Relative forgot my baby’s 1st Birthday?

[PasstheStarmix]

Hi, my sibling forgot my baby’s first birthday. I’m disappointed in said sibling. Said sibling has no dc and plenty of free time to be organised. Has this happened to you or anybody you know? I just seem to have a really poor family.

I adore my grandsons. Love 'em to bits.

When are their birthdays? Um. One was born in November, the other one...ummm...sort of...summer? I rely on their mum to remind me gently, telling me that I'm invited to their birthday celebration on such and such a date..

They aren't 'my' children. I've got enough on trying to remember to put my pants on before my trousers. I'm sure from the outside I look organised and time-rich but..inside.... I have to will myself to stare at the calendar when my own kids birthdays come around.

The thing is, if she’s not busy (in your opinion) and manages to remember other people’s birthdays/events, then I guess the reasonable assumption is that she cares more about these other people/is closer to them. Which is sad, but it is what it is. You can’t force someone to care.

I invited my brother to my twins first birthday party. Didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge their birthday in any way. It quite upset me as I’ve done an awful lot for him but only hear from him when he wants something.

I said lack of children because posters were saying about people having big families and dc and nieces and nephews and I was saying this wasn’t the case

TammySwansonTwo This is exactly the situation with my sister. Thank you for your helpful comment

Zaphodsotherhead She was reminded

PasstheStarmix You've mentioned your sister's childfree status four times in your posts, as well as asking a pp who disagreed with you whether she had dc of her own. If the bee in your bonnet you seem to have about this buzzes as loudly to your sister as it does here, you're going to end up alienating her.

Also sibling doesn’t have a massively life with no children herself and no other neives or nephews

How busy someone’s life is isn’t decided solely by the ability to reproduce or how many of their siblings have

Your attitude that only people with kids are busy is really patronising & irritating, people’s lives don’t have to revolve around a child, their own or other people’s

Does your sister generally show any interest in your DC or spend much time with them? Tbh when it was my nieces 1st birthday I had to ask my DB when it was because she’d arrived early so wasn’t at all when planned & both me and my mum weren’t sure

When was the birthday?

If you were doing stunt reminding that would piss me off I have to be honest.

Chienrouge It’s actually in my sister’s own opinion that she isn’t ‘too busy’ to forget the small amount of birthdays she has to remember. She often says she might work an extra day as was feeling bores

bored**

Step kids.

Bluedoglead I didn’t remind as in don’t forget blah blah blah annoying cow reminder. We discussed ds’s Birthday and plans.

one technique for a happy life is to lower your expectations about the things that don’t ultimately matter - that way you can be touched if someone remembers dcs birthday rather than disappointed if they don't. Also can you ever envisage that you might forget someone's birthday - would you like them to shrug it off or would you like to think of them getting in a tizz?

Ok, well then the rest of my post still stands. She obviously just feels closer to the other people whose birthdays she remembers/makes time for. Not much you can do about it, you can’t force interest.

You put the childfree/plenty of time in your original post. Have you forgotten we can all see it?!

Sarsparella Please don’t jump on the bandwagon and read the full thread

I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t

People can be busy WITH OR WITHOUT DC

I didn’t want to drop fees

Families are all different. My immediate family, we never forget birthdays etc and buy each other presents. My brother in laws family are the opposite. They never bother with each other for birthdays and stuff. They will never go visit each other. I think the only time they will see each other is if they bump into each other at their mums. I’m from a very large family and we are all quite close, although because we have such a large family we only buy for the younger children if they are only our cousins kids etc.

+I didn’t want to drip feed incase people cane on saying well when you have 5 kids blah blah blah

Is it the birthday? Really? Or is she winding you up generally? Maybe you need a bit of a break from each other.

I have definitely done this a few times with my DNs. But it's not because I don't care - I'm just really bad with dates (better with babysitting though). Also just because she is child free doesn't mean she doesn't have anything better to do than get organised. Often once people have DCs they have more of a routine and are forced to be more organised. The beauty of being child free is the freedom NOT to be organised and sleep in on Sundays and hop on a train / flight somewhere with zero planning (even if it means forgetting birthdays)

It's a bandwagon when people disagree with you and helpful comment if they don't?