Expecting to be met at Arrivals

[FarFarWay]

(OK, this a while ago - but |I have never cleared it up in my mind; I need other opinions.)

Travelling with an 8 year old, to meet people who I don't really know (even though technically family), and who the child has never met.

Two flights (one upgraded, the other downgraded, by comparison; no spare time in the airport in Japan, just a mad dash to find the plane!), about 22 hours in the air total, plus the travel down to Heathrow/check-in etc. (Also a week before Christmas). Almost the only child on the flight, and even though a "special meal", most of it was not to her liking - not fussy but never eaten sushi etc. So she was a bit hungry and tired when we landed.

The people we were to be staying with lived approx 40 minutes away.
Not only did a carful of people who my eight year old had never met, EVENTUALLY turn up - but we had to sit and wait for them to get there.

Before anyone says "Let it go....". The main player of that group has recently brought up the trip, and what a (not-quite-but almost-) disaster it was - but the then eight-year-old has never seen these (important, arguably) people ever again, and this is now being held against her by the main player.

Despite appearances, I am not a grudge holder but, in my over-thinking way, I have actually tried to figure out the actual science of this flight and how much time was needed for them to be there to greet us. And I am a bit pissed at the "they", as the delay was blamed on the wife element doing her hair, when she really did not need to come as well, as it made the whole thing into a bigger deal, when we - and especially my daughter - would have really appreciated it being casual and low key - let alone there actually be someone - anyone - present, when we came through the Arrival doors to ---- [crickets].

By my (bad) calculations, they didn't even set off until we landed.... but due to the time-travel aspect of hours behind/ahead, am I getting it wrong?

(PS - on the one hand, this light-hearted, but on the other - as I said, she has never seen them again, and so sometimes, it seems like it happened yesterday.)

Because we were sitting in the only seats there, and it happened to be a MacDonald's. We weren't eating, as neither of us like the food. This infuriated my snobbish father who thought we were eating there.
He just said something like " we had to wait for P---- to do her hair".
Couldn't even try to blame it on the traffic, which we would have been no wiser about.

Not too sure why your daughter is being blamed for the prolonged estrangement, as in they’re holding it against her - she can hardly hop on a plane to NZ on her own.

I agree that at being late is rude.

The sushi thing is a non-issue. Take your own food/snacks. Plane food is unpredictable (I also hate sushi).

Skipping rope/colouring book - nice age appropriate toys right?

We definitely need to know how the rest of the trip went to form a fair judgement. What are those ‘things that went wrong’.

Bottom line - it didn’t go well and you don’t have to go back.

Please don't do bullet points, the brackets are bad enough!

You don't like your father's family, the trip didn't go well, long haul like that is a bit too much for a child and none of you factored that in. Just let it go.

I have a degree in Communications—the post is not clear, and is poorly written.

This thread has it all

an unclear and ambiguous, overly wordy, opening post

the first few responses from the op were snippy

clearly one of those “aibu, yes, no
im not!” Threads

your father was unkind about P and her hair

Yes.

Mind you, the second leg of the journey was in an Air New Zealand sardine can (it seemed, after the JAL 747 - upstairs, no less!), so we were used to it by then.

But it could have been avoided.

YANBU OP. Your OP was rather garbled and hard to understand and all of this was years ago, which I think is why you're getting a hard time. But your 'D'F showed himself to be an uncaring dick that day. He should've come alone to meet his DD and DGD and left the rest of his family at home. He didn't need to bring everyone. And given that he lives on the far side of the world and you and your young DC had kindly travelled all that way to see him, he could've made a hell of a lot more effort. It sounds like he could've made a hell of a lot more effort during your stay too.

Ok so
Dad moved to Japan, got married and had more kids. Rarely sees you, has met grandkids once. You're invited over, travel 22 hours with child and you get there to no one. You're tired, hungry and no idea when anyone will be there.
Rather than him being so excited he's got there early and alone to reconnect with you, they've all come together meaning late, cramped and not the reunion you hoped for.
They brought her a couple of toys but didn't, iyo, accommodate her needs enough and the trip was a disaster. You e barely spoken since.
Recently the trip was raised as to one of the reasons and the blame was aimed at you / your child.

Is that correct?

Yes, yanbu to be annoyed he was late and imo he should have come alone.
Yes, yanbu if they were then indifferent to you both all week and made you feel uncomfortable.
Only you know if yabu for the lack of contact since.

This is what I took from it, resentment at least.
You had travelled a long way to see your Father and his new family which had the potential to be a bit difficult for all concerned and the journey does sound difficult so you were probably a bit frazzled.
It would have been nice to be there to meet you but it sounds like you didn't wait long and they didn't go all out to be as welcoming as you would have liked.
Your writing style is very formal and a bit awkward as well which is what I think so people here are struggling with
In any case it sounds like this all happened a long time ago and it's not worth worrying about now, your DD was never going to have a close relationship with a man who lives on the other side of the world.

and your father is a snob because you were sitting in mcdonalds.
he sounds difficult op

Yes, they should have been there to greet you when your plane landed. It wasn’t good to have been late.

As for the whole family being there: are they Māori / Pacific Island people? IME of 2 trips to work with Māori people it would have been unthinkable for the whole family to show up.

I have family of a different culture and it is only recently that they have dropped the habit of bringing 3 car loads of relatives to the airport, complete with massive picnic to be consumed before starting the 40 min drive to their home.

But I can’t see the relevance of the lateness at the airport to any subsequent near-disaster events.

8 year olds have new and different experiences: it was disconcerting, surely , rather than traumatising?

I'm not sure you've explained it all very clearly but from what I can work out you visited your father and his new family in New Zealand at his request. It sounds like the trip has not gone well and that you and your father have had a fall out over it? You feel hurt because he made very little effort and didn't take into account any of your daughters needs (did you book the flight with the Japanese airline or did he?). I suspect there's more to this in terms of your relationship with your father. Is his being g late symptomatic of how he has treated you in the past?

Honestly it really isn’t “quite clear”.

So you’re asking whether your family were unreasonable to (1) arrive so late after you landed, and (2) bring 4 people to the airport pickup rather than just one or two…?

(1) That depends on what time you agreed to meet and whether or not they were there on time/ a little bit late/ very late leaving you stranded with no idea how to make alternative plans.

(2) That does sound a bit strange if there was not enough space in the car. However, it does seem a little like you would still be complaining if the step brothers “didn’t even bother to meet you”. It all could have been agreed in advance to make sure everyone was happy with the plans.

on another note, you sound very ungrateful for the colouring book and skipping rope. What were you hoping they would have for your daughter ?

make an effigy of them op, stick pins in it
do some boxing
or knead bread
get your anger out

Although it's a little hard to follow, I'm quite enjoying your writing style @FarFarWay . It's unusual and a little bit random.

Couldn't understand your issue. Your post is as clear as mud. Your child is YOUR responsibility, you should have provided food for her to eat.

I have to say, your posts are quite hard to follow op. You seem very angry about this still, and it mainly centres around the fact your dad wasn’t on his own when he arrived to pick you and your daughter up from the airport and that his wife made them late by doing her hair. The flip side of that is that your stepmother wanted to look nice and make a good impression, although timed it wrong, and they brought your half brothers as they were all keen to meet you. Nicely meant I’m sure but rather silly when they didn’t have enough room in the car! I expect you’d have been annoyed had they not come, as you’d have seen this as them not being bothered about meeting you and your daughter.
Your comment about the colouring book and skipping rope is odd. That was kind of them, what were you expecting instead?
The food on the plane not being to your daughter’s liking has no sway on this situation nor does the fact you had a short window for making your next flight in Japan.

I think OP has seen too many Hollywood movies with emotional family reunions at airports ( Love Actually springs to mind) but in the real world life isn’t always like that.

That’s really strange.

Well those descriptions are clear as mud. But it does get the point across that as a wider family none of you are very good at communication or planning, but all very big on expectation/entitlement.

Sort out the communications. You all sound as bad as each other on this.

The OP wouldn't eat McDonald's- surely she's the snob?

@FarFarWay I guess there is some backstory of your dad being an a-hole and you probably had reservations about making this trip but you hoped it might work out for your daughters sake. However, the reunion wasn't what you hoped for as you feel they did not welcome you and your daughter in the way you had imagined. There are probably many other things that happened during the trip that contributed to your overall feeling that your dad's new family are more important than you and your daughter. Whether real or perceived, that's tough 💐