I'm starting to really dislike my daughters's personalities

The BBQ Pit
21

I went back and read the OP. This passage alone is making me feel tired. Not physically tired, but mentally. Which I’m guessing is how your family felt, OP.

Why couldn’t you have dropped some things from the list? It’s not like London is going to disappear any time soon. Seems to me you would have been better off selecting two or three of the most “must see” sights on your list and just focusing on those. Instead, you expected your daughters to willingly drink from a firehose. Most people would find that tiring.

22

Thanks for your input. To be clear :

1 - I never expected my daughters to like the same things as I do. The only thing I want from them, is to be open to the experience. But even that is too much. The less they do, the less they see, the happier they are.

2 - My dad is a Middle Ages buff. Throughout our childhood, he’d takes me and my brother on visits to the local castles and villages whenever we were on holidays. I hated those trips. All I wanted to do was go to the beach. HOWEVER, with my dad, I wouldn’t have dared pulling the sort of shit they did in London. Not that he was violent, of course. But my family was the “parents decide” type. And now, I’m happy that I saw all these things when I was a kid. It certainly gave me an affinity for history and nature.

3 - The very first thing I asked when we booked the trip was what each of them wanted to do. I was well aware of the fact that our time there would be limited, so I wanted to focus on our top priorities. My eldest daughter already had the Harry Potter thing. The youngest wanted to go to the Tower of London KFC. Their mother said “nothing”. So, considering that we had only two days and that I didn’t want them to be overwhelmed, I settled for what seemed to me like a reasonable program :

  • Camden Town on the Wednesday evening.
  • A walk in Hyde Park and around Buckingham Palace (total time 45 minutes) + Harry Potter + Tower Hill KFC at night on Thursday.
  • The Westminster Abbey-King’s Cross walk on Friday (about 75 minutes spread out between 10 am and 6 pm !) + the exhibition (2h were more than enough).

It definitely wasn’t unreasonable.

4 - Regarding flexibility, I did improvise following their wishes. On the very first day there was the impromptu KFC in Camden Town, knowing that we were supposed to go to the one Tower Hill the next day. On Thursday, when we came back from the Harry Potter Studios, they had a swim in the tiny, nondescript hotel pool and pizza in the room instead of the KFC because they were hungry wanted to eat now. Yesterday morning, they wanted wanted to go the swimming pool again. I let them. Then at Tower Hill, the youngest insisted on going to the KFC. We did, even though we’d been to another one on Wednesday night, and they had decided not to go the day before. At Trafalgar Square, I let them rest for a quarter of hour although we’d just started the walk 20 minutes earlier and it was really getting late for the exhibition.

5 - All in all, I’d say I’m definitely a type A traveller, but not dogmatically so. I also enjoying lying on the beach doing nothing all day. It just drive me crazy that when you have less than 48h in one of the most dynamic, history-rich cities in the world, you insist on going to the swimming pool TWICE, go to KFC TWICE and complain about eveything once what you wanted to do is finished. I knew the Anglo-Saxon manucripts wouldn’t appeal them, although I tried to spark their interest by using the “Harry Potter” angle. But really, if they had finished the walk with me and said : “Sorry, we’ll do something else while you go look at your ancient books”, I’d have been (mostly) fine with it. But when I arrived in Russell Square all alone, and the sun was setting on the central fountain, with tree tops all golden, I had tears in my eyes thinking that they were missing out on this. And at that very time, they may have been watching a street performer dressed as Yoda saying “May the force be with you”. Or perhaps they were already on their way to King’s Cross where they spent the last three hours of the stay.

So, I’m sorry they were being selfish, spoiled and shallow little brats.

And yes, as you may have noticed, their mother has always undermined every single thing I wanted to do with them, ridiculing my tastes and encouraging them to disobey me at every opportunity.

23

I think there are at least three issues here;

  1. The OP can’t force his kids to like what he likes. It’s not wrong to have different interests. However, by avoiding conflict, he can be available as a resource for the kids in the future. Right now they’re jerks but maybe if you play your cards right they’ll be open to change. But you can’t force them.

  2. Husband and wife have to get on the same page.

  3. Kids must learn the concept of gracefully “I went along with what you wanted to do yesterday; today you return the favor.” They don’t have to show interest but they should be polite and respectful. Let them play video games so long as they are being directly obnoxious. The KFC thing should have been clearer—“Okay, we’ll go to KFC today, but that means no KFC tomorrow.”

  4. Dad should be okay with occasionally spending a day enjoying London his own way on his own while the rest stay at the hotel pool playing video games. Both sides should be flexible.

24

No, they’re being pre-teens. Typical 12-year-old girl behavior.

25

Oh, guess what? They are really young, barely teenagers, It. Will. Get. Worse. long before it’s gets better. Grit your teeth and bear it. If I was religious, I’d pray for you. Female teenagers are THE most self centered, angsty, hard to live with of any human. This, too, will pass.
Talk to the wife and y’all get on the same page. This is essential.

26

At that age I can see how this situation can arise, I have two myself of that age and they can be awkward little buggers sometimes.

One thing we’ve come to appreciate is how much easier it can be to split up into pairs. You have less people to please regarding food and entertainment, less chance of squabbles and those you may have are easier to defuse. With double the people you have the square of the problems.

A couple of weeks ago all four of us went up to London. My wife and daughter fancied going to a sewing and craft fair, so off they went. Me and my son just had an aimless walk around Spitalfields market and the city. Seeing the architecture, snacking and chatting. We met up again later in the day each couple with a load of stories to share (that of course the other pair didn’t know about).
This had the effect of sparking interest in the one who wasn’t there “oooo! I’d like to see that” or “HMS Belfast sounds cool”. So that lays the groundwork for things that we all fancied seeing and doing.

Experiencing everything together, always as a family, skipping along, hand in hand like a travel advert sounds great but I suspect the reality is often less amicable.

I think it is also worthwhile to always allow for a bit of flexibility and sidetracking. We went to the V&A as a family and we thought we knew what would interest the kids. As it happened they spent a happy hour in the near-deserted ceramics section, it just interested them for some reason, my wife and I were ambivalent but we had books to hand so found a quiet corner and let them just mooch around until they were done.

27

This is another thing in the OP worth noting.

Sounds like the OP’s initial goal was to use Friday to go to the library, which sounds pretty simple and reasonable. When the day came and he decided on his own to turn it into an afternoon of walking to various landmarks, that is when he messed up.

If I were the OP and I was determined to seize the day without interference from family, I would’ve enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with the wife and kids, and then gone for a sightseeing walk on my own for a few hours while they hung out at the pool. Then reunite with them at the hotel a little before noon and then kicked off the afternoon with lunch at KFC before going to the British Library. After enjoying that experience, you present some options. Walk around to see some other sights? Maybe identify another destination to commute to by bus or cab? Go to a park and people watch? Take a tour bus around the city? Hang out at the hotel? If the last option is what the kids and wife vote for, the OP could’ve respected that but still done his own thing.

28

I agree it isn’t unreasonable if you wanted to do a sight-seeing trip to London. If you’re “meh” about the entire thing, then I can see how little of this would seem reasonable.

Your wife didn’t want to go. You ran roughshod over her wishes. Your eldest daughter only wanted to do Harry Potter and it sounds like your youngest really only wanted KFC (which I find hilarious). So most of the trip was devoted to either stuff you wanted to do or stuff that you felt they should enjoy just because they are historical/educational. I agree that your kids could have been a lot less bratty and that your wife is not very supportive of you, but I think you need to take some responsibility in all of this too.

29

That’s why their jerkishness isn’t surprising.

30

Growing up, I thought my parents were an inverted Hydra: two bodies, one head. And parents didn’t “decide”, because deciding involves some sort of process; parents decreed. Parents led. Parents ordered. And my Dad had extra points in sounding like God the Father only more; if he’d stated “the sky is green with red pinstripes”, people at his job would have believed it on his say-so, because he had both that kind of credibility and that way of saying things.

But the first time he was laying down plans for the day and I contradicted him with a good reason to do something else (something else which also involved monuments but which did not involve roasting to death in a non-AC’d car), he was first surprised and then pleasantly surprised. I was your eldest’s age. Thing is, he’d taught me to be logical and to lay down my reasons in a calm manner. Have you guys?

Not all of them. Some of us were busy taking care of the family while our narcissistic mothers were busy being Mrs. Important. I couldn’t do angst, I didn’t fucking have time.

31

You don’t even notice this , do you ? Their mother ( who is apparently not your wife, or your girlfriend or your anything , to the point where i’m wondering why she was even on this trip) has always undermined every single thing you wanted to do with them and encouraged them to disobey you at every opportunity.

There’s only one way that she could actually encourage them to disobey you at every opportunity and undermine everything you want to do with them - and that’s if you just make these decisions yourself without any agreement on her part. She’s not going to encourage them to ignore the bedtime that the two of you set together, a little earlier than she would prefer, a little later than you would have. She’s not going to undermine the itinerary of a trip that you agreed on with less sightseeing than you would prefer but less lazing around than she would prefer. It doesn’t make sense for her to actually encourage them to disobey rules that she had a hand in making - she might be unwilling to impose any consequences for them breaking rules that she agreed on, but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re talking about.

32

Nava, you had a special situation. Not many teens could up their game, in that manner.

33

Except that’s not what happened.

Once the trip was booked, I asked everyone what they really wanted to do and see. Once I got the answers (“Harry Potter”, “Tower Hill KFC” and “Nothing”), I presented the program I mentioned above :

  • Camden Town on the Wednesday evening.
  • A walk in Hyde Park and around Buckingham Palace (total time 45 minutes) + Harry Potter + Tower Hill KFC at night on Thursday.
  • The Westminster Abbey-King’s Cross walk on Friday (about 75 minutes spread out between 10 am and 6 pm !) + the exhibition (2h were more than enough).

So, it was clear from the start and none of them suggested any changes. Only once we were there and they had seen/eaten what they wanted to, did everything go to shit because all of a sudden, they were tired and not interested. “Coincidentally” it was also the bit I wanted to do.

34

I know others have said this above but I’m just going to echo an unpleasant truth:

They’re 9 and 12. They’re children. Children don’t understand fancy grown-up things. They are - almost by definition - short-sighted, inattentive, thoughtless, and ungrateful. They are distracted by things we think are bullshit. When I was that age, I visited cities like Paris and Brussels, but I can guarantee you that all I thought about the whole time was going home so I could play Ninja Turtles with my friends.

You keep expecting them to be fascinated by things YOU find fascinating and to appreciate things YOU appreciate. Even worse, you think you can instill and interest and appreciation in them by design. This has literally never, ever worked in all of human history. You didn’t “fail.” You just discovered what it’s like to be a parent.

35

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit, along with the comments that are no more than “LOL, girls”. The OP is using language I find pretty gross in a father and I’m willing to bet his disdain for his children shines through loud and clear in his every interaction. I’ve read the OP twice and his major complaints are very minor issues that he has elevated into calling them monsters and wonders why they don’t want to spend time with a micro-managing overlord who dislikes them. He may love them, but his dislike is evident.

Before my credentials are called into question, I’m raising a highly intelligent, compassionate, and at times willful daughter. I never expressed such negativity about her being her own person as this OP did. As a teen, she has more patience for differences than the OP does. Maybe rein in the expectations and enjoy your children for who they are.

36

Listen. Two of these people are children. Children have a very limited ability to negotiate. Children are also notorious for saying “OK” to stuff in advance (especially to appease a parent) and then later objecting to it once reality sets in. And if they had objected and had said, “Let’s just stay at the pool and eat KFC all day!”, would you have really accommodated their wishes?

Your significant other didn’t want to go at all and told you that upfront. So maybe she was thinking that it wouldn’t matter to you if she shot down your itinerary and came up with alternative suggestions (“Let’s just relax by the pool and play it by ear”). Maybe she knew you were set on doing London your way and nothing she could say would change that.

37

They are kids and kids have childish interests. It seems as if you’re expecting them to treat this London experience the way a sophisticated adult traveler would. Don’t worry; they will have future opportunities to see sunsets and eventually the maturity to appreciate them the way you do. They are just not there yet.

It sounds like they’ve been raised feeling empowered to make their wants and desires known. Like you, I was not raised this way. My parents weren’t in the habit of seeking our input into choices, so for most things we went along passively and without protest. I’m not saying the consequences to this were all bad, but now that I’m a parent I can see the drawbacks to raising kids like this. Kids who shut up and do what they are told are probably going to be less open with you about their feelings and thoughts, less capable of asserting themselves, and less inclined to think for themselves.

38

The reason she didn’t want to go was that it cost money and we’d been to London before. She has plans on how our money should be spent, plans I disagree with but SHE is the one who spends her life “running roughshod over other people’s wishes”. She reluctantly agreed to this 500€ trip (out of which my parents - whom she utterly despises - contributed 150€ as a gift to my daughter) but has absolutely no calms about paying 5000€ every year for her sacred 2-week summer holidays in luxury hotels, when the rest of us would be perfectly happy with shorter stays in less than exclusive places. Full stop.

My eldest daughter had asked us for two years to go to the studios. This time, I realized that she was reaching an age where Harry Potter may not interest her for very long. Maybe next year, she won’t care for it at all. So, this was now or perhaps too late. So yeah, I wanted to seize this opportunity to do one thing I like, which apparently, to HelenTroy makes me some kind of monster. For the record I love my daughters but I indeed utterly dislike their increasingly selfish attitude. Get it ?

The same thing happened with our skiing holidays last year. Our daughters wanted to go skiing since 2014 at least. Their mother had promised them we’d go. Then finally said that we didn’t have the money after all. Every. Single. Year. So, last year, I told her I was booking the winter holidays, which I did. If I hadn’t, they would still be living on promises of “Next year, darling”.

Adressed in point 1 of my answer just above. I agree totally.

This will never happen. Her only passion in life is sucking the pleasure out of everything other people like with a mixture of scorn, threats and self-pity.

Totally agree.

Indeed.

To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever organize a trip in the future, apart from the basic stuff like accomodation and transport. Why trying to interest them in stuff they don’t care for ? They don’t even have the basic respect to even try something ? Too bad, you’ve missed out.

39

My point is that you turned what could’ve been a very simple and attainable plan to see the British Library into a 8-hour undertaking.

Your expectations were unrealistic if you thought your wife and daughters felt cemented to the itinerary you created, when they weren’t particularly interested in having a full blown London experience to begin with.

40

OK, I feel I’m not making myself understood here.

I didn’t want this to turn into an 8h-ordeal. There was a list of 5 landmarks that I thought were worth seeing. Google maps told me that it was possible to see them all, getting from point A to point B in less than 1h. I doubled that amount so that we didn’t have to rush. Make that 2h to be safe. Two more hours max at the Library. It still left 4h hours to free to do what they wanted.

I agree that I may have been mistaken in thinking that they were 100% on board with it when I told them about it. I mean, I did my best to take everyone’s input into account. By asking them what they wanted to do, then by telling them about what I had planned and asking if they were fine with it. What more could I do ? Frankly, I feel that the notion I imposed my views on the rest of the family completely ludicrous.

Anyways, as I’ve said, I just don’t think I’ll bother to plan future trips. Trying to please everyone, asking for their opinion and ending with such a fiasco just isn’t worth it.