To cancel DD’s birthday?

[NattyGeo]

NC’d to avoid being identified. My DD is set to have her 18th on a Thursday. We have booked a spa place with a restaurant, her and 5 friends have use of the swimming pool and sauna and will be having an 8 course tasting menu after. Costing us £350. Thinking of cancelling because she went to the People’s March when I told her she wasn’t allowed. She mentioned it on Thursday, a group of friends were going. she is very anti-Brexit and into politics (a real budding leftie), but I said no because it meant taking a National express at 4.30am to get to London by mid-morning and TBH I just didn’t see the point in doing it when we leave the EU next week! It would also mean taking a day off from her Saturday job. She sulked and stropped but I stood firm.

Yesterday morning I went to wake her as couldn’t hear her get up for work. She’d put pillows in her bed where her body should be to make it look like she was there and was gone! I rang her 10 times, no answer and on the 11th time I left a voicemail to say if she didn’t call back in 10 minutes I’d be reporting her to the police as a missing person. She called back, was in the bus and said sorry for sneaking out but she really wanted to go. She’d caught an Uber at 4am!

She arrived back at 2am this morning on the bus. I went to pick her up from the bus station (on my , she wanted to be dropped off no doubt to avoid me), and when she got in the car she told me to “wipe that look off my face”. She says she’s sorry for being dishonest but not sorry for going. I’m furious. She’s usually good as gold and has never done anything like this. WIBU to cancel Thursdays party as a punishment?

Can t be added to rtft but has the op been back? If not,

We're told to raise strong, independent women but punish them when they became that?

Considering she's basically an adult turning 18 this week, cancelling her birthday would not be considerate or do any good. I think a strong chat with her on her not listening to you and why she did what she did woukd be treating her as her age (an adult) than a 15 year old who snuck out.

It was a peaceful protest and she wanted to be part of it to get her point across and fight for what she believes in. Think of how many other ways she could have done this and done it wrong or illegally.

Speak with her as an adult and don't punish her with her birthday like a child or you'll regret it abd push her away.

I was absolutely thinking you were overboard, she is almost an adult and is standing up for something she believes in, being politically active etc.

But "wipe that look off your face" is something I would NEVER say to my mother, nor would I ever say or accept it to/from my DDs.

So that would be a party cancelling offence from me I'm afraid.

By the time my daughter was 18 she was a veteran of CND rallies, March for Jobs rallies (with me) and Poll Tax rally, alone. She was also the regional contact for the distribution of a fringe political grouping newspaper and chair of her university LGB group.

She's now nearly 50 (I was a child bride 😊) she her, her partner and I share a house and have an excellent relationship.

I guarantee that if I'd tried to impose my political views on her (they were, and remain, quite different) our relationship would not be so harmonious.

Your house, your rules? Really? How about, it's your daughters home, and she has a right to her own opinions, and you should respect them?

OMG you forbade an almost 18 year old for having an interest in politics and how it may effect her future. If you had the decency to treat her as the ADULT that she is, she may not have felt the need to sneak around.

She's an adult and if was a peaceful match and I think YABU for saying she couldn't go.

I wouldn't cancel her birthday that's well OTT.

My mum was really controlling with me at that age and pushed me away in doing so. I did move back home when I split up with (the very unsuitable) boyfriend, but I wouldn’t have gone at all if my mum hadn’t been so controlling about what I did.

I’ve cut down massively on how much I see and speak to her recently as she still tries to control me and I’m nearly 40. Unfortunately my brother just takes it and does as he is told, so I’m seen as being wildly unruly (and actually in truth, I am nothing like that at all, it’s just I don’t do as she says).
Your daughter is very nearly a grown up and she wouldn’t have lied to you if you hadn’t been so controlling. It was obviously important to her and you should have known that. I always tell my mum when she goes on about how bad I was as a teenager that she should think herself lucky - I was never brought home in a police car, no teenage pregnancies and I never got myself so drunk/high on drugs that I couldn’t get home safely. Is it so bad that your dd tried to go to London for something she obviously believed in?

Also the "wipe that look off your face" remark sounds like she was just trying to get in before you started speaking or treating her like a child.

Glad you're not cancelling.

I don't think going in an Uber is a particularly risky activity - the whole journey is tracked in real time and Uber has all the driver and passenger details.

Sure, sometimes it goes wrong but then so can anything in life. I worry about my teens getting run over tbh.

If you treat her like a child, she will act like one.

I would be inclined to say that you understand that her rudeness was a response to unreasonable behaviour on your part, but you don't want to see it again, especially the lying.

Then undertake to try and make sure she doesn't feel she has to lie to you again.

I'm really struggling to believe this is real, no one is as controlling and unreasonable as the op is portraying herself, surely?

If this is real. That young woman is going to be out of that house at the first opportunity.

Yabu. I have an 18 yr old and I allow her to make her own decisions. She is an adult. I would support her wanting to march too. It doesn't matter what you think, she is old enough to make her own decisions. Of course you can point out the pitfalls, but if she was willing to pay her way and organise her own transport for something she believes in, i wouldn't have stopped her.

Wow

YABVVVVVVVVVVVVVU

I'm shocked you would even think it's something to punish her for. She was sneaky because YOU made it that way by forbidding her from going. She 18, not 8

Just because you are politically disinterest, do not punish her for her passion. This country needs people like your DD way more than it needs people who sit back like yourself & let someone else do the graft.

You should be proud of her, not punishing her in such an nasty way. Give your head a wobble & FFS let her grow up 😐

The fact that you proudly describe your adult daughter as "good as gold," is making me feel very icky. What is "good as gold"? Does what mummy says, doesn't express her own opinions, keeps her gaze at floor level?
Yes she lives in your house, she should follow your rules in the house, but you can't tell her where she can and can't go when she is outside the house.

Of course she was embarrassed, you acted in a very humiliating way towards her. Humiliation and inappropriate control are at the heart of all emotionally abusive relationships.

I would add that until she was 18 we were fair;y strict parents but now she will be at uni in September , you have to start lodging the reins. i trust that we have done our job an that she will ask advice when needed.

And "wipe that look off your face" is 100% something parents say to children, so I would assume she was throwing her mother's previous words back in her face.

I do that from time to time when my parents forget I'm am adult now. We share a sense of humour, so it tends to diffuse the situation.

fairly not fairy and loosening not lodging!

Has your dd been an angel child. I ask because I have been spoken to by my 11 year old and has been put back in his place.

There is an element of your house your rules but there has to be some flexibility . If you think Uber are unsafe then you should discuss a safer way to travel . If you forbid then you are likely to get a rebellion.

I am glad you are not cancelling the party. Some things in life they don’t do what we want them to

I appreciate you want to discipline her, but she's not going to learn the lesson you want because she didn't come to any harm and she thought the march was worthwhile enough to disobey you. All she'll learn is that breaking "your house, your rules" will result in a punishment, and this will mean almost nothing once she turns 18.

You'd be better off talking through your concerns about safety through with her, which I think is the only valid point you've made in your OP.

I wouldn't cancel, at 18 she's old enough to do what she want's to do, you should be proud of her standing up for what she believes

OP, on the off-chance that this is true, you need to step back. The fact that your daughter even needed to lie to you about something like this suggests that you are very controlling. You told her she couldn't go because we're leaving the EU next week (we're not!), but that's not your place - her political activism has absolutely nothing to do with you. If you keep this up, you're going to be one of those mothers who expects to veto her grandchildren's names.

When I read the title I thought you were talking about a 5 year old.

OP she is 18. You sound deranged tbh.

If she can afford to travel to London etc tell her to pay for his own party

*But "wipe that look off your face" is something I would NEVER say to my mother, nor would I ever say or accept it to/from my DDs.

So that would be a party cancelling offence from me I'm afraid*

If this thread is genuine, based on the ops post I would bet anything that this is a phrase learned from her mother...

God I wish my two grown up DD’s felt passionately about politics. Leaving the EU will affect her future & good on her for wanting to have her voice heard and standing up to be counted! I’d have been exceptionally proud. She’s 18, she wasn’t sneaking off to a party and taking drugs. Be a grown up ffs!! Having said all that about standing up & being counted, if it was the Farage fiasco any child of mine wanted to attend, I’d be throwing a major wobbly ( but not to the point of cancelling their 18th birthday celebrations - Jesus woman!)