To think it's rude to be an hour late even if you are family?

[Rkg233]

My mum is always late. As a child we always got to school/clubs/parties late.
My parents were meant to be coming round to see DS at 12. They live 45 minutes away and I said to her please can you let me know if you're running late, she said she would. Neither of them are answering their phones and we need to go out this afternoon. This happened a couple of weekends ago as well - they asked what time, we agreed at 11. At 11.30 I rang her and they were still sat at home. I know they're my parents but AIBU to think it's rude to be this consistently late even if they are family?

I am really disorganised and untidy but chronically punctual. I can't stand tardiness.

I was trying to think about what makes punctual people different from tardy people - aside from lack of consideration - I reckoned that it's to do with how you view the scheduled arrangements.

If I say I have to leave the house by 8am to get somewhere, that in my mind, I'm not leaving "around abouts" 8am. 8am is the very last time I can leave the house in my mind to get where I need. So even if I slept in and woke at 7:45" I would make sure I was out the house for 8. I never make arrangements to meet people "about 12-ish" or "after 12". 12 means 12 means 12. I think tardy people see their arrangements as much more fluid than that.

I tend to think that, if I say about 2 I mean on the dot of 2. Whereas my DB will take that as being anywhere between 2 and 4.

I have no issue at all with people being later than expected if they let me know in advance, or if we have to compromise on a preferred time to suit everyone. I just don't like being left waiting, the situation described by the OP would drive me mad.

On a day to day basis I can't abide being late for anything though, we are never late to school, ballet, Cubs, Brownies, whatever as I think it's rude to the organisers.

That would drive me nuts. I am not the most punctual of people but it's only ever a few minutes late, mostly I arrive on time but with a mad last minute rush.

IL's however are always either an hour early or an hour late, drives me mad both ways. It's just as rude to turn up at someone's house an hour early and then comment that they aren't ready, grrrr!

ok an example from today. Said I'd meet my chronically late friend at 2.30 to go onto an event that starts at 3.30. I could pick her up at 3 but I know her! She textd that her train would be in at 2.45 with no suggestion that she is aware that that's 15 mins beyond when we said. Then she texts that she is running late so will be there at 3.15. Even assuming she DOES make that train (and that is not a given) I would then be late for the event so I have told her to get there herself. She adds a sorry to the end of the later txts but I don't think she actually gets how annoying it is OR how everyone now raises their eyebrows and gets pissed off with her.

I hope you went out OP. People like that only learn once they have been inconvenienced a few times themselves!

KatieKaye some shit cant be helped, I was 2 and a half hours late last week for a stupid community meeting because some little fucktard decided to smash his car into the farm fence at about 70 mile an hour and make a huge fucking hole for the bull to get out, but its ok, next time I will prioritise the committee and leave the big bastard to take out however many cars/ people he see's fit.

This morning I was late because I was waiting on the air ambulance after one of the young stallions kicked the farrier in the face with steel shoes on. Then I was late because the truck got stuck in the mud and I had to walk to get the tractor to pull it out. My life is in no way comparable to yours. Tomorrow I plan on going to work at 6am moving all the sheep from one field to another field and moving a few tonnes of manure then going back home to take the kids to school.

The collies may have other ideas, the sheep might not want to move with just two of us and we might have to wait on another few people to help move that many so I might be late. Life gets in the way of perfect plans but if I am late I deal with it.

xcountry which part of my post didn't you bother to read? I specifically said I excluded one off incidents that cannot be helped.
You going on about incidents you were involved in that made you late is therefore completely irrelevant to the scenarios of people who do not see why they should turn up on time, even when they know it is putting others out.

MIL is like this - we have lost countless table bookings in restaurants because of it. Drives me nuts! Sadly, DH has inherited this dreadful trait - I no longer wait for him if we are going anywhere, I just go and he has to catch up. I have to tell him that we have to be somewhere a good 30 minutes earlier than the real time.

YANBU to be annoyed but... why do you keep expecting them to change?

You know they are always late! Why are you expecting any different?

KatieKaye, Fluffy's post made it clear that she isn't making anyone wait: she's telling her family when she can arrive for their family gatherings and expressly asking them not to wait, and she arrives at the time she said she would. It's in the nature of family gatherings that it really doesn't matter if everyone doesn't turn up at the same time. If the hosts don't like it, they can say no. I can't see that that's so rude.

it isn't always a disregard for other peoples time.

I have dyscalculia and my weakest skill is time. I can't tell the time and I can't estimate the passing of time either. I am chronically late or early because i can't estimate travel time or preparation time. I've tried working on it, I've used alarms etc, but i still can't get it right. I feel awful about it -it certainly isn't an attitude that my time is more important than others.

"KatieKaye some shit cant be helped, I was 2 and a half hours late last week for a stupid community meeting because some little fucktard decided to smash his car into the farm fence at about 70 mile an hour "

Fucktard?

Really?

I did a lunch party yesterday for my inlaws - they were all late. My text said clearly 1pm and I was hoping to serve food at 1.15. The first guest came at 1.30 and the rest straggled in between 1.45 and 2pm. Some of the food was overdone and the lovely bread was cold - it would have been nice served warm. I had chicken gougons on for the kids and intended serving them as soon as kids arrived - they were very overdone. And the kids arrived starving as they would be eating lunch later than usual time. Its not the end of the world but it is annoying. And disrespectful of my time and effort.

There were a variety of excuses, largely based on traffic. But how hard would it have been for the passenger in the car to send a quick text giving an eta??? I could have adjusted cooking times if even one of them had let us know that they were running late. And given distances involved they would have all known they were going to be late from about 12.15 .

Rant over.

Well ici if you can't see that it is rude not to make an effort to turn up at the time your host has specified, then obviously you wouldn't have a problem with it. Fluffy didn't say there was any reason to justify this, just that they. "Liked" to do "stuff" in the morning.
IMO you owe your family as much courtesy as anyone else and that includes falling in with their wishes at times like this.

My BIL is disastrous for this. MIL always invites him to Sunday lunch at ours when she visits but gets really huffy if I suggest starting lunch without him even with two small and increasingly grumpy children. I eventually blew my top about his continuing rudeness (in his absence but in front of MIL) and now she tells goldenballs that lunch is planned for two hours early than it actually is....

My mum, stepdad, sister and brother in law were two hours late this year for Christmas dinner!!!

To me it sounds as though the family lunches which fluffy is referring to is a very frequent event, rather than an occasional event.

If that's the case, then I think she is well within her rights to say we will be there at X time.

We used to have fortnightly lunches at my DM's house, and as different family members came from different churches and different distances we all had varying arrival times. Why should I skip my regular morning commitments just because someone else's regular morning commitments finish earlier than mine do?

A FAMILY event should start when ALL the family agree to get there. The rest of them KNOW when Fluffy can get there. They want to start earlier fine, otherwise, wait! Simple really.

My dm is like this. Supposed to pick me up at 12 and rings me at 11:55 to say she's just getting in the shower! I wouldn't mind but she'd have been up since 7 alternating doing some washing and playing on the computer. Luckily I get my punctuality from my dad but it means lateness drives me nuts!

My sil lives a distance away but her father lives locally to me
She emailed me to say was visiting her father for a few days and would come over to see me and my family
Told her to call beforehand just to be sure
She called one evening to say she would visit early afternoon the next day
My son and family were also visiting me and we booked to go out for a meal at 5pm as the little ones get hungry early
At 1645 there was still no sign of sil and no contact and so we went out for meal
Came back, got the little ones in bed etc
At 9pm the door went. It was sil come to visit with comment, sorry am a bit late!!!!!!
She was none the wiser that we had eaten out as would not sit for her any longer!!
She always does it so we now know that we can still do what we planned to do and she will never be any the wiser

My sister does this. Drives me crackers.

I remember one Christmas when we had a baby we spent all morning feeding and napping her at a certain point to ensure she was in tip top mood for her dinner. DH even walked her to sleep in pouring rain mid morning.

My sister was 1.5 hours late for no given reason so my dad rejigged dinner around her. DD had to have an Ella's Kitcheb pouch for her Christmas dinner at a sensible time and I spent mine trying to sooth a cross, tired baby.

Arghhhhhhhh. YANBU.