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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

don't know what I've done wrong. Help me see the error of my ways...

670 replies

NannaNoodleman · 08/08/2019 19:38

Family visiting from abroad, staying in our house, they're very welcome.

They wanted to go out to a certain place this afternoon but I was cooking dinner for everyone and clearing up lunch pots. So they went out and I stayed home.

Two cars: 4 adults and 4 children.

I called at 5pm and asked what time they'd be home and was told they wouldn't be setting off for another hour.

I asked my parents to bring my kids home sooner as they're tired and I wanted them to be in bed at a reasonable time tonight.

Well... it's caused a massive hoohah!!!

I've been told that they're on holiday and don't want to be summoned back for dinner at a certain time. There's been an argument and I'm being ignored!

  • this is also my holiday (we stay in England for the summer so we can see them when they visit).
  • they could've told me they didn't want dinner when I stayed home to cook it.
  • I wasn't asking them to come back.
  • I thought they were here to see us.
  • my house is not a b&b.
  • my children are so tired from many late nights that they've been crying at everything today.

So, why am I the villain?

OP posts:
gobbynorthernbird · 08/08/2019 20:32

Jesus, I want to shout at you just reading this.
You didn't tell your parents what time you wanted the DC back. You're sending pass-agg messages to guest about coming back for dinner. Then you're being all martyr-ish because people got cross with you.

Cannotresist · 08/08/2019 20:32

Maybe they don’t want home cooked food and you have just assumed they do and they have just not said anything. When I’m on holiday I want to eat out, my choice of food. I wouldn’t bother cooking or if you are cooking just pizza or a salad etc that can be had at any time ?

LighteningSam · 08/08/2019 20:33

I don't think you;re being unreasonable at all, but I also think grandparents etc very quickly forget what it is like having young children. Mine are a nightmare if we change the bedtime routine so I would have said the same thing to them. Sorry for some of the replies you're getting though!!

Phineyj · 08/08/2019 20:33

This all sounds a bit mad to me but I would question the common sense of people who can't spot a knackered 2 and 3 year old and realise to bring them back anyway! My DD would have been intolerable if overtired at that age. And fallen fast asleep in the the car whatever I'd done.

Assert yourself. Tomorrow, at breakfast, explain that the kids' bedtime is X and you cannot look after them properly and cook complicated meals for 10, so others need to muck in.

You are their mum. You have the casting vote on bedtime etc.

StatisticallyChallenged · 08/08/2019 20:33

They're being unpleasant and rude. It is perfectly fucking reasonable to say "i want my overtired exhausted kids home for their normal bedtime so can someone please bring them back"

Unless the cars are tiny that could have been one grandparent, the others could have stayed out.

ladymariner · 08/08/2019 20:33

Tell you what, op, you carry on exactly as you are. You have a response to every one of us who think yabu, so why bother posting.

Nosavingshere · 08/08/2019 20:33

You sound like a martyr.
You shouldn’t have let the kids go if it was going to be this much of an issue.
You say you asked for your children to come home but that was only going to work if they were able to get home themselves so you were asking for your children to be brought home.

kingsassassin · 08/08/2019 20:34

Have you eaten op? If so, don't underestimate how tired you're likely to be after a week of hosting and dealing with jangly irritable toddlers - I'd suggest just going to bed early (possibly with a book after a bath) and giving yourself some space from all of them for an evening.

After a good sleep you'll be in a much better place tomorrow to go down and ask who's sorting out the takeaway for the evening!

StuffYouAllInTheCrust · 08/08/2019 20:34

Good grief this place drives me mad at times! YANBU! You’re at home doing something lovely for your guests and you’re only asking them to drop the kids back Confused You’ve done nothing wrong here at all OP. Please don’t hide away from them - your kids, your rules! Flowers

Frouby · 08/08/2019 20:34

Fuck that OP, they are guests in your home, they have your 2 and 3 year old who aren't coping well with the change in routine and you have asked that 2 young dcs are brought home at a reasonable time.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. No one should have screamed at you and no one should be making you feel uncomfortable in your own home especially when you are kind enough to cook twice a day for them.

Tomorrow keep your dcs with you and send everyone else out without you and tell them to call at a pub for their evening meal as you jeed your little ones to get some rest.

StatisticallyChallenged · 08/08/2019 20:35

But only one person needed to bring the kids home and if you chooss to take someone's kids out you accept the responsibility for getting them home at a decent time

Sirzy · 08/08/2019 20:35

I don’t think it’s just over tired children at play. It sounds like all involved are over tired and it’s causing clashes.

Tomorrow wave your visitors off for the day and stay home with the kids. Give each other some space for a day. Then get a takeaway between you all when they get back

Nosavingshere · 08/08/2019 20:36

don't know what I've done wrong. Help me see the error of my ways..
Hmm

Cheby · 08/08/2019 20:36

YANBU OP. Jesus wept. You’ve got a whole family of guests staying with you for a week. You’re giving up holiday time to accommodate them, and your running around cooking and cleaning for them and they choose to treat you like this in your own house. It’s them who are incredibly rude.

If you know someone, your host, is cooking for you, and you decide to go out, the polite thing to do would be for the guests to ask when the meal was planned for. The decent human being thing to do would be to ask if they could help, or maybe bring home dessert.

If someone is hosting you (presumably for free), for a week, and running around doing all the cooking and cleaning, you suck it up and are polite and grateful. Otherwise you book a hotel.

In fact ask them to do that OP. Tell them you’ve had enough and they can bloody well take themselves off to a hotel.

I can’t get over them dominating your living room while you feel anxious upstairs either. They are not very pleasant people.

kingsassassin · 08/08/2019 20:36

If people don't want home cooked food and they know that someone is planning to prepare home cooked food there are only two polite responses:

  1. say before they start cooking 'I don't fancy that, let's each sort ourselves out, don't go to any trouble'; or

  2. delicious thanks.

MadeForThis · 08/08/2019 20:37

Just tell them that from now on you will take the children out and about. So they can be home for bedtime and the adults are free to eat wherever they please.

Don't cook for them again.

Original poster
NannaNoodleman · 08/08/2019 20:37

Talking of assumptions Hmm

I didn't assume anything. I went to the supermarket and said "I'll get xxxx for dinner tomorrow" and everyone went "oh lovely"!!

Nothing at all passive aggressive in saying "let me know when you're on your way home so I can finish your dinner"... what kind of people do you know!!

If they didn't want dinner THEY COULD HAVE SAID... I have better things I could be doing!

OP posts:
Twickerhun · 08/08/2019 20:37

You are so not unreasonable! They have been rude. Hope you are ok now

MrsSarahSiddons · 08/08/2019 20:37

I disagree with most of the posters here. I think your family are being very unreasonable. When we have joint family holidays we all take turns to do the cooking, or we all do it together, or the men do it all one evening. No way should it all be your responsibility.

Cano · 08/08/2019 20:38

YANBU, you can’t always think ahead of other people’s intentions. Stop waiting on these people and don’t let them take your DC out without you.

They sound like they are lazy and taking advantage of you and you are allowing your self to be a door mat. It’s probably quiet downstairs because you are not waiting on them. It’s your holiday house, your holiday, stop being everyone cook and cleaner.

Troels · 08/08/2019 20:38

Well it's all done now. But your parents having a go and then the other family having a go is not on, you are in your own house with your own kids. You get to decide where your kids are. If they want to go and stay somewhere else then let them. I would not host them all again next year.
They have another go at you tell them all to go and find a hotel.

DerelictWreck · 08/08/2019 20:38

Fuck this don't apologise OP!

Posters are mad you did nothing wrong! They went out knowing you were making dinner, implying they'd be home at a certain time. They then missed this, you asked half the group to come back, not the visitors, so you toddlers could go to beds

Why ole they were out having fun you were doing all the cleaning and cooking.

Yet you're the bad guy, getting abused and told to relax?! What bollocks

Pebbles574 · 08/08/2019 20:39

I actually think you're getting a bit of hard time here OP. Yes, perhaps the communication could have been better, but the problem is that no doubt you will have to deal with the consequences of their 'couple of hours' turning into a long afternoon/early evening out.
I've had this before, and everyone rolls back in, hands over two toddlers who are eitherly massively over-tired or have slept the whole way home and now won't go to sleep until midnight and while they go off and relax/ shower/ read/sit with a glass of wine you're left trying to be the hostess and supermum.
Personally I'd take the children and say you're off to do bath and bedtime and leave instructions for everyone else to finish the dinner, lay the table and serve up just in time for you to emerge!

AlwaysCheddar · 08/08/2019 20:39

Sorry but if the kids were that bad they would have bought them home. Yabu

Original poster
NannaNoodleman · 08/08/2019 20:42

I was going to keep the kids home today but they all insisted they went!

I can't avoid them tomorrow as we have a planned event.. why I wanted a reasonable bedtime.

OP posts:
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