To feel sad about my kid’s birthday

[sausage12]

Not sad because it’s their birthday! Sad because of how uninterested family are about it.

Context:

My kid is a Covid baby. So we went through the first year of life on our own, I had severe PPD and pushed a lot of friends away (who didn’t take that and were super supportive throughout that time). I speak to my best friends everyday and see them regularly. They are very much involved with my kid.

Seems different for family though. I feel like they’re just not interested at all and are still in the mindset / habit of not visiting (this only applies to us, not other family members).

Further context is I planned a big birthday buffet, party food etc last year and literally everyone cancelled for various reasons. So wasn’t planning anything this year. As we got closer to his birthday I was getting increasingly upset that people didn’t seem
to be interested and after a night of tears, I realised I was being unreasonable since I hadn’t actually planned anything, so organised several activities over the weekend and gave family the options, so they could do any one or all of the events depending on money, time etc. When I say events I mean, pizza and ice cream, going to the park, soft play, party food and cake at ours. Nothing super fancy.

My kid’s birthday this year was a Saturday (yesterday).

My dad and sister were too busy to come at all. Not even a card from my (adult) sister, and my dad’s name was written in the card from my mother. I’ve told both of them how upset I was they didn’t make the effort.

My SIL, her partner and child were supposed to meet us for pizza and ice cream. No messages on the day and just didn’t turn up. So I expected them to come today for the party food and cake etc. obviously no word from them.

BIL is sick so can’t come to any of it and neither can his wife or kid.

MIL has booked a holiday for every one of my kid’s birthdays since he was born. She’s the worst for making plans and cancelling on us, she has cancelled on us the last 7 times. Doesn’t do the same for my SIL (and that’s not me being bitter - a fact! We live closer than SIL too).

My mum did come down for a few hours which was really nice.

FIL and his DP were supposed to arrive today at 11am for party food and cake. Texted at 12.30 to say they’d arrive around 2pm (I’d started cooking party food for the buffet).

My DP and I are pretty boring people - we work long hours and have a toddler, that’s our entire personality lol. I feel like we are constantly trying to force family to spend time with us but this reluctance to see a lovely little boy on his birthday has really upset me.

Final bit of context: we’ve not missed a single birthday/event in the last few years except once when my SIL’s birthday party was at 7pm and my son was under 1 so we just couldn’t go out that late. We still bought presents/sent card etc. My son is older now so have been out late since with him to celebrate family member’s birthdays, even when we have an hour or longer drive home after.

What do you think?
AIBU - my expectations are too high by thinking people would want to spend time with their grandson/nephew/relative for their birthday? Should I take the hint and stop inviting them to spend time with us?

If I’m not BU then what can we do differently?

It’s really getting us down.

We are in a similar situation with family generally being quite disinterested. We always make the kids' birthdays special by going on a day out they love and having a lovely family day with just us and the kids. It does get easier when they get older and can invite friends from nursery/school.

We have had a similar situation in our family recently. My niece turned 1. Myself, 1 uncle and 1 aunt could not attend as we only got the official invite on a Wednesday for a party on a Sunday. They had thrown around the idea their might be a party a while previous but absolutely nothing was set in stone so we all ended up having plans made by the time they fully decided if they were having anything. Sounds like similar has happened to some of your invitees.

The people who told you they would come and then didn't show up.... Beyond rude and you have every right to be annoyed at them. I would message them and express your disappointment, that you were waiting around for them all day.

@Screamingabdabz nothing major and nothing bad towards my child. I was a twat to my DP for several months but it was during Covid so no one was really around anyway

I just wonder if there is more to it. They seem to be going out of their way to let you down and avoid the birthday.

Thanks everyone for the responses. To clarify, the family always get together for birthdays (for everyone except me, my DP and my BIL’s wife). Hence why we keep the weekends free as it’s just ‘something we do’. And something we assumed would continue for our kids too.

I think in future we’re just going to stop planning anything so we can’t get annoyed with it. As others have said we can’t force them to be involved.

He had loads of fun with his friends at soft play so that’s the sort of thing we will focus on rather than things for the family. And I think we might go away next year instead.

Im trying to persuade DP to tell them we’re annoyed with the many no shows (4 different sets of people) but he doesn’t want to cause drama!

They sound rubbish - I'm really sorry, that must be tough. No advice really other than to refute the (thankfully minimal) MN 'noone cares about your child' rhetoric. It's very normal to care about children within your immediate family and I think you're entitled to feel sad.

Next year, I'd make a plan to do something lovely the three of you. And as others have said, in the school years parties will be a thing.

What does your DP think about it and what's his relation with his family? It does sound a bit like a lot of the effort is coming from you.
Did he ask his sister why they didn't show? And did he talk to her/remind her about the event?

I'm asking because my husband's family is not really involved with our kids either, when his mum is very close to his sister and her daughters. A lot of this comes from the fact that husband and his mum struggle to communicate, so organising anything is hard and most of the time I'm the one suggesting a meetup. Same with most of his family really. I don't think they feel very engaged with us and our life, so wouldn't think about booking time for our son's b'day.

How involved are you with family the rest of the time?

You said you work and look after your toddler and that’s your life. You don’t celebrate your own birthdays with your family. I wonder if it’s more about there just not being much momentum for your extended family relationships and so when you try it all falls a bit flat? And what you need, if you want to be closer, is a lot more smaller things going on - dropping in, texting and meeting up for coffee or lunch when it’s not a birthday, etc?

It may just be that you’re a bit of scapegoat for the family, that they’ve got set in their ways and find it easier to ignore you. But it may also be that your siblings(-in-law) have closer relationships with your parents(-in-law). That they do more of the asking and arranging and responding to requests so arrangements for birthdays aren’t something that come a bit out of the blue and people don’t know how much fun they’ll be, they’re an amped up version of something they do often and enjoy.

OP your mum came for a few hours, and you say that was nice. Maybe that's the way forward for you - a loving granny and your own wee family, and the rest of them can sod off.

Yy to challenging your HoD, even if you ask to take one half day a year unpaid.

Can you also have a chat to the school to see if there's anyway they could record events. I guess there would be privacy/data protection issues but it may be that they could find a way to record something which you could then watch with her as a special way of sharing the event with her . . .