Considering how often some out and out fruitcake will get their ‘woe is me’ story ripped to shreds here because everyone can see straight through it … yeah, actually it is outside corroboration.
Thirteen year olds going with their parent to family reunions because the parent thinks they should go sounds completely normal to me.
(In fact, just a couple of months ago I took my Smallish Girls with me to their great great auntie’s 100th. And they rather enjoyed themselves. Though admittedly in that case they actually did want to go)
It’s frequently easy to see through the stories of “out and out fruitcake[s]”. But sometimes people who are not out and out fruitcakes can also have varying perspectives on the same matter.
I remember an aunt of mine once wryly remarked that it’s an amazing thing that “in all the divorces I’m familiar with, the one I’m friendlier with has been the one who is ‘right’”.
My wife has a friend currently going through the divorce process and fighting it out with her husband. By her account - and my wife is convinced that it’s true “based on stories she’s told me over the years” - her husband is absolutely “crazy”. So it was a remarkable incident when my wife was having a conversation a couple of months ago with this woman and a third friend, discussing the details of the ongoing divorce, when the third friend suddenly had an epiphany. She had been told about this very divorce fight, not realizing it was this woman she knew, by someone who knew the husband. And that person said he was the good guy and “his wife is absolutely crazy”. (All sorts of drama ensued, when the woman refused to reveal who had told her that, and these two woman broke off their friendship.)
There’s an old joke about a rabbi judging a case between two litigants. So the first guy says his story and the rabbi says “you’re right”. Then the second guy says his story and the rabbi says “you’re right”. At that point the rabbi’s assistant says “but they can’t both be right”, and the rabbi says “you’re also right”.
Gee, you mean an OP with the TL;DR summary of “DH is a selfish asshole” isn’t being taken as a completely fair and unbiased summary of the facts? :eek:
Tell you what. I will withdraw my original remark and replace it with:
That’s what I think, too, but I’m not really impartial right now. Nice to get positive reinforcement.
Fotheringay-Phipps: Is that a better response?
nearwildheaven is right – there are definitely multiple sides to this issue. I come here so I can rant to people who don’t know DH and won’t be put in the awkward position of having to take both sides into consideration. Those inclined can post “You go, girl!” based on my version of events alone. Most importantly, my version of events won’t color anyone’s perception of DH in real life.
Folks here do have an uncanny way of making me look at things from a new perspective (which is why I don’t just post my rant as a blog), but I’m relying on our counselor to provide me with honest feedback and call me on my own issues.
I think the OP’s reasons and reasoning about the trip sound fair enough and I’m sure even if the trip isn’t the highlight of her son’s year it won’t be the absolute low point. Thirteen is a pretty good age to learn that if you are down in the dumps feeling really miserable about having to do something the reason is that you are thinking yourself in to that state. I doubt that it will be the last time in his life that he has to fit in with someone else’s plans.
Sometimes visiting family far-away feels like a chore. But you know what? If you don’t make the effort - considerable effort, sometimes - to attend happy family occasions, then the only things you’ll feel obligated to attend are funerals, and that’s what family will end up meaning to you - sadness (or worse, apathy, because you never got to know them even slightly) and no happy memories.
I understand that kids can be bored on long drives, or dealing with relatives they don’t (yet) know, but unless there’s actual abuse going on, I firmly believe this is the perspective one needs to have. Be there for the good times - because the bad times will happen whether you like it or not, so you might as well have both kinds.
Who knows - the kid might enjoy the happy occasion, despite himself!
Nah, the distance from where only we lived to where most other relatives lived was about 1000 times and a death shorter than the other direction.
TLDR of what follows: my relatives I met outside funerals were cool. The ones I only see at funerals are bo-ring.
My family never did the “children get dragged around once at the meeting” thing, most of the time meeting distant relatives on Dad’s side was pretty cool because even if the new relative wasn’t all that interesting my cousins would be there. There were those two second cousins who were slightly older than me (for once, I wasn’t the one in charge of herding the other kids!), there was the great-aunt who inspired a life of “going places without my parents”, there was the musicologist who could talk about Elvis vs Disney with pre-teens… but then, we’d most often meet any of them for the first time at times which did not involve coffins. Sometimes they involved someone in his deathbed (Uncle Julio’s deathbed prompted a 70-relatives, unplanned meetup), but I can’t remember any relatives on that side whom I actually met for the first time at a funeral.
Mom’s relatives are inherently less cool (sorry peeps but you are), plus they, we only meet at funerals. C’mon, how uncool is it to tell a college student you saw for the last time when she was months old “my, how you’ve grown!”? My asnwer was “and I even have learned to read since you last saw me!”
We were able to see a lot of relatives that I hadn’t seen in a long time. My dad got to show off Lil’ Andrew to his two surviving siblings. One of my favorite cousins drove her folks over (Dad’s oldest brother & his wife), so I got to see her again.
China traveller was delayed and did not make it. None of the children/ grand-children/ great grandchildren of my uncle who passed away were there.
The only other cousins who came were all the birthday boy’s children, and the only teenagers were their children. They were all first cousins to each other and knew each other fairly well. They were friendly enough, but Lil’ Andrew is on the shy side and didn’t really break into the group. So after taking him around and showing him off I gave him my tablet.
We ended up having dinner just with my folks. It was kind of cool to hang out and catch up with them. We had some issues getting out of the hotel Sunday morning which would have made us walk into church late. I told Lil’ Andrew we could skip the service to avoid walking in through a gauntlet of eyes, so he was happy about that. I would have liked to see everyone again, but I was able to visit with everyone at the party.
Lil’ Andrew is involved in a regional organization. Our route took us through the organization’s home city. On our way home we detoured a few miles off the highway and drove through the campus. I made him get out of the car and I took his picture with the sign. Once he was safely back in the car he wanted to circle the block again. That was kind of fun.
Also on the bright side: I heard more about the internal politics of half a dozen contemporary bands than I ever wanted to know. This is the bright side because the boy played with the radio and gave me a running commentary on the music for about two hours of the drive. I really enjoyed that.
Wasn’t the highlight of the year for either of us, but I think the trip was worth it.
