Would you prioritise your grandchild's birthday?

[BrocoliTrees]

Would you choose going to a friend's wedding (not close friends) over your grandchild's 6th birthday party? Even if the wedding invite came first, knowing the date of your grandchild's birthday, would you check to see what would be happening for their birthday? Being a Saturday too.

Bit more context... what if you would also be moving to another part of the country from said grandchild the following week.

Interested to know opinions.

Haven’t their own caring responsibilities increased in the past few years? People can only stretch themselves so far, and you seem to expect them to act in the same way as your parents. I also wonder if they’ve backed off upon realizing how much you expect from them, and how pissed off you get when they don’t meet your expectations. Bet it doesn’t make for great visits either. It may not be easy for you, but you are your husband are the ones that chose to have children. They are your responsibility, no one else’s.

They were clearly nervous about telling you about the move, because they knew how you’d react. The purposefully didn’t tell you until they had to. I suspect they’re ‘pressuring’ you to visit as a response to your attitude towards them, and trying to appease you.

They are not your parents. Your parents are the strange ones to them. Hell, your parents are the strange ones to a lot of people here too. You need to accept that they’re not going to suddenly be what you want them to be, no matter how you treat them. You’ve been acknowledging that need to do that over multiple threads, but you don’t seem to have put it into practice yet.

Wedding and do something another day with child. My parents have been at most my childrens birthdays but not all and it wouldn't bother me if they weren't as we would do something another day.

I would go to the wedding. Plenty more birthdays.

My close friends have factored in all sorts of things when they’ve planned their wedding, within our group of friends and for their families, ax they want to guarantee their attendance. If you don’t thats ok, we do. Not close friends, like in the OP, wouldn’t, big then I wouldn’t prioritise them either.

You have to be reasonably close to get an invite to a wedding.
There are people who put family first every time and friends last. They do not tend to make or keep close friends but simply casual friends.

Wedding. Unless it was a big 18th or 21st party.

I would never expect either my parents or in laws to prioritise my daughters birthday over a wedding they were invited to. I wouldn't expect for one minute they'd not accept a wedding invite around the time of my child's birthday - I'd just assume they'd be going to the wedding. They can celebrate with my child another day and there will be plenty of other birthdays, they can't celebrate the couple's wedding on a different day.

Wedding.

@BrocoliTrees I can't see this in any of your responses but have they arranged a seperate time to see DGC before they move?

If not then I think you are reasonable in feeling let down for your children, but I think you're being unreasonable to expect adults to decline a wedding invitation to attend a children's birthday party. Even if they're GPs.

Wedding - you obviously detest your poor in laws. Honestly life is too short - be graceful to them. They are different to your own family and that’s fine. When your kids are older you will look back and cringe otherwise.

This isn’t a close friend though and my experience of weddings is not that you have to be close to get an invite. I prioritise family and close friends events over not close friends events. If it was a close friend it would potentially be different.

They were enthusiastic grandparents. Maybe you tool advantage of that and relied on them too much. Maybe they just found being very involved too much because I sense that you put a lot of pressure on them. Maybe they just want a quiter life

It's pretty obvious. I'm glad they've put in a boundary. From the way the OP is going on, it's been a long time coming. Feel a bit sorry for her bloke tbh, he must be getting a fair bit of earache.

You say their interest has changed over the years - could it have coincided with your child's diagnosis /more challenging behaviour? Sadly not everyone can cope.
That said, I'd pick the wedding, too.

@PrettyLittleWilderness

what if it was say the daughter of one of your close friends getting married, and you are her godmother.

Say she’s had to cancel
and rearrange her wedding several times
due to Covid.

She finally gets her venue of her choice and sends out the dates.

You receive it and you accept. She organises around that.

Would you then really not go as you had been invited to a grandchild’s 6th bday party?’

I don’t believe that being a mother or grandmother means you constantly have to worship at the alter of faaaaaamily 24/7 at the expense of everything and everyone else in life!

Friends matter too!

Of course they do, my friends are really important to me, as are some of my family. But a friend that’s not a close friend will never get priority over them because they are so important to me.

Are you a mum or nan? You seem to feel very strongly that there’s a right and wrong here when it’s just different ways of doing things in families and friendship groups.

Yep this exactly!

i couldn’t be like that.

i value my friendships too much.

Your kids grow up. As do grandkids. They likely move away, have their own lives.

Where does that leave you if youve never made times for your pals?!

Wedding. Every time. There is no way I would want my parents to prioritise my child's birthday over the once in a lifetime event that is a wedding. But then I tend to go all out for my children's birthdays, so I wouldn't think twice about having two or three celebrations, I love birthdays. I know that I'm lucky to be able to do that before anybody says anything!

But the key thing here is this isn’t a close friend.

"But the key thing here is this isn’t a close friend."

I'm not convinced that the Op is best placed to decide who is close friends to their inlaws.

Gobsmacked to discover there are people who, when planning the biggest day of their life so far, will say "Oh we can't choose x day because friend's GC is 6 that day so they might potentially be having a party for him"

It's a different world!

My grandparents have never missed any of my birthdays or my cousins birthday as a child.

It really is!

@TheresaWa

had they been invited to a wedding on the same day though?

I’m going on what OP says as that’s all we can do. If we’re going to start guessing circumstances then we could make up lots of stuff about the rest of it.

I'd go to the wedding and offer to host a tea party the following day. For now I host dgs's family birthday party as I have a bigger house and like to cook but I'm under no illusion that as he gets older he will have a party with his friends on the day and a family party another day.

Wedding.

But there's obviously backstory. Are you the poster who keeps popping up under different names writing about the in laws moving away?
You really need to get past this now. They have decided to move for their own reasons. There is nothing you can do about this and being resentful is not helping anyone.
Your child has a great relationship with your parents. It's not like DC has grandparents interested in them.

I actually don't see why grandparents' lives should be expected to revolve around a grandchild because the grandparents' own child decided to have children.
If they are interested, great. But, if they want to have a looser relationship and not be as involved as other grandparents, that's also their decision.