There's always a fight!!! Spending Mothers Day with my mum and my children

[Asher09]

I've been a mum for 3 years now and my husband and I have a fight every year where he makes a big deal about the kids not seeing his mum on Mothers Day.

When we were married (without kids) we would work with each others siblings and split the day or alternate days. Now that I've become a mum I believe the day should be about me but every year its overshadowed by his expectations and feelings.

I have ALWAYS suggested seeing his mum TOGETHER the day before mothers day but he always wants to coordinate that with his sister who doesnt make it easy for us (shes a single parent so doesnt have a MIL to deal with btw). I have even suggested us taking MIL out separately if his sister cant come - but he doesnt like that.

My first mothers day, we did the day before lunch with his mum and then the day of breakfast with my mum. The second mothers day i suggested we do the similar thing but he left it too late to plan with his family then asked me if I can split my mothers day between his mum and mine - i respectfully declined as i had already made pland and encouraged him to spend time with his mum. He kicked off about the kids not seeing his mum that year.

This year I want to spend mothers day with the kids (not see anyone else, not even my mum) and so I politely asked him if we could split the day before between our mums. My mum works and so I suggested the breakfast with his and dinner with mine. No plan was set in stone btw, it was just a request which I was happy to change.

Despite not having spoken to his mum and sister he made loads of passive aggressive comments in our conversation 'oh so my mum will never see the kids on mothers day then?' 'Oh so I should just manage my mums expectations that she will never see the kids then' 'its pretty normal for grandparents to see their kids on mothers day' 'why do the kids see your mum on mothers day' '
Its left me feeling really annoyed as I wouldn't have minded changing plans and doing Saturday with his mum and Sunday with mine again but I feel like he has a deeper issue there with his expectations and this will be an issue every year. I have explained to him that I'm the mum and MIL hasnt given birth to them and has also had 30 years of undivided attention from him. The guilt he feels shouldn't be projected onto me. If I decide to spend mothers day with my mum and my kids that shouldn't be an issue, and if I decide to spend it alone with the kids that shouldn't be an issue either. He is free to do whatever he wants.

I find that each conversation about Mothers Day gets railroaded by his feelings. Its never about me, nor do I expect him to make it about me but its also never simple. He refuses to take his mum out without his sister so it limits what we can do, hes hell bent on his mum seeing the kids on Mothers day and he can't understand why the kids would always come with me - aparently to him its not logical.

When its Fathers Day, I dont even mention my dad, the day is solely about him. I've always said he decides how he spends the day and I will go along with what he wants. I've NEVER stopped him from seeing his mum, I've never forced him to spend time with mine and I have a good relationship with my MIL. My main point is that I havent been a mum for long and feel like i'm not being unreasonable in what I plan for what I believe is my day.

One day her children won’t be babies or toddlers… one day op won’t be here as there mother….

maybe celebrate grandparents day. Since the dh is the mils child. Not the op’s children.

I can't believe this thread is so long! There's no argument: it's mothers day. Children - young and old - spend the day with their mothers. It's not aunt's day, grandmother's day, family day - it's mothers day. How can anyone argue with that and expect to be considered reasonable?

(What I do disagree with is that you're parenting FT but also work FT. You're one or the other. You are a parent 100% of the time because, well, you are. But you're not parentING while you're working. You're literally not even in the same building as them (at a guess) so how would that even be possible? Anyway, irrelevant.)

Why is your MIL now being called entitled, a little while ago you said, "If I called my MIL right now and told her that this is all happening she would tell me and DH to sack it off and go away for the weekend." That doesn't sound entitled at all.

Grandparents day is even more made up than Mother's Day which at least has some history behind it as Mothering Sunday.

Hallmark gotta sell those cards.

I've got 8 GC, never had as much as a call on grandparents day, don't even know when it is.

On MN it seems to be mainly an opportunity to be upset and moan.

It’s because it often highlights the selfishness of some men. Some women ignore that every other day of the year other than Mother’s Day, birthdays and Christmas.

Yes, it was never this way. It is so commercialised now. I hate all of the cards for grandparents, aunty's, neice etc, it is MOTHER'S DAY! They'll be addressing them to fathers/uncles etc nxt.
It is the same on Valentine's day, and particularly unsettling giving those to random relatives, whether you love them or not (a boundary crossed with that one).
I think with all of the cards, commotion, and overstepping, it'll end up turning into "happy families day." Oh and I am a card person as well!

She can of course sit disgruntled. It was just a suggestion of what she might find happier. The root of the problem is DH should be trying to give her a happy day: we can only advise on where to go from here .

I cannot believe you're still going 12 hours later @Asher09, you started before 6 am this morning!

Honestly, you've got to have better use of a day off.

JFC

Accept not everyone is going to agree with you!

Yes you're 100% right. In this situation I wouldn't feel theres an entitlement on her part - well I'd like to think. Thats not you say she hasn't felt entitled in other ways in the past or with other things. But re this situation, dont think so.

I didnt know it was a thing either nor was it celebrated until MN, but I'm happy to make it a thing if it means it takes the pressure of MD.

Lots of MILs and grandmas reading this morning before they’ve had their cup of tea and centring themselves as usual!

I am neither a MIL or a grandma, but it is potentially a generation thing. From a generation where our priority, as adults, was/is to show our own mums we were thankful for the 18+ year slog they put into to raising us. Through the baby years, through the school years, and the realisation we were more than a bit difficult and ungrateful during those awkward teen years!

I never once expected dh to go beyond getting card/small box of chocs for me as a token gesture as I was visiting my own mum that day. Now I spend an hour to visit her resting place at some point during the day to remember her, and my own dc is old enough to independently show his appreciation to me, by taking his cue from how he saw me visit my own mum while she was still with us.

The difference is this generation is all about "it should be all about me! I've been raising this baby for 10 mins!". A sentiment that is so alien to me I find it crass and needy. But to be honest I blame the mums for raising such an entitled, precious bunch.

Grownup - not even on your birthday? That's a bit sad

You need to get a grip.

Mothers Day is about children doing something nice for their mother to say thank you for looking after them. Your children are too little to do this so you and your DH ought to just show your appreciation for your own mothers.

When your DC are old enough, they will make cards at school, make you breakfast in bed, etc. Please, please just enjoy what they do for you and stop creating ridiculous expectations around what other people should do for you.

My mother made every Mothers Day so bloody awful that I used to dread it. She had ridiculous expectations and had a meltdown every year because they were impossible for us to live up to. Please don't create that scenario for your family.

OMG! What has happened to everyone this week? Looks like Mumsnet should introduce a basic reading comprehension test before you can join. The majority of people on this thread have not even understood the basics and are then twisting words and inventing stuff, surely so many people can’t be that dim!

What a load of fuss about nothing - on all sides! How about you all chill a bit?

Candy cane, disagreements are rarely just about the thing that's on the surface, so rarely about 'nothing'

Why not just have em all for dinner at your house
everyone sees everyone at same time
simples

It is pretty evident that you have favoured your own preferences, because you are a mother and you want to spend it with your children.

The unfair bit is that you have chosen to spend time with your own mum, who gets to see your children, on Mother’s Day. There is no sharing, or turn taking of time.

it would be more fair if the day before Mother’s Day, you saw the both of the grandmother’s, and then have Mother’s Day with your little ones. You’ve not done this previously, and maybe your husband feels guilty, excluded, insignificant…

I think this is very interesting. There is an option which would mean that the OP and her family would be satisfied but her MIL doesn't want to share Mother's Day with anyone who isn't a blood relative. Yeah, you have a husband problem, OP.

I don't feel particularly strongly about Mother's Day being on the "official" MD but the OP does. If it were me, I would be tempted to set my MD as the following Saturday (apart from anything else, you would be able to get a lunch booking) and say that you expect cards, flowers, chocolates and to be taken out. BUT I suspect that the husband would stare blankly and say "But it isn't Mother's Day" and not get that she wants a day to be celebrated by her children.

If the OP were to say that the family were doing "her" MD on XYZ date (not 10 March), what would the reaction of the rest of the family be? Would they wish you a nice day or would they expect to come too?

It sounds as though the husband is inflexible and disorganised. Is he someone who rings up a restaurant on Friday or Saturday to ask for a lunch table for a large-ish group on Mother's Day? And do they laugh down the phone at him?

It’s like this on most threads in AIBU even when all the information is in the first comment. I think many just skim read, relate it to whatever is going on in their own lives and/or it has triggered something and project whatever that is regardless if it has little to do with what the OP is asking about and then comment.

I don’t understand why you don’t just came invite your mother in law over on Sunday?

Same reason his father gets to see the gc on Father’s Day and hers doesn’t. Can you see it now?

I can’t get my head around how you can get so upset about some commercialised nonsense to the point you’re angry with your husband and feel upset to put it on here. Live and let live.

Because the MIL has said she only wants to see her kids and grandkids on Mother’s Day.