PSA- Yes, you are a jerk if you don't invite your older parents to Christmas
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Anonymous
It would be nice but you don't have to invite every year if its too much for you. You can't ruin every single Christmas for yourself for next 20-30 years. |
Anonymous
+100! My parents independently figured out that visits during Christmas are stressful and result in less quality time because you have to work around a bunch of stuff -- kids holiday concert, special meals, church, Santa, etc. We visit them in the summer and it's lovely. We stay longer because kids are off. We relax, spend time outside, don't worry how weather will impact travel, no pressure around gifts or very specific holiday expectations. Then we do Christmas on our own and facetime them around noon and it's so relaxing. Holidays with extended family are overrated IMO. |
Anonymous
This. I model being a decent person by cutting off those who abuse. Always stick up fir yourself. |
Anonymous
I call bs. Nothing about your post suggests that you give a care about anyone. Good try, but the voices in your head aren’t telling you reality. If you were really as caregiving as you proclaim, you would take another day off and try to spend Christmas with them (or select another way to celebrate.) |
Anonymous
| TROLL post. Dropped a grenade in this forum and ran. |
Anonymous
I’m the OP of that thread and don’t appreciate you twisting and leaving out details to suit this thread. As I said in that thread, we have hosted ILs for years. This year, my FIL was a jerk to my DH and they haven’t spoken since October. Subsequently, I made usual plans with my family on the 24th, because we never visit my family on the 25th, that’s typically reserved for ILs. But this year, since my FIL is a jerk and hasn’t spoken to us, I think it’s time to set the 25th aside and forge our own traditions for once. Don’t twist my words. Also, don’t be a jerk to your kids and you won’t be in this situation. |
Anonymous
Yes! Your kids are watching! Teach them how to set boundaries with difficult, emotionally abusive people and how not to accept manipulation, insults and tantrums, even if it's family. Big girls and boys know how to respectfully say "no." They know how tor recognize projection and entitlement. Time is short. Toxins, even human ones, impact your health. Boundaries help and beware of those who cannot handle them. |
Anonymous
|
I think the advice is better written as:
Be someone your family is EXCITED to spend the holidays with. |
Anonymous
PP back to apologize, as I quoted the wrong person! Sorry! I meant to quote the poster you quoted! |
Anonymous
| I'm curious. We have all read about the significant number of GenX kids cutting off their parents. I read an NYT article recently and to me, the person who wrote that book is conducting malpractice. In the case of actual abuse, I am sorry, but it seems like the younger generations never learned grace or to accept that their parents were humans and imperfect. I still have young ones, and love spending time with my parents--yes, even my conservative, annoying mother, so haven't had kids go no-contact yet. But the way things are going, it will probably happen some day. It's so sad to me. |
Anonymous
I’ll bite. My mother became pregnant at 19 during a summer internship in California. She never told the guy. She didn’t want to have to be bothered with the logistics of custody and the other parent on the other side of the country. My grandparents died when I was a child, so I can’t ask them, but considering we lived with them on and off, I assume they supported this. My mother gets all the glory for how hard things were for her being a “single mother”. She worked nights, so I was left home alone and was often hungry and scared. When she would lose her jobs, we’d flee in the night to my grandparents, where my mother would use their babysitting as an opportunity to go out and do drugs and guys. She was arrested for shoplifting when I was around 10. I was shuttled between random people’s houses that summer while my mom was in jail. I was exposed to things and situations that no child should be exposed to. As an adult, I can’t help but wonder if my life would have been more stable had I lived with my father. It may have been worse, but there’s an equal chance it could have been better. Either way, there’s a 50/50 chance my mother would have had more money from child support, and a 50/50 chance I would have had somewhere stable to live when my mom was in jail. Or during summer breaks. Or holiday breaks. Or just routinely. I’ll never know. My mother is in her 70s now and has always been stuck at 19. She’s immature and rude and just ornery. She makes my life a living hell. And no, her decisions when I was a minor child do not deserve grace. And she wasn’t just imperfect, she was willingly imperfect and selfish, to my detriment. |
Anonymous
| Totally agree. Obviously there’s the rare exception of abuse. |
Anonymous
Haha yes!! |
Anonymous
OP said invite, not travel to. |
Anonymous
And yet we celebrate Jesus’s birthday every year on the same day, so no. |