I went and reread the OP:
How about “insisting” and “making,” you talk with them and ask what they’d prefer?
@sseamom - every family has its own expectations of parents/kids/relatives. I believe we all have certain obligations to people in our lives. The difference between myself and other parents is I let my kids know about my expectations of them. I do not keep it to myself and then create hurt feelings when my kids don’t know what I wanted.
My kids know how important our family is, because of that they have always dated people with similar values. D1’s future MIL is very appreciative of D1’s influence on her son. He has gone home for more family events than when he was single. D1 goes to his annual family camping even though it is not her cup of tea. I raised my kids to put their family first, and I think they would treat their future in-laws the same. Yes, they will catch flak from me if they should choose to lay on the beach with their friends (and BFs) on holidays instead of coming home.
As far as not having enough vacation days or being the low man on the totem pole, it is only the case for the first few years. I encourage local staff to work around holiday time, so people who need to travel could have few more days with their families.
How about making the holiday good for the kid who was there,this year?
But we do get it, OP. You’re disappointed.
But no, this isn’t easier with daughters. It’s the nature of parenting, to want them to grow up strong and able, and then risk them sometimes doing things other than in our preferred way.
“I raised my kids to put their family first, and I think they would treat their future in-laws the same.” Whose family? Their own, their parents, or their in-laws?
But, @oldfort I don’t understand how you get your D’s to put you first without their SO’s short-changing their OWN families! You say your D’s only date the kind of boys who share the “family first” value, but if YOU get your D’s to always spend time with YOU, then by defination the boys’ families lose. As several people have pointed out, not everyone can get away or is even close enough to travel right on the holiday in question. You believe that only for a few years can people be required to work or not have enough time off, but that isn’t true in all professions. But I guess since it’s true in your world it works for you. I’m still wondering what happens if one of your D’s ends up with a guy who values HIS family as much as SHE values you and they come to a crossroads about where they will spend the holidays.
So do you see this DC son often?
And are you by any chance saying that this gal is too demanding, her way or no way? Is she the bigger issue? Gosh. Any chance your son can negotiate?>>>>>>>>>
We see them about once a month, maybe, for a few hours for Sunday dinner. Sometimes he comes out without her, don’t know if that will change after they get married.
He’s head over heels in love and I’m pretty sure he will do whatever she wants to do. Every time. Who knows if he will negotiate in the future. Time will tell. I’m not getting the impression that he will.
I have some hesitation when I read things like they expect kids to put family first…as @rosered said, which family? Once kids have their own families, they should become the primary family when considerations are made IMO. Far too many families (my own birth family was one of them) have this notion that the ‘family’ (the extended family) takes precedence over the family (the person’s own spouse/kids). My son has done things over Christmas, has been involved in music programs where he was away for Christmas, and we understand that, because he does have his own life now and will have times when he cannot be with us or even prefers not to be with us. I kind of like family gatherings where people want to be together, rather than are forced to, I went through a lot of family Christmas eve gatherings with my father’s family that I much rather would not have been involved in, but was obligated to, including as an adult.
@VaBluebird could it be that he feels they can see you and your H easily being only 30 minutes away alol ther times of the year and that he thought since they can it’s “fair” that they give up seeing you at the holidays?>>>>
Interestingly enough, they spend way more time with her mom. We see them for like 4-5 hours for Sunday dinner every 4 to 6 weeks; her mom comes down 2-3 times a year and they spend a week in the summer and a week at Christmas with her mom. LOL. They spend way more total time with her than with us. I don’t fault A. and her mom, they are close, I’m glad they are close, it’s nice to see. But…he has a mom and dad, too. I suppose it seems fair to her since they see us more often, I guess that’s how she looks at it rather than time spent together.
It sounds to me like Oldfort insists that her Ds spend Christmas Eve with her and her family, but is quite generous as far as Christmas day is concerned. And that’s good as far as it goes. However, as her nephew’s experience this year shows, there may come a time when her other D marries someone whose family also puts Christmas Eve down as THEIR DAY. What to do then? Or the D marries someone whose family is too far away to drive or even fly to on Christmas day. What happens in that scenario? In all likelihood, the D and spouse trade off each year, or D insists that only her desires be followed, and that can create a whole lot of problems in the marriage. No one likes to be married to someone who bosses them around or doesn’t consider their feelings. Perhaps Oldfort will be very lucky that her Ds marry guys whose families live close by and/or are willing to defer to Oldfort’s Ds. It certainly could happen.
But it seems highly unlikely that the “everyone comes on Christmas eve” thing will be able to happen so perfectly once all the cousins pair off and establish their own families. There are going to be logistics and considerations to inlaw families that are potentially going to make it impossible to create the perfectly attended holiday that had always happened until this year. It’s kind of sad if anyone gave the nephew a hard time about it. It’s could truly be less about him not putting his family first as it is attempting to be fair to his SO (in spite of the fact that me may have inwardly desired to be with his own family). Unless they find that he completely abandons the family year after year in favor of his spouse’s preferences, it seems like he should be given the benefit of the doubt and some understanding.
It’s disappointing to not always get what we want, but in marriage and family life, compromise is very important. Lucky are those people who actually don’t have to compromise at the holidays. I’ve always envied people in that position!
I encourage local staff to work around holiday time, so people who need to travel could have few more days with their families.>>>>>>>>>>
First of all, they are all “local”, right? They all have homes near work. It is the parent that is not local. So if your parents are close by, no time off for you? You are assuming they have no other plan or life? What next? Childless people work late so those with kids can catch their ball games?
Once my kids are adults, they are free to choose. I’m not going to put them in the situation where they have to use prescious time off to drag a wife to see me rather than her family or on a holiday on a beach. Maybe my S and wife will need that. It is a lot of pressure to meet your parents’ expectations after you are married and have a job, bc those come with expectations too! Too much stress and we’ve all been there. Cord cutting is not optional.
How wonderful that your son is engaged to a woman with whom he is head over heels in love! Congratulations. Really, having to celebrate Christmas with him a few days late seems like a relatively minor inconvenience when compared to the wonderful news.
@VaBluebird I think we all agree S could have broken that more gently/gradually! Boys!
Among my parents and their sibs, my parents were the only ones who lived far from both families. They chose to make their own Christmas traditions with their kids instead of traveling (driving in snow/ice with seven kids in a station wagon?–not a happy holiday). Among my sibs and H’s, (he also has 6 sibs) we are the ones who moved away. We are not going to travel in the winter with our 7 kids (several of whom are now traveling long distance to be with us…) to visit our families. Now our oldest S is engaged, and I don’t expect him to be with us next Christmas. It will be up to him and his wife to decide what their family traditions will be. They live very far away from both families- -and we don’t live near her parents. Since future d-i-l only has one sibling (who is a Catholic priest–always “working” on Christmas) I can understand if her parents really want her to spend Christmas with them. We have 6 younger kids to be with us. Re the OP’s situation, unless it was some condtion of the proposal acceptance or in the pre-nup, I’m not sure how the couple at this point can say “We will ALWAYS spend Xmas with them and NEVER with you.”
I am not sure why you are getting the idea my kids only spend time with me. I am a very busy person too. There is xmas eve, xmas day, days before xmas, days after xmas. I don’t think we have ever spent the whole xmas week with my parents. Our kids spend New Year’s Eve with their friends. This is not an all or nothing situation.
@rosered55 :
All. Our kids didn’t pop out of some cabbage field, they were raised and cared by their parents and relatives. We all marry each other’s larger extended family.
“I have already told my girls in the future when they have SOs I would want them to spend xmas eve with my side of family and then go to their SOs’ family on xmas day. There would be no reason why they couldn’t drive or fly on xmas day to get to their in-laws for dinner and then spend few days after xmas with them.”
@oldfort - ^ This is your post that some of us are talking about. To me at least it sounds like you have claimed xmas eve and the SO’s family has to work around you.
My ex-h and I also shared the value of “family” being important. A few years ago, when we were still married, H broached to his dad the possibility of H coming to our house for Christmas, to see our adult daughters, who both live out of state. At that point, H was already his parents’ full-time (as in 24/7) caregiver and he had spent approximately 350 days that year with his parents. His father was upset at the prospect of H taking a day off to see our daughters, and he said, “You know, your mom is part of your family, too.” So, to me, saying that family is important to a person might end up being part of the problem, not the problem’s resolution.
Oldfort, I like your relationship with your girls, But it’s different when one needs to travel a distance to be with the other family. You managed it, from Asia. Not everyone has it neatly tied up. What if D2’s SO had family in MN, who wanted them there on Christmas eve and Christmas Day?
A different thought:
My kids grew up in a small family, most of which consisted of elderly people who didn’t like kids much. Only one grandparent showed any real interest in them.
The generation that was elderly then is gone now. All that’s left is my husband and me, our two grown children, and my unmarried sister. The five of us are scattered around the country, and there are strains in some of the relationships. When we come together for my daughter’s wedding next September, it will be the first time that all of us have been in the same place at the same time in 10 years.
My daughter’s future husband comes from a large and interesting family, which has welcomed my daughter whenever she can attend their family events and has not gotten on her case when she can’t. Her future husband’s family offers so much that she never had before, and they will offer it to her children, too. Her future kids will even have cousins (three already exist), something she never had.
Good for her. Good for her future husband’s family. Why wouldn’t I want her to take full advantage of what she’s being offered, especially since her own family cannot provide it?
It has worked for my side of family for over 30+ years. My sister asked us recently if we could switch it to another day to accommodate her husband side of family. It would mean for all of us (4 siblings) to change our other side’s family’s schedule, and we just couldn’t make it happen. We told my sister we would continue to celebrate xmas on xmas eve, and she could come every other year. At the end, she was able get her husband’s family not to change their plan.
If it’s difficult for my kids’ in-laws to celebrate xmas on xmas day then they are going to have to figure out what’s important to them. I don’t think my family will change our annual celebration, especially while my mother is alive. Lucky for D1, her future in-laws are fairly low key and generally celebrate on the day of. They are also only 2 hours away.
@VaBluebird , your situation clearly resonates with many of us, which is why you have generated so many responses. It might have been less of an issue in generations past, when people tended to live close to where they were raised. Welcome, all of us, to the modern world.
I’d like to chime in with a few points:
(1) Hugs to you … I hear you and commiserate that the hardest part was hearing this as a bold, uncaring announcement.
(2) I want to save the post by @sax , such wisdom there that I could really use from time to time. The key will be to remember it when it is most needed. I am going to print it out and stick it in my journal or something.
(3) I haven’t had to fully face this yet. DS is 20, DD is 17. I’m starting to get a little bit of a feel, as DS is spending more time with his gf’s family than the gf is spending with us, but so far I have managed to not take it personally at all. I intend to do my very best to NOT repeat what my MIL used to do (she has recently passed away). MIL made every holiday a competition and she always needed to win. First “winning” meant dictating what day and what time we would celebrate with her side of the family. Then she decided that “winning” meant where we spent the most time (even though visiting her meant visiting a family of 5 while my family consisted of 14, including 2 grandparents in a nursing home). She literally counted and recorded minutes. Later she would test us to see if we would accommodate last-minute changes by her that would require us to give up time with my familly. Finally, once my DH’s brother was married and another spouse/family was involved, MIL decided that winning was all of the above, plus demanding that my SIL and I spent more time talking to her than we did talking to each other. All of those behaviors were sourced in my MIL’s love for her sons and desire to be respected and have a meaningful role in their lives. All of those behaviors backfired. My mother, on the other hand, wanted to be with her children (and grandchildren) just as badly. But she would say – sincerely and lovingly, “Come when you like, leave when it’s convenient.” “Don’t worry, I understand you have other commitments – do what you need to.” If we were late to my MIL’s, she would give us the silent treatment for a while; if we were late to my mother’s, it would be a complete non-issue. Sometimes we celebrated with my parents a week ahead of Christmas. Sometimes we would celebrate with just a partial showing of whoever was available. Guess where both my husband and I WANTED to be! Guess where we ENJOYED being! Guess who truly had more of our respect! Guess which home gave us a sense of love, joy, belonging and acceptance! I am hoping to do my best to model my mother, exuding non-judgmental loving acceptance to the extent possible. If that doesn’t work, we may try renting a place in Hawaii!