To be quietly sick of family members organising big (family-wide) events that exclude children

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

We have a toddler (the only child so far on DH's side of the family). His side's approach to life seems to be to ignore presence of child, so family birthday/Xmas events continue to be organised as:

• meals out late in the evening when our child needs to be in bed
• weekends away in locations that are not child friendly with adult activitues that its difficult to do with a child in tow, & with an apparent expectation that our toddler can fit into bizarre irregular meals times & their v adult routine which involves late starts in the morning and staying out late
• tickets to day time events at venues where children are not allowed

AIBU to be a bit tired of this? We don't expect our child to be constantly accommodated & we try to find baby sitting options, but sometimes when we point out that something doesn't include children, family members just seem bemused and don't seem to understand that theres any issue. Am I missing something here?

OP I think YABU when it is celebratory birthday for an adult. But I think other family events should include your toddler and they are BU.

But having kids does change your lifestyle.

I wish I could go out on all the nights and days out we used to when we were childless, but I can't. Because life changes.

If you have kids and no-one else does, it's unrealistic to expect them to accomodate that. I get that you don't expect them to all the time, but nonetheless, life with kids doesn't go on as it used to.

I wouldn't be dragging my young child along to late night events, or outings where they'd be expected to sit for long periods and get bored. I'd be saying 'sorry, we can't make it'.

Ps. Sorry for the drip feed. Guilty as charged

Unusual that they didn't get their grandchild even a birthday card! From what you say, they seem determined to deny that their grandchild even exists.

They are being very unreasonable if your child is unwelcome at ALL family events. There is nothing wrong in refusing to attend events that are unsuitable or inconvenient for you. It sounds as if they haven't acknowledged your changed status as a parent of a young child. Maybe you and DH have been too accommodating and it hasn't dawned on them that things need to be different sometimes.

Maybe you could invite them to their grandchild's next birthday? Most grandparents, aunts and uncles are thrilled to come along.

Lots of helpful suggestions. Thanks all.

Oh you are so NBU. This is just plain thoughtless behaviour, which is understandable when it's been ages since people have had to consider young children, but not when they have repeatedly been requested to flex things a little bit and ignored your reasonable requests. The weird thing in my family is that all the GPs are incredibly thoughtful and accommodating, but my DSis (who has older DC than me) is sometimes v grumpy about accommodating my DC's needs, despite me and DH having spent the best part of a decade accommodating hers. Nowt as queer as folk! I have stepped back from much of a relationship with her and in my opinion, you should stop giving these people so much headspace. They apparently do not like you/your child all that much. And who gives a present that's going to cost £50 in babysitting (we use Sitters a bit and they are fab, but let's not forget the minimum hours on a Saturday...) I love theatre and opera but when it's costing me £50 as well as tickets...

My in-laws are a bit like this. They never offer to babysit themselves (fine, whatever) but expect me to dump the kids on my parents constantly so we can both go out boozing with them and have no interest in doing any activities with the kids. They’ve also tried to get me to babysit DSIL’s kids when she was over so she could go out boozing and got quite sulky when I kept saying no - why should I, the favor would never be returned?

My ILs were like this when mine were little. Always picking places and times that weren't suitable for young kids. Dh was always banging his head against the wall trying to get them to compromise. His db started a family ten years later than us. My dcs are grown up and lo and behold - we can only go to child friendly restaurants that suits BIL's kids. AND they don't eat a morsel and run around like lunatics. Thank god we no longer live near them so it's only a few times a year.

OP YANBU. From your description it sounds like they just don’t like young children . I can understand that up to a point (I’m not a fan of toddlers myself tbh ) but when it’s family I do find that a very sad and short sighted attitude.

Don’t get me wrong, I love adult-only time, fancy dinners, boozing etc, but when it comes to adults I care about who happen to have toddlers, or to toddlers I care about because of the link between us, I make sure I adapt to a certain extent as I want to see them and I want them to enjoy the time they spend with me! No way would I go to soft play but I’d happily have them to my house or go to theirs for lunch at the weekend. No need to do it on my actual birthday, but just for the odd family get together or for your birthdays shouldn’t be a problem!

Besides it’s fun to do a variety of events and adult only dinners over and over again would get boring in and of themselves!

I don't agree that cocktails are for people who don't like alcohol, some of the classic cocktails are great, and I also like drinking straight rum, wine, some beers, etc.

I've never expected other people to want to hang out with my kids. I think people just like kid free time

Going back a few pages OP says : "Loads of extended family/loads of cousins etc"

Yet she expects everything to revolve around her precious first born.

Hi OP

I think it's fair enough if it's a big birthday or something like someone's 40th. But otherwise I think they're being unfair if they do that every time. My sibling had children first and we would compromise - we'd still go out somewhere fairly nice for a meal but we'd do it after their lunchtime nap or something. Or we would have BBQ at home or something. As I didn't want them to have to deal with a cranky toddler all day. They have had children they can't be that clueless. It seems like they just can't be bothered, to not even get a birthday present for your own grandchild is quite unusual

@SileneOliveira the OP has in fact, repeatedly said that is not the case. She has asked that the occasional get together is accessible to her child and that family are more understanding if they can't attend an adult only event due to lack of childcare.

Where has she said every event must revolve around her child?

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland I can't believe you waited over an hour for them. 20 minutes and I would have left. Also, Next time dish up lunch and let anyone who is late dish up there own and pop it in the microwave. If your husband won't stand up for you then you have to do it. Good luck.

The more you say OP the more I think you have a DH problem as well as an inlaws one. If you DH cant stand up for his kid with his family then why would they change. You need to make the change especially with another baby on the way and just stop going - that said if your DH cant see the issue I wouldn't be keen on just sending him all the time as it will come across as you being the difficult one.

If you don’t have or want children it can be very easy to be thoughtless and not really consider other people’s children.

In future just don’t bother going to any of the events or plan your own which includes your DS.

This sounds personal to me. It's hard not to think they are doing it on purpose. Especially given that your DC is their grandchild? It's not as if they are old friends who never had children and just don't think that way. They have been through this before themselves and they should be mindful of their grandchild.

They don't need to make everything a child friendly event but when they don't it's very odd that they wouldn't understand why you can't make it.

I would just start saying no to a lot of stuff and ignore any whinging from them about it, but to be fair DH and I aren't massively close to our family

Call them out on it - you know we can't do that as we have children or just say no more frequently.

I had a moment when I realised that nothing would be good enough, so I should try less.

IL invited themselves on our family holiday at child orientated resort, we paid for our own holiday they booked for them later. I found an activity everyone was doing what they wanted kids playing, DH had wi-fi and IL had drinks and audience to talk about their previous holidays.

MIL launched into massive attack about how selfish I was as I wasn’t putting the kids into childcare - we'd never planned to– and for three it would have been a huge additional cost- and walking past the kids there hadn’t looked happy. We’d have almost certainly been in the pub still listening to them drone on.

DH wasn’t pleased either with the attitude I think they realised we weren’t budging and since then they’ve seemed to enjoy having the kids round.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
I think I am just overemotional (pregnant ) feeling like our child isn't wanted among family. None of them even gave our child a birthday card or present this year so I am a bit sensitive about it!
This ^^ is so sad OP and must make you feel terrible. Does your husband acknowledge how you feel at all? Does he talk to his family about this?BUT
Congratulations 🌷🍀🌈 on your new pregnancy (hope it's not too early for me to say that but as you mentioned it...)

Also brunch is my favourite meal of the day (especially on my birthday) provided I can have any luxury item I want, including a glass or two of champagne to share with good friends and family.

Have a great weekend with your own little family OP. 🤗

Funny thing is though, those who continually exclude our children will not get a invite for their children at our very child friendly wedding this year. I will just say sorry, there's already too many children coming.
I am sure they will heave a huge sigh of relief at not being invited to a 'very child friendly wedding'
Sounds grim!