Wedding Woes

Can you include her sometimes?

Dear Prudence,

For the parental guilt trip files: My mom is slow, and tired, and crabby. A normal amount for 80ish. My brother and I are middle aged, and hitting a phase in life where the kids are launched, or nearly, and there’s time and money to spare. We’ve started traveling together, with our spouses. I like his wife, he likes my husband, we all share interests, and we make a good traveling foursome.

Each time we’ve taken a trip together, my mom has posted pictures we sent her on her own Facebook, with a comment about how jealous she is that her kids are doing cool stuff and how she wasn’t invited. We resolved to stop sending her pictures, but if she knows we’re traveling, she begs for them. So we complied, with requests not to post publicly. She “forgot” and did it anyway. So we didn’t tell her about the next trip, and then she took pictures from our social media after the fact and did the same damn thing. “My kids went to the Grand Canyon! How I would have loved to see it again before I die…” Or, “I asked if there was room for me on the kids’ trip to London, but it “didn’t work out this time” and then all her elderly friends commented about how they too are “left behind” by the younger generation.

Her hurt seems enough that I’ve started to question the situation! On the one hand, this is the perfect time for us to do this; our knees won’t hold out forever for the kind of active travel we currently enjoy. And traveling with mom is a non-starter, since she needs multiple naps a day and takes a half-hour to traverse a city block. We do visit them a couple times a year, and on the rare occasion they visit us in our cities, we make every accommodation (paying for parking downtown or taking cabs, instead of herding everyone on the subway, for example) and slow our lives waaaaay down to make it nice for them. I thought we were doing OK in terms of including them and still living our own lives. But she’s making me wonder if our sibling trips are objectively exclusionary and hurtful?

Re: Can you include her sometimes?

  • Ask her.  You and your brother together. "Mom is there something you'd like to do with us?"

    Think of something that can work if that's an option.

    But also if she's like my MIL, she may just be saying all of this when the reality is that she's not just sad to not be included but she's sad that she CAN'T be included.
  • I don't think it's unreasonable for the adult siblings to do these trips without mom. I'm sure there's some sadness at not being included but that's ok. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong or should hide anything. Maybe throw her a bone occasionally and try to do a shorter or more local trip where you all just udnerstand that you'll be going her speed for a few days?
  • ei34ei34 member
    Knottie Warrior 2500 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    I also think it's okay to have a travel party that works for you.  Is there somewhere you could all travel with her that would be more her speed and comfort level, as a compromise, with the understanding that it'd be a slower paced trip just the one time?

    The FB posts sound annoying but I'd probably just snooze mom (or whatever it is where you remain friends with someone but don't see their posts on your feed).
  • Casadena said:
    I don't think it's unreasonable for the adult siblings to do these trips without mom. I'm sure there's some sadness at not being included but that's ok. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong or should hide anything. Maybe throw her a bone occasionally and try to do a shorter or more local trip where you all just udnerstand that you'll be going her speed for a few days?
    If this LW's mom is like my MIL, it's almost impossible to go her speed for a trip that would involve walking.  It would involve the conversation about renting a motorized scooter so she can accompany in places because walking the length of a football field would take 15 minutes and possibly wipe her out for hours.
  • Group travel is hard enough with people who share your interests and you want to travel with. I think I'd invite her to go backpacking through the Rockies.

    I guess if you want to be really charitable, plan a beach weekend. But even then, I'd be really upfront that Saturday's activities will include a bike ride on the beach, and that she'll be on her own at the beach house for a few hours every day. 
  • Actually, I understand you, because my grandmother, who is 78, does not like it when we go on trips, and sometimes it seems to me that all she wants is for the whole family to be around her and not have personal interests and things to do. So far, we don't know how to act in such a situation so as not to offend her. 
  • I don’t think your trips are wrong, but also ask her because those FB seem pointed. If she really hurt- okay can you take her once and make accommodations? If shes Just doing it for the sympathy then ignore her. 

    I will say- I traveled with my grandmother when she was in her 80s and while the speed was SLOW and we couldn’t do much, I did get her to see Hawaii, see Pearl Harbor, walk out to the water and the north shore, and visit the Dole plantation. Was it slower and more work that if I’d gone alone? Yes, but she’s gone now and I’m so so glad I got to go with her. 
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