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.

Wedding. Unless it was an 18th/21st and there was a big party. For a 6th birthday I would just take the child out somewhere nice on a different day near thier birthday.

Wedding. Definitely. How are your inlaws supposed to know what you have planned. Kids don't always have parties on their birthday because of other clashes. You may have been taking a group to air hop or something, no grandparents needs to be subjected to that.

If I knew my parents had been invited to a wedding on the weekend of DDs birthday we'd celebrate the weekend before or after or a nearby week night. We normally do 2 parties - 1 for school friends and 1 for family and it always has to fit around my sisters shift work, other activities, my DD availability (EOW with her Dad). I thought it was normal to make accommodations so family don't have to choose either or if at all possible.

To be honest, I think you are being very unreasonable in this scenario. Your Child's grandparents are away until the day before your Child's Birthday/ The wedding they have been invited to and they are moving 2 days after that - and you still insist ( in one of your later posts) that they should be making time to squeeze in seeing your DC? Now, I wonder who is being selfish here. Hmm?

They must be reasonably friendly to be invited to someone's wedding and they accepted it. The Invitation was issued to them first. Your child is 6 - it won't matter to your child.

You are annoyed they didn't check with you before accepting the Invitation: But some parents ( with the same circumstances as your In Laws) would have been posting on here '' My In Laws are wanting to know what we are a doing for our DC's birthday, as they clearly want to spend the day with us on DC's birthday, but we were planning on doing x and it won't be suitable for the In -Laws'' How do I tell them nicely they can't come over''

To be honest, whether you mean to or not, you are coming across as disliking your In -Laws and also being petty:
‘’ But it does work both ways. They will also have to accept that we will have priorities too and won't always be able to go and see them when they move when they want us to. Already, there's been quite a bit of pressure on us to visit and stay with them and we can't always make those commitments. Dc with special needs and a baby. Both work and have health problems ourselves. It's not easy’’

Sounds like you are avoiding saying to them that 'yes, of course you will come when we can' but making them think that you won't go at all? Otherwise I don't understand how they can be pressurising you when they haven't even moved yet? Sounds more like they are looking for reassurance that you WILL visit sometimes which is why they keep asking? Maybe?

You sound incredibly precious OP, and resentful of your in laws for moving away and for having lives of their own. Grow up.

I'd prioritise the wedding over a 6 year olds birthday party 100%

You're expecting your inlaws to miss a wedding to come to your childs 6th birthday party? Presuming your child doesn't have a life limiting condition, a 6th birthday party held at home really isn't all that important. My husband and I missed the birthday of one of our children once to go abroad for 2 days for a wedding! Child has turned out just fine.

And just to add if I knew my mum or inlaws were going to a wedding on the Saturday, I would probably arrange for the party to be on the Sunday, or the following weekend, if it was important to ds that they were there. I would not expect them to decline a wedding invitation they had already accepted.

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.

This! 100%!

don’t see how ANYONE could see this as unreasonable - grandparents have their own lives and absolutely do not have to revolve around their grandchildren

Yet you say you prioritise your friends. For us that includes making sure they can be there on a day that special to us. Years ago when lots of weddings were happening, there was always lots of chat about suitable dates. One of our friends husbands has to travel a lot for work which isn’t really changeable, and weddings were always planned around him as everyone wanted him there. None of us got married on anyone else’s birthday or kids birthdays, we wouldn’t have considered it, there’s plenty of other days. Only one of my friends has a grandchild so far but there’s no way she’d want to miss a birthday so the rest of us would always take that into account when planning anything.

I think some people think weddings are more important than anything else, but you get a lot of choice usually on the day you get married so why not fit it around family/friends. In OPs situation, these are not close friends, so of course they wouldn’t have considered any other things that OPs in-laws had going on. In the in laws position, I’d choose a grandchild’s birthday over a not close friends wedding.

I'm not a grandparent but if either my parents or in laws said they had a wedding on my child's birthday I wouldn't be arsed at all, wouldn't occur to me that they'd decline. I'd work around it, invite them to pop round for cake or mini birthday tea the night before/after etc.

Wedding for sure.

Oh come on if you had 100+ wedding guests and you considered dates each of them couldn’t come because of their, their children or their grandchildren’s birthdays you would never get married!

Speaking as a nanny, my grandchildren would always come first, regardless of if I was moving away or not.

Possibly wedding but I’d check in with parents of my grandchild first and see if they were ok with ur and arrange something special with child another time. My parents forgot my daughters 2nd bday and booked a holiday over it - I’d much rather they discussed with me first and then I’d say of course go on holiday - it’s just nice to know it’s been considered

Wedding is a one off. You can do something for a birthday and/or farewell on a different day around the same time.

My 3 kids have had 34 birthdays between them this far. My parents (who live a couple of hours and are very good GPs) have never been to a single birthday. They do cards and pressies and phone calls. My in laws have been to 2.

Really?

Or are you sad because some of us won’t put our lives on hold in order to provide a prop for our adult DC. and free childcare on tap?

I live abroad and see DGC once a year or less. No different to when I grew up. I hardly saw my DGP and it wasn’t a big deal to me.

As they're not close friends of yours, I'd prioritise the birthday and then spend as much time around them before I moved away.

Yet you say you prioritise your friends. For us that includes making sure they can be there on a day that special to us. Years ago when lots of weddings were happening, there was always lots of chat about suitable dates. One of our friends husbands has to travel a lot for work which isn’t really changeable, and weddings were always planned around him as everyone wanted him there. None of us got married on anyone else’s birthday or kids birthdays, we wouldn’t have considered it, there’s plenty of other days.

That’s a really lovely approach if you have a close circle of 4 or 5 couples. But if your friendships are more disparate, it becomes a nightmare. And if every Saturday is out for one reason or another, then you get people complaining “I’ve been invited to a term time wedding on a Monday and I can’t go”. It’s very tricky to please everyone.

There's not 100 people I’m close to. Our group of close friends include 7 of us and their partners. Then there’s a few family members that I would want there. Anyone else, I wouldn’t really care.

Wedding.

I’d prioritise the wedding on the day (as it’s a complete one-off) and arrange to celebrate with the grandkid another day.

I would prioritise the wedding. If it’s a party with school friends then family don’t normally attend anyway and small family parties to celebrate the DC’s birthdays are arranged on days that everyone can make.

This just sounds like a straw and camel's back scenario. My parents are wonderful GPs but they have grandchildren in the double digits, great grandchildren and elderly relatives they care for. If they put all those people first all the time they'd never have time to do anything else. They may well have chosen the wedding in this scenario but would have made sure to come over and give the birthday child a gift and rung or messaged on the day.