Response was a bit hasty

Casadena · November 20

Dear Prudence,

I’m a 27-year-old woman, and I am tentatively planning a vacation; my mother (who is 64) asked if she could come, and I agreed. She is retired, and I work full-time. I made it clear that I would want to go in January or February.

She later asked me if I would change my dates and destination. I decided it was clearly not going to work out, and that I would go by myself. I didn’t think it was a big deal; no actual planning had occurred. However, my mother is now saying I hurt her feelings. She says I got her hopes up, and I am being unreasonably inflexible. I’m finding the situation a bit bewildering because 1) no concrete plans had been made, 2) she invited herself, and 3) I need to plan carefully to account for vacation days, while, as a retiree, she can go whenever. Am I really being the unreasonable one here?

charlotte989875 · November 20

Sounds like you two are TERRIBLE at communicating with each other.

Is it possible she thought you were planning together when you thought you were making the decisions and she was coming along?

Instead of spending time figuring who’s to blame why don’t you talk to her? Say “mom I think we ended up not on the same page here; I want to travel on these dates because of work and PTO. I had my heart set on X destination for Y reasons.”

But if no plans were made besides you saying she could come- are you really bewildered that she wanted to have an opinion.

MyNameIsNot · November 20

This is so vague, I feel like there has to be missing context. Because "Would you be willing to look at March in Ft. Lauderdale since February in Miami is so expensive" is very different from "France is stupid, we should go to Paris, Texas." I also don't understand how you go from talking about destination/timing to deciding it isn't going to work out without conversation. I think LW just didn't want mom to go and is looking for an excuse to get out of it without directly saying she'd rather travel alone.

But honestly, if they can't communicate about choosing a date and a destination, travelling together is probably a bad idea anyway.

short+sassy · November 21

The LW from their own words makes it sound so abrupt. It's fine for the mom to make a request about the dates and location. All the LW had to do was explain why they need to go in Jan/Feb and they're going to X location because that is what they have their heart set on.

That puts it back in the mom's court on if she wants to go or not. I'm guessing she would have and had only been talking about her preferences. But then the LW made the decision for her and uninvited her.

There could be more to the story, but it sounds cold.

VarunaTT · November 21

IDK. I can see this conversation in my head. I'm having a crash course in learning that my relationship with my mother has elements to it that she doesn't do to anyone else and vice versa. I feel like mom does things like this to LW and LW has learned how to deal with them. If you tell someone, "I'm taking vacation in January or February and going to Santa Fe" and they join...then are like "What about California in June?", it's pretty disrespectful. And if this is mom's pattern? "Hey, CA in June sounds fun, but I'll be going to Santa Fe in January or February, thanks" is a pretty decent way to handle it. Yeah, Mom's hurt and I can see why, but if someone lays out their plan, you agree to it, and then suddenly want to change the plan entirely?

No thank you.

short+sassy · November 21

VarunaTT said:

IDK. I can see this conversation in my head. I'm having a crash course in learning that my relationship with my mother has elements to it that she doesn't do to anyone else and vice versa. I feel like mom does things like this to LW and LW has learned how to deal with them. If you tell someone, "I'm taking vacation in January or February and going to Santa Fe" and they join...then are like "What about California in June?", it's pretty disrespectful. And if this is mom's pattern? "Hey, CA in June sounds fun, but I'll be going to Santa Fe in January or February, thanks" is a pretty decent way to handle it. Yeah, Mom's hurt and I can see why, but if someone lays out their plan, you agree to it, and then suddenly want to change the plan entirely?

No thank you.

I could see that also.

It's part of the "mystery" of the letter. Because it also could have been more minor differences. Like suggesting March or April because the weather is better. And the mom prefers the Gulf over the Atlantic, so she suggested Tampa instead of Daytona.

But agree with your phrasing, even for extreme differences. That's inwardly rolling your eyes at mom going way off script again and reiterating what the plans are.

Response was a bit hasty

Re: Response was a bit hasty

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