DD has cancelled on attending Christmas for the 2nd time in 3 years last minute

[calypsolypso]

DD is 26, she is our youngest child and the youngest grandchild on both sides, all her siblings and cousins are now married with children. She is in a long term relationship but has made it clear she views children are something very distant, I think this is normal for a 26 year old professional in London.

Last year she spend Christmas with her boyfriend’s family, the year before she was meant to visit us but decided last minute not to. She hasn’t met 2 of our grandchildren one of whom is now almost 2, she hasn’t met most of her cousins children.

Typically we host on Christmas Day for my family then go to my DHs parents on Boxing Day with all of his family. DD told us she and her boyfriend would be joining us this year. I have made up stockings for them, ensured we have their favourite drinks and snacks in and I have been very looking forward to having everyone together. Today (bearing in mind they were meant to be getting the train this afternoon) DD messaged me saying she’s had a last minute change of heart and they are going to do Christmas with friends at home. I asked why and she sent a text rant more or less about how she doesn’t enjoy being around lots of children, finds it tedious and annoying and hates the pressure to be a fun or involved aunt/cousin. I pointed out she hasn’t even met some of them and if she doesn’t come home for Christmas she won’t have seen her siblings at all in over a year. She said she was aware and wasn’t bothered. She followed up saying she would send the presents she got for DH and I up. I asked if she got her nieces and nephews any gifts and she said no.

AIBU to think DD is being incredibly rude cancelling last minute and clearly not giving the slightest crap about her siblings or their families?

Young child free phase? She's only 26.
How old were you and your other children when you had your first baby?
You just don't seem to see/value much outside of having babies.
I think you are a bit blinkered.

She shouldn't have cancelled last minute, but you sound suffocating.. From what you say she's an intelligent high achiever, who has worked hard to get where she is.

It will only be 5 or less years since she graduated. Everything you say is literally dripping with judgement

Maybe she senses the bitterness from you and other family members about her lifestyle?

I echo PP, she sounds so tremendously different from the rest of you and like she has left her family/home friends behind. There’s not enough common ground to justify spending a few days cooped up together for Christmas. What would she even talk to you about?

As someone who is also the black sheep in the family, I say good for your daughter for going after what she wants in life, and also for not being guilted into ‘family life’ which, for some of us, is tortuous at the best of times.

What should the “consequences” be?

i wonder what goes on that you don't hear. the oohhh when will it be you? oh you'll change your mind, oh you don't know real love until you have a baby, oh I didnt even realise how immature and shallow my existence was before children etc .
if she doesn't want them, and isn't overly keen on them, perhaps it's just too much pressure. is your Christmas really centered around the children?

I would try and organise an adults only get together at a different time

So your daughter confirmed she would visit in October but you held off allocating her a bedroom because you were prioritising your son and his family?
After reading all your responses, I’m not surprised she’s decided not to bother.

This, it really does sound like for you and the family Christmas become the show of her siblings and their dc. So if she and her dp are sleeping in the dining room, what’s going to happen to all their stuff while breakfast and all the other meals are being set up? Why are all your obviously preferred dc who live so close to you getting the bedrooms, yet they with a 6 hr journey are getting a fold down bed?!

This is a straight drip feed, OP knows exactly why DD pulled out and the thread is disingenuous.

Thoughtful gifts or money in a card? If she doesn't like children and doesn't actually know her nieces and nephews this is quite a time and thought intensive expectation.

Of course it's fairly normal in a lot of families BUT I don't think it's normal for everything to revolve around Grandma's expectations - you expect her to:

buy for eight children she doesn't really know

interact with fifteen children

budge up out of the bedroom she thought she was staying in at her mum's and sleep in the dining room on a folding bed, where she's likely to be walked in on by multiple children

It doesn't sound very appealing - it's a lot of putting up and budging up and coughing up, all centered around your expectations and your grandchildren.

Do family members constantly "banter" with her about when she's going to have a baby/ being a late starter/ being "immature" or selfish for not prioritising giving you another grandchild?

How will you feel if she's not in a "young and free stage" but in fact this is what she wants for ever - she never intends to have children?

OP's DD wanted to get a hotel room but OP reassured her they had space

Then a week or two ago the much more favoured brother decided he wanted to stay over so OP gave away the spare room and boxroom to him and his kids and dd got relegated to the fold out bed in the dining room - because as a childless, single person she is the afterthought

It sounds like she said yes out of a sense of duty rather than real relationships with her family. Let her detach and build her own life, be supportive and she may feel like she wants to be more involved in time once she has had time to stretch her wings. You can let her know the short notice change of plans was inconsiderate but be careful not to guilt trip her for not wanting to come, you need to acknowledge she felt pressured to say yes in the first place.

This is BS! Not everyone has - or wants - children.
Not everyone thinks "the family" is particularly important.
Please understand that we're all allowed to have different views.

Hang on why do DS and his wife and kids who live locally get 2 rooms, and DD who lives 6hrs away gets a put up in the dining room?

How she’s gone about this is very unfair & she should be accountable to plans she’s made.

However, as someone who didn’t have kids until my mid thirties, I do see where she’s coming from, I use to go to family gatherings & was expected to be the fun Aunty, entertain the kids, play all day, my SIL use to say “we need you to stay child free” God it was awful, I make a point now at all family gatherings not to palm my kids off on people - any chance she’s been made to feel like that in the past?

I’m starting to think it’s someone on a wind up actually!

Yes, it does seem that way - every drip makes it worse. It's a bit like a plot idea for an unoriginal, trashy chicklit novel which the OP is planning to feed into an AI chatbot to churn out something to self publish on Amazon...

I would be putting the family in the dining room all together. Reason being, the kids can go through to the telly when they wake up without disturbing the other guests. If there’s a next time that’s what I would do.

We have 8 grandchildren then my sister and her 2 children and 4 grandchildren and my brother his son and his 3 children on Christmas Day.

however this is probably an even bigger reason to cancel. 15 kids that the dd doesn’t know (and how old? Some of them- most of them?- at the noisy, boisterous stage. Plus another 7 adults on top of the dd’s four siblings and, presumably, their partners. This sounds like my idea of hell, honestly, even though it’s very similar to my own extended family experience. Fun as a kid, for a bit, but then boring after the initial excitement wears off and you can’t get a moment to yourself. Even as a kid enjoying my cousins’ company, I used to sneak away and hide with my book!

Anyway if I was the child free one, and expected to spend five nights on a sofa bed in the dining room- I don’t think I could face it either. Exhausting and stressful. Add in the family dynamics and it sounds an awful experience for the dd altogether. Sorry OP. I agree with pp that you might have a better time with your dd at a less crowded time of year.

You are not being unreasonable to be upset at the short notice but it sounds like she has very little in common with her siblings apart from the one with a shared hobby and she has no interest in children and isn’t interested in faking it.
I have to admire her in a way, she didn’t feel the obligation to do things she doesn’t want to do, she lives and works in London, goes clubbing, has skiing holidays and nice adult only life.
She could out of politeness feign an interest in her family, but you would all know that it wasn’t genuine.
My BIL doesn’t have children, has not interest in having them, him and his partner are very driven, have high pressure and high earning jobs and like to please themselves. We hardly ever see them and they certainly don’t take an interest in what we or our children are up to.
I don’t take it personally, they are very different people and have very different priorities.
Say to your daughter it’s a shame she won’t get to catch up with her family and wish her a happy Christmas. Send up her presents so she has them if they are specific to her and carry on and enjoy your Christmas.
I can’t think of anything worse then having someone stay that wishes clearly to be else where, so I would let it go.

15 other people's children when you aren't keen on spending time with children. Can't have a complete conversation with anyone without interruption, it's noisy and busy, expected to interact with them when you can'tbe arsed...no proper bed and no own room to escape to...don't think I'd be keen either to be honest.

Could be lots of other things too - different lifestyles and nothing in common, grown apart from everyone.
You said earlier things were often overshadowed for her by others and she got hand me downs and she was one of five - maybe she just wants things for and of herself now.

Also, I remember when I had my child I suddenly felt relegated so people weren't fussed about seeing me anymore, just my child. And that's my own child who was pfb! Maybe it's something like that relegated feeling but magnified.

When you visited her, were you invited or did you suggest it?

How she’s gone about this is very unfair & she should be accountable to plans she’s made.
@LML1989AL that’s about the dreadfully unfair, favourite showing @calypsolypso isnt it, and her shoddy treatment of her dd isn’t it?

Here's a theory nobody posted yet but which is extremely common: She is simply jealous of the attention that children receive at Christmas. By proxy, she also hates the attention that the mothers will get because they have attained the social "achievement" of having children.

This is entirely unrelated to a desire to have children themselves or infertility struggles. It's often felt by young women who dislike the social hierarchy of mothers and children being celebrated more than all the achievements of childfree women. It can be compounded by not feeling ready for children themselves, a strong sense of justice, sensitivity to criticism and narcissistic tendencies.

For many of these women, seeing children triggers a sense of inferiority, shame, jealousy and anger. It's more about the distribution of attention from OTHERS, rather than a personal desire to have children. These women are triggered by the fact children soak up all the attention during family gatherings without having "achieved" anything so to speak. Even worse is that they are expected to come with gifts and adoration for the kids and mums. It's slightly irrational and pretty toxic but many women think like this.

I’m starting to see why she doesn’t want to come home…

Her childhood was overshadowed by other people's life events. Even as an incredibly successful adult she’s made to feel like the odd one out. How were her accomplishments celebrated? Getting into law school, graduating, securing a job at a London law firm. Were her siblings there to celebrate her milestones or were they busy running after toddlers in a caravan park?

You don’t make a fuss about her career anymore than your other DCs. Why? Because you don’t want to upset your DCs in lower skilled jobs? But assuming their marriages and children have gotten plenty of attention and celebration

I’m still trying to process the fact that OP did not even think it was worthwhile calling her daughter to explain in person that she would be spending a week of her annual leave on a pull out in the dining room, let alone apologising to the poor young woman and offering to look for an Airbnb instead. Just mentioning it on the group chat 🤯!

It’s astonishingly inconsiderate of a guest’s comfort, let alone one who will need to travel so far.

OP it is becoming clear that you really need to think about your daughter’s place in your family, and about how your devotion to small children & their parents can be squared with your relationship with her as a childless woman, and getting to know her as a person - not just as a potential admirer/producer of small children.

@User7854653 probably because that’s a pile of nonsense likely thought up by someone coming from the hallowed status of ops favoured dc.

I take back what I said earlier about her being wrong in cancelling today. Having to deal with 15 children is bad enough, but at least she’d have been able to escape to her own room. She’s now learned that she would have been sleeping on a fold out bed in the living room, undoubtedly to be woken up by children at fuck knows what time in the a.m. Oh, and on top of that she’s expected to spend out on eight children, because of course her family should benefit from the career that they made sure she knew wasn’t anything special in the first place.

Yeah, fuck that.

I was thinking the same. I admire her for putting her foot down and saying no thanks to this madness.

Her value in her independence is keeping her sane and mentally strong.

You've raised a strong woman OP. You should be full of admiration for her.,