100th birthday and 2 daughters not coming for the day

[TizerorFizz]

I simply don’t know how to tell my mum that they are not coming. 100th is at Easter and they are saying trains are unreliable. 3 out of 5 grandchildren not coming either - all adults. How do I tell mum? I’m devastated for her. I’m finding it hard to suppress my anger. One of my siblings rarely visits anyway but surely for a 100th birthday you make the effort!? Any advice welcome.

Such unpleasant posters, accusing the 100 year old 's children of allsorts.....

But that’s your dm, who you presumably love and have a good relationship with.

Would your Mum really want them there if they need so much persuasion to go ?

But nobody has novovirus - or any other virus - a month in advance.

We had to celebrate my mother’s 100th during lockdown. Only 4 of us could be with her (and that was breaking the rules) and everyone else was on zoom. We all had afternoon tea and ate ‘together’. Could you arrange something similar?

We had something similar go on in our family with some of my siblings choosing to distance themselves big time. Those of us left just ended up going overboard in making up for it at all the major life celebrations in the last years of my parents' lives. For example, rather than give one card and one present from my family, I and each of my children each gave cards and different prezzies. We made extra edible treats and decorated cakes, bought balloons, shared celebratory meals, much more than we'd done in previous years. We tried to fill the void with this sort of extra. It didn't solve the problem but did make it seem as if there was more care and attention around.

Let your siblings break their news to your mum. It's their responsibility. Tell friends and neighbours what has happened and ask everyone if they could make a bit of extra fuss too.

One last thing, assuming your mum is of sound mind and is willing to talk about the subject, can you get her to record what she wants for her funeral if you are going to be in charge and maybe lodge that information with her will at the solicitors. If your siblings decide to get tricky immediately after she dies, maybe when the reality of what they have lost hits home, they won't have a leg to stand on if the wishes are recorded. When your mum is dead, there will be nothing they can do about it anymore, there's no way they can mend past hurts or repair the relationship. It's they who will have lost out. You, meanwhile, will know that you've cared and tried and in my experience that's a far better place to be. I'm glad I and my children did what we did. It's made our grief more bearable.

Absolutely agree with this.

When my grandma turned 100 I travelled from London to Cornwall to see her, cutting a holiday short. She died shortly after, I’m so glad I made the trip to see her. Your family are a bunch of shits. Her to tell her? I guess that the trains are messed up with engineering works I guess?

I think you shouldn't worry about what they do or don't do.
Carry on being a kind daughter.

I’m curious to know what damage this elderly lady could have done to her adult children in the past 10 years since their attendance at her 90th birthday (and previous milestone ones) that could so horribly change her adult children’s minds.

ir is it that they’ve stripped the goodies from her house already and just can’t be arsed.

im sorry OP, you’ve been given a hard time by some people here when you’re obviously disappointed for your mum and the kicker being that they probably won’t bother to tell her.
In addition to that, we all know it will fall to you to explain to other guests why they aren’t there.

I hope you DN has a wonderful 100th birthday

OP, some siblings are shit, I know I have two, one does fuck all and criticises everything Ido, the other lives 200 miles away, calls (phone) once every two weeks, says a few sucky up words to retain his golden bollocks trophy then goes uncontactable for another two weeks.

i wonder how they will feel in a few short years all alone.

Enjoy the party, just tell your mum the truth, I do.

Well, it could be that she wasn't a good mother, OR it could be that these are people who are selfish and can't be bothered to make an effort to put themselves out to please someone else.

Funny how on MN it's always the first scenario that springs to mind.

In real life I only know one person who had a difficult relationship with her mother, and she still would have organised a 100th birthday celebration had her mother been alive at that stage. I find real life and MN life parallel universes tbh.

@IloveAslan i don’t talk about my difficult mother in real life. The one time I slightly drunkenly said my MIL was much nicer then my ‘d’m I was looked at like I had two heads. People with normal loving mums do not always take well to hearing others truth.

4% of children are psychologically abused by their mothers and 2.9% physically abused (ONS)

Not a huge percentage but not insignificant either

I'm willing to bet you know more than one, it's just that whilst, for example, I am willing to talk about my abuse by my mother freely on an anonymous forum, I very rarely mention it in real life, and the same is true for other victims.

Doesn't mean the OPs mother is abusive. But doesn't mean it's as non existent as your post would seem to imply. It's like a someone claiming women aren't sexually assaulting because none of them have ever told them that they have been.

As much of a shame as it is that some family members won't be there for whatever reasons, absolutely do not get involved in discussions or in other peoples arrangements. Nobody will thank you.

Could you move it to the week before or after Easter OP? Would that help? ( Sorry if that's been sugested).

OP, where does your mum live?

I’d love to chat to her, she must have seen so much nursing during wartime.

I am so sorry your siblings are shit. I wouldn’t say anything to your mum now, hopefully they do. If not I would say with a fortnight to go ‘that X and Y couldn’t manage due to travel arrangements’ and leave it there. Your poor mum will know deep down regardless.

It may not be something that that has only happened in the past 10 years.
I’ll give my experience as an adult child who has cut contact with their elderly mother. It was more of a straw that broke the camels back type of thing.

I was brought up to believe I was not good enough, blamed and punished for things I hadn’t done. Told off for being upset or ill. Some very nasty things were said to me. Obviously I was hit as well. My sibling on the other hand was the golden child. Could do no wrong and always praised.

As an adult I have always had low self esteem. I’m not good enough. I’m too scared to stand up for myself so allow people to walk all over me. A people pleaser so I don’t get punished for doing wrong. It’s very hard to loose that mindset.

I attended special events etc as I was scared not to. Scared of my punishment but also of other peoples opinions. What type of daughter doesn’t go to their mothers birthday? It would be further proof that I am the problem child my mother always told me I was.

Last year I had my “Aha moment”. My mother did something to someone else and I saw her as the nasty person she really is. Spiteful.

I tried to make things work but once she found out what upset me the most she doubled down and did it more. The only way I can stop being treated this way is to stay away.

I know my sibling will see her differently to me. They go along with her lies and run around trying to please her. They are so used to it they don’t see it as wrong.

I’m not saying this is the case with the OP and her sisters. Just answering this question.

The projection on here is frankly nuts.

They sound like my aunt.
She never spent any time visiting my spinster great aunts who were quite wealthy. But when the last one died and all the nieces and nephews were dividing up their belongings, she threw a gigantic tizzy when she didn’t get to take everything she wanted and stomped out.
She was 50+ but acted like she was 12. My mum said it was painfully embarrassing.
People are selfish and self-centered. And nothing brings that out more than inheritance.

I know my good friends well enough to know that they were all perfectly happy with their mothers. My mother and I used to argue and she would stop speaking to me - it could go on for weeks and I was always the one who had to make the first move. I still loved her dearly and would have done anything for her, and she for me.

I know there are some dreadful mothers, but I find on MN that if a mother has differing views on life that's enough for them to be classed as "difficult". As I said, MN is such a very odd place and vastly different to real life.

@IloveAslan the silent treatment is actually emotional abuse.

I never said it was non-existent, but come on ...... Those figures are very low, and yet almost everyone on MN seems to believe that the majority of mothers were bad. Our mothers made mistakes, just as the mothers of today do, despite most of them believing they are perfect. It doesn't mean that they are bad mothers and should be punished. My own DM said some awful things to me when I was a child, it doesn't affect me at all, and when I look back at my teen years I said some awful things to her. We were still very close (both only children) and I wish I could have her back again.

I also think I know my friends better than you do and I can assure you that none of them were "abused" by their mothers (or fathers come to that). I don't live in the UK btw, maybe people here are more open about their lives than they are there.