to be stunned at sil's grasping attitude?

[winkywinkola]

It's fil's 60th this December.

Sil thinks he should take us all away for a long weekend or to a London west end show.

That would be six adults and seven children.

She says everyone else she knows gets taken away for grandparents big birthdays, fil has no commitments like we do with children etc so he can treat us.

Am I alone in thinking for someone's birthday they don't usually end up paying for everyone else? Particularly if they are pensioners. I mean they're not poor but they're not wealthy by any standard.

No 'should' about it, is there. A nice thing to do if he could afford and wants to, that's all.

Remind SIL of her obligations on her own 60th won't you

I missed a trick when DMum and DMIL turned 80 the other year, then.

How weird. She said that to him?

Oh yes! Do start sending her links, no, no.... start a Pinterest page for her. Save up all those good ideas for her 60th celebration

Oh the joy...

Tell her to stop being so selfish and to think about what she can do for him rather than what he can do for her.

I've never known an older person to take the whole family away to celebrate a milestone age?

Why should the whole family gain out of his birthday? If anything the younger adults should be paying towards his ticket/ meal as a birthday treat him him.

Yanbu, although I think we may have the same sil. She once didn't take any spending money on holiday as she presumed pil would offer to buy everything for her anyway.

for my dad's 60th we took him out for a meal was this wrong?

So not only is the poor man turning 60 but he's got to pay heavily for the privilege as well.

Does she make up many of her own 'traditions'?

In my family when you have a birthday everyone treats you. I thought that's what happens in most families.

Dammit I bought the food and DB the drink for our Dad's 75th party. We clearly didn't get the memo.

Wow, entitled much?

Extraordinary attitude.

That's not nice. It's about HIM not her.

Is your SIL his daughter or his daughter in law?

If it's the former, it's still not good but less bad as expectations of your own father are different and carved out of a life time of family traditions etc. If it's the latter, it's terrible - she's got no right at all to expect him to do anything for her - she's not a blood relative. Hell, he may not even like her.

If anyone is organising a trip or a treat, it should be the family FOR him.

My sister was taken to the Caribbean for her FIL's 60th, all expenses paid - so she's not wrong that 'grandparents' sometimes splash out for big birthdays- but she IBVVVVU to expect it.

I've been taken to Greece for the IL's big wedding anniversary and Spain for MIL's 60th birthday... But I just assumed I had very generous IL's, not that this was normal behaviour! How odd. She ibvu.

My in laws and parents owe us 4 fancy holidays between them then! Hmm, they will be getting some very pointed texts this evening, so I warn you...

wasn't there a thread on here about the ILs who INSISTED on taking their adult DCs away for a family holiday when each of their DC turned 40 - the only issue was they expected it to be them and their adult DCs only, no spouses/partners/kids

I do have one very lucky friend who was treated to a cruise, her and her sister and their families, for their parents 60th birthdays and 40th anniversary year, but no, this is not the norm. Nice treat if it is offered but never something to be expected.

In our family we treat the birthday person not the other way round! DD's 80th next summer we are planning a treat.

Wow!!

"Everyone else", my DS says that but he's only 11. I can't believe she's made it adulthood without growing out of that, it's a weird thing for a grown woman to say.

I wonder if replying as though she's a child would make her think about it. I usually go through DS's classmates one by one. He says "EVERYONE in my class has a phone except me", I start with the least likely ones "Does Amelia have a phone?" etc, by the time I've had 4 or 5 "No"s in a row, I've made my point.

I've known some older people take their whole family away for various occasions but they are generally fairly wealthy and their family have no expectation of being treated, nor do the family expect to get a say in what the holiday/trip is.

She sounds delightful. I can't think why on earth he's not rushing to treat her to a weekend away on his birthday.

I've known it to work both ways. When it was a big birthday for fil we paid for our family and sil paid for her family for a meal out. we paid for fil and mil between us.

They did make certain demands on the guest list though. Which is a bit irritating when they weren't paying.

Your SIL and mine would get on like a house on fire. When FIL was turning 60 he did say he would like to take us all away for the weekend, somewhere in the UK, to celebrate. So he started looking into renting a cottage in the lake district or similar. This, apparently, wasn't good enough for SIL who kept pressuring her Dad to take us all abroad. She kept posting links to his FB news feed of 'deals' she'd seen for Paris, Rome, even New York was mentioned at one point. I found it mortifying. We didn't end up going anywhere as MIL was really poorly so now she makes cracks about how they "owe" her and her kids a holiday!

Was my Mum scamming us when we took her away on holiday for her 70th? We didn't let her pay for anything.

My Dad took 8 of us to Ibiza for a week for his 60th. It was amazing. But no one told him to do it!