In-laws didn't come to daughters 1st birthday

[Anonymous]

When? When will you be over it?

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry you mean a pet peeve like birthdays? - get over it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - but it's her first and probably only birthday where our family will come together. Sure she won't remember it but she'll have photos of everyone celebrating her except her grandparents.

My kids are teens now. Trust me, nobody cares who is in the photos. Nobody even looks at the photos.

Baby and toddler birthdays aren't really about the kids. They don't care and won't remember. Give your kid a cupcake next time you see ILs. Voila! It's a party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter will have many birthdays God willing and will we celebrate each one? Probably not. Will we celebrate the first? Absolutely! Why? Because she will have many other birthdays that she will forget and that others will forget. But it was important for me (yes ME)i is to have our all of our family together for at least one. And for us that was her birthday. It was the only time aside from our wedding that both of our families have all been together.

Sure they visit her once a month and that's really nice but like I said, it is important to me to have our family together for gatherings and since we don't do it often, this one was important. There is no need for personal attacks.

OP, mom to teens again to let you in on another secret. It's just not a big deal to many people to get together with the extended families of their daughters and sons in law. In fact, to many people, these are occasions to be avoided. If your MIL & FIL loved getting together with your mom and dad, they would see each other socially, they would make a point to try to get together at your house on more than 2 occasions in their entire lives. This is a priority for you, but it's not a priority for others. In fact, it may actually be a deterrent. MIL may have been thinking--"oh my, that sounds like a big crowd, it will be chaos, and I'm so stressed out with this move, etc. With so many people, I'll barely get to hold granddaughter. It'll be so much nicer to stop by later and spend quality time with granddaughter and give her her gift then."

[Anonymous]

Moving is not a one day event. Once you're moved there's days of unpacking to do. Not to mention it's exhausting.

[Anonymous]

I get it. When my twins turned one I planned a big party and no one from our family attended, at the time I was hurt. Now that the twins are six I realize what a waste of effort a first birthday party was, no one else but me wanted to be there including the birthday boys. I should have spent that time and money on a relaxing night out for me and DH, which we needed after a year with 2 babies! My folks showed up for their 6th birthday party this year and it meant so much, as they get older it actually means something to the kids. I'm sure you'll get over this and have lots of happy occasions to celebrate with extended family.

[Anonymous]

Hey, OP. I skipped my own kid's first birthday. I had an opportunity for awesome work travel after a year of taking care of an infant. He doesn't remember I wasn't there and we had cake he following week.

The beauty of that age is that they don't remember any of it. Another tip - you don't have to worry much about the first Christmas/Hanukkah/holiday stuff either. A box with wrapping paper will do fine.

[Anonymous]

I reiterate what an earlier poster said--- how lucky you are that this is your problem worth complaining about.

You've got to understand that absolutely no one cares about any of this like you seem to. Not friends, not family, not siblings.

[Anonymous]

OP- are you Korean? In Korean culture, we often have huge celebrations- called a dol, which generally go above and beyond a typical first birthday party. Was it one of these? If so, it would be like missing a quinceñera or bar/bat mitzvah which is more upsetting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - but it's her first and probably only birthday where our family will come together. Sure she won't remember it but she'll have photos of everyone celebrating her except her grandparents.

Life happens this way. Three hours plus driving would take a bulk of energy that mom doesn't have. Did I hear you mention anything about the time you are spending at her place helping?