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?

Kids aren't entitled to presents because someone has more money than their parents. Especially when the person with more money is being treated poorly and still expected to spend on said kids.

That's probably why the daughter is invited. She's expected to spend a bunch on these 8 kids while being treated like a 3rd class family member and delegated to the dining room on a cot because she isn't living the same life as OP and her other kids.

OP, do you understand why it would be shit for your DD, bringing her boyfriend for Christmas, to have to sleep on a camp bed in the dining room for 5 nights?

Do you realise that she could be on £120k newly qualified if lucky but be on call for 24 hours - if corporate look at time in Japan/Australia, different parts of US, Europe etc - then look at paying back student loans which you will have to do at that salary level, tax at that level, pension, and no doubt travel depending on which London zone you are in, rent/mortgage etc and then actually start looking at what disposable income you actually have after bills/food. May also possibly need to contribute to professional fees such as practising certificate/cpd. Final salary might not be what you think. Really some people just don't get it. I work for a law firm (not a lawyer) and the costs/overheads are insane and the work ethic is punishing/burnout level.

This resonates so much with my experience. Sneered at, career belittled - to the extent of being asked why that business would want to employ someone like me, expected to entertain myriad children who I'd not seen since the previous Christmas etc. Essentially I was punished for daring to move away and try to make something of myself.
At least I had my old bedroom to sleep in, but it was a child's single bed as they'd pretty much left it as it was when I left for uni. There would be an unused double in the spare room but I (and in time the husband) got my childhood single bed.
My parents couldn't understand why we started to book into the local hotel and would only see them for small pockets of time. Low contact eventually became no contact.

She's not treating her poorly except for the sleeping arrangements. Which she has explained- dining room is separate and they will have privacy because it's not used.

I would find that kind of huge extended family Christmas horribly overwhelming and would probably break my own leg to avoid it.

Maybe invite her to see you when it’s just you, rather than thirty other people including children?

So the dining room is in use on Xmas day and presumably needs set up. A pull out for two tall adults and now they're having to pack away their stuff (where?) early on Xmas day, someone will have to clean up the room and re-lay the bed in the evening (with 15 kids I'm assuming a fair bit of mess), then spend Xmas nigh in a room that even then probably smells of dinner.

It's doesn't sound very appealing.

A load of upheaval on Xmas day and probably worrying about your stuff with loads of little kids running about.

It’s not strange to think there’s more to life and success than producing children. Her siblings are clearly celebrated for having kids and she is equally clearly deprioritised by her family because she doesn’t have kids (at 26!) and doesn’t currently (maybe ever) want them.

Her family are all about the kids. But her achievements seem to count for nothing in her family’s eyes. If she doesn’t like kids and doesn’t have anything in common with her sisters why would she be excited when they have another baby? Nobody’s celebrating her.

It’s not strange at all. Somebody doing something different to you isn’t strange.

i suggest you broaden your horizons - do you travel much, read, engage in conversation.

honestly - there is a big wide out there that will blow your mind. People living all different ways - thinking differently, experiencing different feelings and emotions than you.

lots of people - yes even women - aren’t into kids.

@Power26 What an absurdly vitriolic reply to a comment that wasn't even directly at you. MN was right to delete it.

The Christmas stress is clearly getting to some people...

The sleeping arrangement sounds horrendous. I don't think I would come down either, at least not for 5 nights. Maybe a day trip (though think I recall seeing that it's quite a long journey).

If the dining room is self contained, why isn't the brother and his family in there? Makes a tonne more sense for them to all be together.

Maybe my view is skewed by always being the one relegated to the mattress on the floor. It's shit. It really is. Your daughter is travelling 5-6 hours to see you and doesn't even get a proper bed. To top it off, she finds this out close to the day and it's so her local brother can stay over with his family.

I agree with others who say you don't sound like you like her much at all.

Yup and I'd pet my last penny they are in South Cumbria given some of ops posts so the daughter will have extra bitterness, disdain and resentment leveled at her for doing anything that involves leaving/achievement/ thinking out of the box

This - she may not find family stuff so exciting as you do. Perhaps you need to respect her feelings.

She sounds a bit entitled and I would not bother asking her again

Having read through this I possibly think that if you had got her to book the hotel room in the first place it would of been better for everyone. She may not see the dinning room as a great option despite it being on its own, in a very busy house with lots of children it can feel very compact. A nice hotel room they could of retreated too would if been a bit more of a compromise so they could have some space.

I do understand she's not really in to small children, I have been a single parent for a long time and neither of my siblings were very interested for in my children for many years as they were very much having there own lives. I always used to send my brother a text reminding him of their birthdays. Things have dramicatally improved since they had a child themselves.

I think she was definitely rude to have left it so late, but I absolutely understand why she doesn't want to come. Not everyone loves a big family Christmas. A long journey to sleep on an airbed and spend the festive period surrounded by extended family and young children wouldn't be many 26 year olds idea of a nice time. Try and understand it from her point of view, you're still getting the Christmas you want, if you force her to try and want what you want you'll just push her further away.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and get to catch up with DD in the New year.

She is probably the hardest working, the one who will have been spending her evenings studying hard, Years putting herself through Uni and post grad professional qualifications. I’m the weather one in the family, I hate the grabbiness of people who think just cos you earn more they’re entitled to some of it. Maybe her sisters should have worked a bit harder at school. I once lent my brother £2000 to do some urgent work on their house, - he paid me back by doing about £400 worth of work to mine. His wife sent me a text and said, they’d been discussing it and would like to borrow more -I never offered. There’s this disgusting expectation that they’re just as entitled to money as the person who has earned it.

What's wrong with saying your daughter is anti-children and wasn't in the position to have a child when she was 20? I don't understand how that shows she hates her nor how it's belittling. Lots of people don't enjoy the company of children. It's just a statement of fact. Presumably given she went to uni, she was still there at 20 and so wasn't in the position to have a child then like most students.

Is it possible she feels embarrassed by her family/upbringing? She’s living the high life now, mingling in different circles. Maybe she’s become a bit snobby towards the life she’s left behind?

She’s not the one demanding presents and shunting guests onto a camp bed in communal areas of the house

I have a friend like this, also the youngest and very independent. She goes home for Xmas but insists on staying in a hotel as she finds it overwhelming all the 'joyus' chaos of a full house with children. She has cancelled going to get togethers a couple of times last min as sometimes it's been too bit much with a hectic career and just wanting a peaceful couple of days. Doesn't do chat groups and can be very distant at times. Some people are just like that. If I were you OP I would voice my disappointment (in my opinion it IS rude to cancel so last min unless illness/big life event) but I would leave it like that, you can't force people to be anyone other than themselves. Her relationship with her siblings/cousins is her own rodeo, you can only focus on your interactions and your relationship with her

So fucking what? Good on her for not bowling to your batshit idea of xmas. She's a fucking adult and not a prop in your rigid annual ritual.

She is rude to cancel last minute. She is not rude to not like being around children, I don't either which is why I am thankful I don't have a big family with these pressures. Some people just really, really don't like children and that's ok.

Tbf if my own mother was shoving me in the dining room over Christmas I would probably pass as well. She doesn’t sound very welcome and you don’t sound like you make a great deal of effort to talk to her outside the group chat. You could have made some effort to show her how welcome and wanted she was, but it seems she was left to find out their sleeping arrangements involved being cramped into the dining room with the Christmas buffet via the overpopulated group chat.

I’m sorry OP but you have an entire army in your house at Christmas, like Home Alone on steroids. Not wanting to join this chaos is completely understandable. You made her up a stocking, sure, but they will have no privacy from the 80 children running in and out at all times. Door or not.