It is so hard to balance everything, especially during the holiday season. It’s difficult to coordinate extended family members’ schedules, wants, and desires. One well-meaning but misguided mom took things a little too far.
The mom has three adult children and she wanted to all be together for Christmas. Unfortunately, her daughter’s wife works during the holiday so it is not practical for them to come since their immediate family wants to be together. Grandma had other ideas and Reddit was happy to advise her on the error of her ways.
Here's a family tree.
Christmas and family time seem to be important to this mom and grandma. “My husband (58M) and I (56F) host all our kids and their families for the holiday season,” she explained. “My sons (Jack 32M and Harry 35M) visit us every year and we have a great time together. My daughter (Alice – 31F) lives about an hour away from us by plane with her family. This includes her wife (Vanessa – 35F), and their two kids (6 year old son, 4 year old daughter). They come visit us on my husband's birthday or mine if they can. They've never been with us for the holidays since they got together 10 years ago.”
The daughter has a family of her own now.
Alice is an adult and has new priorities her mom might not quite fully understand. “The reason for this is, Vanessa is a surgeon and she always has to work, including the holidays,” the grandma and mom continued. “This year, I again invited them and Alice declined the invitation for the very same reason as every year. I suggested that the kids were now older, and maybe Alice could fly out alone with them and stay with us for a few days while Vanessa kept on with her work.”
More from LittleThings: All Kids Want For Christmas Is You — How To Ditch The Holiday Schedule And Slow Down
Grandma pushed things a little too far.
It is natural to want one’s whole family together for the holidays, but no means no. This grandma was not having it. “Alice told me she there was no way she would spend the holidays away from her wife,” she continued. “I told her how her kids were missing out on the chance to spend time with their cousins and I'm sure they'd have fun if they came over. She told me they already planned to spend time with Vanessa's family because they live in the same city. I may be an AH because I again told her it wouldn't hurt anyone if she came over just a few days, and I said I was sure Vanessa could handle that.”
The daughter reached her breaking point.
Alice had enough. “She got mad at me this time and said she honestly only wanted to be with Vanessa and the kids, and that they used this time to bond together as a family. She also called me pushy and selfish for not understanding where she's coming from, and said I was being unreasonable by asking her to abandon her wife during the holidays. My husband and Jack are on my side but Harry thinks we went too far with the insisting,” the grandma/mom concluded. She asked if she was in the wrong here.
It's not all about her anymore.
Reddit users were pretty unanimous in their opinion that this grandma and mom took things too far. She was not wrong for extending the invitation but wrong for insisting her daughter leave her wife on Christmas.
“Once she'd already told you she wasn't going to spend the holidays away from her wife you should have either suggested a solution where she didn't have to, or you should have dropped it,” advised one user. “Instead you continued to push for the solution that you wanted and that only benefitted you. It's disrespectful to ignore someone's 'no' just because you don't like that they won't do the thing you want them to do.”
Let's talk solutions.
Some users offered more helpful suggestions so this family can work through this issue. One user suggested celebrating extended family Christmas on a different day earlier in the month or in January. Other users suggested the extended family travel to Alice and Vanessa one year.
“My grandparents always had 'family Christmas' at their house a week before Christmas so no one had to travel on Christmas day. On Christmas Day itself they would come to our house since we lived 5 blocks away. Worked fine for decades,” chimed in one user.
Even grandmas make mistakes.
Hopefully this Reddit post can help this mom/grandma see the error of her ways. She had good intentions but you know what they say about that. Here’s hoping she can mend fences with her daughter and work on a solution that works for everyone leaving no one alone on Christmas.
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