (if she then turns up 1hour 45 minutes later you can look all surprised that "gosh, I thought you'd be here nearly 2 hours ago! We just assumed you weren't coming." - keep it up, she'll either learn to be on time or at least call you to get you to delay.)

[WorriedTeenMum]

You have my sympathies curryeater. The whole idea that 4pm actually means 4pm seems to pass some UP by. Some actually see this as a sort of silly affectation. They live by cottonwool time and happily ignore that others, for many reasons, need to be more structured.

My DPiL have got progressively worse over the years. As they and then their friends have retired they have forgotten the need to have things done within a fixed time. If they get up late then they simply time shift their whole day back couple of hours and then start running late even on the revised timetable.

Funnily enough DM has actually got better. The problems of old age mean that she has to take medication to a precise timetable. This makes her much more attached to alarms going off to remind her to take this or that. So long as we fit in with the medication timetable (which of course we do) then there is no problem!

[Thumbwitch]

Curryeater - absolutely correct to have NOT cut the cake at that time. MIL's loss. NO point in her having a huff - she should have bloody well turned up earlier!

[Ledkr]

We have a weekend holiday with late pils which will probably result in some extreme annoyance on my part. We have the two dds one of whom is 2 and needs a regular bedtime or wakes all night and is an early riser.
Pil bil sil and their dps are notorious at being late for everything so it will probably be midday before anyone is ready to go out and if we've been up since dawn I will not be waiting.
They just don't seem to care. At a close family wedding they had tea and biscuits before going to the reception and missed the photographs. I was really shocked.
If they come to stay they are often two to three hrs late which causes all sorts of problems as one of us needs to be here to let them in.
Even the grandparents moan about them but I've seen them they make no effort to be on time eg have to eat shower drink tea etc rather than put themselves out to be on time.
A huge problem for us is their reluctance to leave after a visit so for example a weekend visit can result in them not leaving until 7.30 Sunday which is so annoying a when we are trying to get ready for the week ahead. I wonder if overstaying is in the same vein as lateness.

[QuickLookBusy]

Why are so many people pandering to late PIL? I really don't get it. Yes wait for someone for say 20 mins, phone them/tell them you are going ahead with plans anyway. They will either start arriving on time or continue being late- but you and your young dc will not be inconvenienced.

My PIL are always late, up to an hour, it didn't bother me until we had dc. Then we started to just get on with our plans. I wouldn't make a young child wait for 2 hours for their lunch/a piece of birthday cake.
I also used to make sure DDs had eaten something before we went to their house for meals because I knew we would be kept waiting way beyond their meal times.

[Ledkr]

I don't pander to them anymore we just get in with our day. I've toughened up since we last visited them arrived around two after long car journey and didn't get offered food until I asked for the dc and then had nothing suitable for toddler at all. Fuming. I had to walk to the shops.
We were going skating at Xmas and they faffed about do much that we were running out if time so I zoomed off with dd1 and left them to it.

[WorriedTeenMum]

QuickLookBusy - the problem I feel now is that DPiL are elderly and DH & I dont really want to upset them. We were more strict about timekeeping when DCs were small.

Now we minimise the times when we are exposed to their tardiness. Sadly this means that we limit the times we visit them and they visit us. If they phone to say they expect to be in the area on such and such a day we will only say we will be in if we will be able to deal with them saying they will arrive mid afternoon but in fact arrive early evening.

They want to be able to just pop in but we have had to make it clear that we need notice as they dont just arrive late they then wont leave!