Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

First, as I was just saying to a co-worker, I have a lot of respect for single parents. Due to a family health issue, my wife just spent Thanksgiving week (left last Monday, home tonight) on the west coast caring for her mother while I stayed home with our twin 4-year olds. Hard week and I always knew that there was an end in sight. So I take my hat off to you for doing it full-time.

That said, I still agree with others that you were in the wrong here. I understand exactly why it was the perfect time to get the work done. I do an annual Shutterfly photobook of my kids for the grandparents and us every year. It takes me a few evenings spread out over a couple of weeks to get each book done. However, unless you asked your mother if it would be alright for you to work on this project, how long it would take for you to be holed up alone with the computer and that you needed family help to watch the kids, I still think that it was presumptuous for you to do this project then. You mother may not have realized how long you would be unavailable to the family and was finally fed up with your project. Even if everyone was off doing their own thing (my own family is like that at holidays). We still regularly come back and spend some time over coffee or lend a hand with a project, check in on the kids, etc. There's still family interaction going on even if only a few minutes here, a few minute there. Holing yourself up in another room with a computer doesn't quite have that same feel and would be off-putting. My brother will occasionally work during such a holiday weekend, but he'll move his computer into the kitchen and still be there chatting with folks, occasionally being able to go and help out if asked and will take a break if it's his turn to go and check on the kids.

If your obsession with your photobook got to the point of annoying your mother, then I think you overstepped the boundaries of courtesy and do owe your mother an apology. You don't have the right to be annoyed because you were the one that took advantage of the situation and abused your mother's hospitality to the point of irritating her. You know your mother and should know whether a simple apology like you gave was sufficient or whether you need to do a little more for her, but you don't get to be annoyed with the situation since you created it and you do owe amends, which you've already started. Also, you should make amends to your SIL. She brushed it off, but something like emailing her a Starbucks gift card with $10 "for a holiday thank you for your help" (if she does Starbucks) or something like it would probably be appropriate. She spent a considerable amount of her holiday helping you with your project and even if she doesn't mind, you still should be gracious about taking up a lot of her time on her holiday.

First, my SIL spent a few minutes here and there to answer a random question. At no point was she ever in the room with me working on the book. She was happy to answer my questions. I think she would be insulted if I were to give her a gift card/thank you gift. We help each other out depending on the situation or need. In my opinion, that is what family does.

Second, I worked on the book for 1 hour on Saturday evening, and 90 minutes on Friday evening. This is a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Each time I asked my mom for permission to work on the book. The answer was always 'yes.'

Normal people do not get offended by genuine displays of gratitude. Sending a hand written card with a Starbucks gift card to say thanks for those few minutes, they really made a difference to me on an important project and I appreciate your time - is not something SIL is going to be offended by.

In fact, based on your posts her, she would likely be so bowled over by you acting generous and unselfish, she wouldn't know what to say.

Btw I hope you remember to send a note of thanks or a small token to your mom as well for watching your kid, hosting, and allowing you time to work that very important book of yours. It's the nice thing to do. And don't say your mom doesn't expect it or would be offended. As an adult, you should recognize that expressing gratitude and appreciation for others help - even when it's family - is the right and appropriate thing to do.

People who do not deal with kids all the time get tired when watching other people's children. It goes double for old people. She told you she was tired and it was time to take care of your kid.

Anonymous wrote:Neither of you were rude. I cannot even believe some of the posters are giving you grief for doing this project then. It's your parents, not some stranger's house. If she had an issue with it, the only failing I see here is your mom's inability to come in earlier and state that she was tired and could you handle bedtime, etc.?

I would chalk it up to everyone being tired.

Nope. I would never have expected my mom, my MIL or any other person in my family to handle putting my kids to bed. If you need that kind of help, fine. But that is something that you ASK them to do BEFORE you disappear to work on a project.

Anonymous wrote:Still going on with the defenses. Seek therapy OP. You need it more than anyone else because this issue is just going to resurface and bug the shit out of you until someone tells you that you weren't rude, which won't happen here (saved for 1 or 2 parties).

The more details you provide as justification only makes your original post worse and worse. I agree with the person who suggested emailing a $10 gift card to your SIL as a thank you, but after your defensive response and believing it to be "insulting" leads me to believe not only are you selfish with YOUR time on someone else's computer, rude to your mother and all the guests that you recklessly abandoned and alienated over the holiday hours where you worked on your Shutterfly picture book, but now we can add cheap and stingy to the list of your faults.

Do everyone a favor, stop defending and justifying when 95% of the population over 6 pages has indicated that you were rude.

Honestly, I just feel bad for your mom. She deserves a more respectful and gratuitous daughter.

God, I'm so sick of posts like this. Therapy? Really? Feeling a bit smug are we? This was a petty family argument. Nothing more.

The only thing I'm seeing is some of the posters making this a bigger deal than even OP has. I think it's people like you, PP, who need to get the grip.

Neither of you were rude. I cannot even believe some of the posters are giving you grief for doing this project then. It's your parents, not some stranger's house. If she had an issue with it, the only failing I see here is your mom's inability to come in earlier and state that she was tired and could you handle bedtime, etc.?

I would chalk it up to everyone being tired.

Still going on with the defenses. Seek therapy OP. You need it more than anyone else because this issue is just going to resurface and bug the shit out of you until someone tells you that you weren't rude, which won't happen here (saved for 1 or 2 parties).

The more details you provide as justification only makes your original post worse and worse. I agree with the person who suggested emailing a $10 gift card to your SIL as a thank you, but after your defensive response and believing it to be "insulting" leads me to believe not only are you selfish with YOUR time on someone else's computer, rude to your mother and all the guests that you recklessly abandoned and alienated over the holiday hours where you worked on your Shutterfly picture book, but now we can add cheap and stingy to the list of your faults.

Do everyone a favor, stop defending and justifying when 95% of the population over 6 pages has indicated that you were rude.

Honestly, I just feel bad for your mom. She deserves a more respectful and gratuitous daughter.

Your project took you AND your SIL away from your kids and left your mom to deal with bedtime. Your daughter may have gone to bed at 8:30 but SIL's kid was still awake at 9:30 and that means that your mom was still watching a kid because of your project. Yes, she was watching kids and told you that it was time to wrap things up. I can't say that I blame her.

OP here. To clarify... my DD and 1 cousin were snuggling and reading in Grandma's bed from 7:30-8:30. DD fell asleep at 8:30 in Grandma's bed, and then Grandma moved her next door to the crib. At 9:30, my mom came in and told me to finish up. This was Saturday evening-not Thanksgiving. Other family members were off doing their own thing, as well---From 8:30-9:30, Grandma was in bed reading. We had all been out for a late lunch in a restaurant so there was no dinner/cooking that day----everyone was too full from the lunch (and ice cream shop for dessert) for dinner. Breakfast was everyone fending for themselves.

Just stop. None of these details matter. It was her house, she had a right to ask you to finish up using her computer and pick the activity up another day if she was tired and didn't want you working on it on her computer any more at that time. She was not rude.

How old are you, OP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

First, as I was just saying to a co-worker, I have a lot of respect for single parents. Due to a family health issue, my wife just spent Thanksgiving week (left last Monday, home tonight) on the west coast caring for her mother while I stayed home with our twin 4-year olds. Hard week and I always knew that there was an end in sight. So I take my hat off to you for doing it full-time.

That said, I still agree with others that you were in the wrong here. I understand exactly why it was the perfect time to get the work done. I do an annual Shutterfly photobook of my kids for the grandparents and us every year. It takes me a few evenings spread out over a couple of weeks to get each book done. However, unless you asked your mother if it would be alright for you to work on this project, how long it would take for you to be holed up alone with the computer and that you needed family help to watch the kids, I still think that it was presumptuous for you to do this project then. You mother may not have realized how long you would be unavailable to the family and was finally fed up with your project. Even if everyone was off doing their own thing (my own family is like that at holidays). We still regularly come back and spend some time over coffee or lend a hand with a project, check in on the kids, etc. There's still family interaction going on even if only a few minutes here, a few minute there. Holing yourself up in another room with a computer doesn't quite have that same feel and would be off-putting. My brother will occasionally work during such a holiday weekend, but he'll move his computer into the kitchen and still be there chatting with folks, occasionally being able to go and help out if asked and will take a break if it's his turn to go and check on the kids.

If your obsession with your photobook got to the point of annoying your mother, then I think you overstepped the boundaries of courtesy and do owe your mother an apology. You don't have the right to be annoyed because you were the one that took advantage of the situation and abused your mother's hospitality to the point of irritating her. You know your mother and should know whether a simple apology like you gave was sufficient or whether you need to do a little more for her, but you don't get to be annoyed with the situation since you created it and you do owe amends, which you've already started. Also, you should make amends to your SIL. She brushed it off, but something like emailing her a Starbucks gift card with $10 "for a holiday thank you for your help" (if she does Starbucks) or something like it would probably be appropriate. She spent a considerable amount of her holiday helping you with your project and even if she doesn't mind, you still should be gracious about taking up a lot of her time on her holiday.

First, my SIL spent a few minutes here and there to answer a random question. At no point was she ever in the room with me working on the book. She was happy to answer my questions. I think she would be insulted if I were to give her a gift card/thank you gift. We help each other out depending on the situation or need. In my opinion, that is what family does.

Second, I worked on the book for 1 hour on Saturday evening, and 90 minutes on Friday evening. This is a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Each time I asked my mom for permission to work on the book. The answer was always 'yes.'

I'm the PP you're responding to. I'm not sure what you want from DCUM. You came on here because you were annoyed with your mother over her reaction. You have almost unanimously been told (with only 1 or 2 exceptions in 6 pages of responses) that you were rude. Yet rather than accept that many people consider your mother was not the issue, but that your behavior was rude, you object, disagree, and argue, sometimes with attitude. You keep adding additional details in the hopes that something you say will change the peanut gallery's answer, but only one person has retracted their initial assessment that you were rude. I'm not sure that even with the additional details that you've provided that you're going to get more than a small percentage of the respondents to say that you were justified in your reaction. The large majority still believes you and your behavior were the problem, not your mother.

I am just curious if you would be annoyed if this happened to you?

OP, this is the question from your original post. Why do you insist on coming back and correcting everyone, adding to your story, "thanking" everyone who agrees with you and arguing with everyone who doesn't? You wanted our opinions and we're giving it to you. I would have agreed with you from your first post, but coming back on here to argue with all these posters makes me think you're a bit "my way or the highway" type of person who is in a huff because she didn't get her way.

Anonymous wrote:NP here.

First, as I was just saying to a co-worker, I have a lot of respect for single parents. Due to a family health issue, my wife just spent Thanksgiving week (left last Monday, home tonight) on the west coast caring for her mother while I stayed home with our twin 4-year olds. Hard week and I always knew that there was an end in sight. So I take my hat off to you for doing it full-time.

That said, I still agree with others that you were in the wrong here. I understand exactly why it was the perfect time to get the work done. I do an annual Shutterfly photobook of my kids for the grandparents and us every year. It takes me a few evenings spread out over a couple of weeks to get each book done. However, unless you asked your mother if it would be alright for you to work on this project, how long it would take for you to be holed up alone with the computer and that you needed family help to watch the kids, I still think that it was presumptuous for you to do this project then. You mother may not have realized how long you would be unavailable to the family and was finally fed up with your project. Even if everyone was off doing their own thing (my own family is like that at holidays). We still regularly come back and spend some time over coffee or lend a hand with a project, check in on the kids, etc. There's still family interaction going on even if only a few minutes here, a few minute there. Holing yourself up in another room with a computer doesn't quite have that same feel and would be off-putting. My brother will occasionally work during such a holiday weekend, but he'll move his computer into the kitchen and still be there chatting with folks, occasionally being able to go and help out if asked and will take a break if it's his turn to go and check on the kids.

If your obsession with your photobook got to the point of annoying your mother, then I think you overstepped the boundaries of courtesy and do owe your mother an apology. You don't have the right to be annoyed because you were the one that took advantage of the situation and abused your mother's hospitality to the point of irritating her. You know your mother and should know whether a simple apology like you gave was sufficient or whether you need to do a little more for her, but you don't get to be annoyed with the situation since you created it and you do owe amends, which you've already started. Also, you should make amends to your SIL. She brushed it off, but something like emailing her a Starbucks gift card with $10 "for a holiday thank you for your help" (if she does Starbucks) or something like it would probably be appropriate. She spent a considerable amount of her holiday helping you with your project and even if she doesn't mind, you still should be gracious about taking up a lot of her time on her holiday.

First, my SIL spent a few minutes here and there to answer a random question. At no point was she ever in the room with me working on the book. She was happy to answer my questions. I think she would be insulted if I were to give her a gift card/thank you gift. We help each other out depending on the situation or need. In my opinion, that is what family does.

Second, I worked on the book for 1 hour on Saturday evening, and 90 minutes on Friday evening. This is a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes. Each time I asked my mom for permission to work on the book. The answer was always 'yes.'

NP here.

First, as I was just saying to a co-worker, I have a lot of respect for single parents. Due to a family health issue, my wife just spent Thanksgiving week (left last Monday, home tonight) on the west coast caring for her mother while I stayed home with our twin 4-year olds. Hard week and I always knew that there was an end in sight. So I take my hat off to you for doing it full-time.

That said, I still agree with others that you were in the wrong here. I understand exactly why it was the perfect time to get the work done. I do an annual Shutterfly photobook of my kids for the grandparents and us every year. It takes me a few evenings spread out over a couple of weeks to get each book done. However, unless you asked your mother if it would be alright for you to work on this project, how long it would take for you to be holed up alone with the computer and that you needed family help to watch the kids, I still think that it was presumptuous for you to do this project then. You mother may not have realized how long you would be unavailable to the family and was finally fed up with your project. Even if everyone was off doing their own thing (my own family is like that at holidays). We still regularly come back and spend some time over coffee or lend a hand with a project, check in on the kids, etc. There's still family interaction going on even if only a few minutes here, a few minute there. Holing yourself up in another room with a computer doesn't quite have that same feel and would be off-putting. My brother will occasionally work during such a holiday weekend, but he'll move his computer into the kitchen and still be there chatting with folks, occasionally being able to go and help out if asked and will take a break if it's his turn to go and check on the kids.

If your obsession with your photobook got to the point of annoying your mother, then I think you overstepped the boundaries of courtesy and do owe your mother an apology. You don't have the right to be annoyed because you were the one that took advantage of the situation and abused your mother's hospitality to the point of irritating her. You know your mother and should know whether a simple apology like you gave was sufficient or whether you need to do a little more for her, but you don't get to be annoyed with the situation since you created it and you do owe amends, which you've already started. Also, you should make amends to your SIL. She brushed it off, but something like emailing her a Starbucks gift card with $10 "for a holiday thank you for your help" (if she does Starbucks) or something like it would probably be appropriate. She spent a considerable amount of her holiday helping you with your project and even if she doesn't mind, you still should be gracious about taking up a lot of her time on her holiday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

Yes, I am a single mom.
Mom watched DD for 60 minutes.
DD went to sleep at 8:30.

I rescind any thought that you were out of line.

If you asked your mom to help, an hour of hanging out with her grandchild is not too much to ask.

Mom watched Op's DD and Op's sister's kids - right before bedtime when kids generally start to get whiny, cranky. My guess is that Grandma also cooked dinner, cleaned up, provided lunch, etc for both families, too.

An hour of childcare is not a long time unless it is at the end of a busy day, when you are already worn out and ready to put your own feet up.....and the kiddos are worn out and cranky and need to be put to bed.

OP here. To clarify... my DD and 1 cousin were snuggling and reading in Grandma's bed from 7:30-8:30. DD fell asleep at 8:30 in Grandma's bed, and then Grandma moved her next door to the crib. At 9:30, my mom came in and told me to finish up. This was Saturday evening-not Thanksgiving. Other family members were off doing their own thing, as well---From 8:30-9:30, Grandma was in bed reading. We had all been out for a late lunch in a restaurant so there was no dinner/cooking that day----everyone was too full from the lunch (and ice cream shop for dessert) for dinner. Breakfast was everyone fending for themselves.

So the photo book only took you one hour, the house Grandma was watching your daughter?