I have two family members basically at war with each other right now over this. I am only tangentially involved but am wondering if there’s a general consensus about who is right.
I am going to lay out the situation in pretty basic terms but will provide as much clarifying info as people need to make the choice.
OK: You have been invited to two events that occur on the same day, within an hour or two of each other. One is your 3-year-old granddaughter’s annual dance recital. The other is your nephew’s wedding.
Ugh, I hate situations like this. Somebody is going to get hurt feelings.
Having said that, I’d probably opt for the dance recital. I assume nephew is old enough to understand how important it is for the 3 year old. Assuming the 3 year old does care, of course.
So an explanation and a nice gift to the nephew.
I’m not even sure I could understand the reasoning for anything other than this response. Its a dance recital for a 3 yr old - let mom and dad record it for posterity and play the recording at the reception.
ETA: even after seeing RH’s reasoning for choosing the recital, I’m sticking with the wedding.
The grandparent in this situation is my mom. My sister is the one whose kid has the dance recital. She actually has two girls, both in dance, but the dance studio is so huge that they break up the recital into different times. My mom is able to make it to the 5-year-old’s recital earlier in the morning, but has opted to skip the 3-year-old’s recital in favor of going to her nephew’s wedding.
My sister is insane with rage about this. She is claiming that my mom has “chosen her nephew over her grandchild” and is considering disinviting my mom from both girls’ recitals due to what she perceives as a massive slap in the face. I tried calmly explaining to her that a wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and that I’m sure this was a tough choice for our mom to make, and her response was “Yeah, so he wins. surprise.”
I think I am quietly disengaging from the whole thing at this point. My mom and sister are just going to have to duke it out. I’m sort of glad I’m not involved this time but also sort of wishing that I had a family that didn’t have nuclear meltdowns every six months or so. (ARE there families like that?)
Aren’t the 3yo’s parents going to the wedding, too? Heck, I’d expect my kids to go to a family wedding rather than their own recital. Recitals are nice, but certainly not a big event.
Well, if it were my kids, we’d be going to the wedding, yeah. But my sister is skipping her cousin’s wedding (and I will point out that we were all relatively close as kids; this isn’t a distant cousin she’s never met) in favor of the recital. Which I can understand, but what I can’t really understand is getting upset with other family members for going to the wedding instead.
It just occurred to me that the wedding was more than likely planned out further in advance than the recital. So now your sister is trying to sabotage her own cousin’s wedding? How rude! Just another spin on it.
As cruel as it sounds, at 3 there’s many more dance recitals to come. And wee little tackers are often so overwhelmed by the procedure they don’t know who is and isn’t there. Of course, this is presuming this is the first or second wedding of the nephew, not his fifth or sixth one, and that you are relatively close to the Nephew as well, not just a relative who’s been invited just because.
For the 3yo’s dance recital, I’d probably even go as far as getting someone to video it (if that’s even still allowed in this day and age), so I could sit down with her and watch it together.
Hey, look at all those posts that popped up while I was typing
Your sister needs to get a sense of proportion. I’d go to the wedding.
My daughters had their piano recital last week. My mom didn’t go. After all, she has to work in this job thing she’s got–or maybe it was that her book club was meeting? I forget. Anyway, no big deal.
Your sister is being an ass. Does she really think a 3-year-old is going to remember who was at her dance recital? She won’t even remember the recital itself for long. Obviously the issue is not about the 3-year-old, but about your sister and her hissy-fit. Weddings are big events. Dance recitals (especially for 3-year-olds) are not.
Yes, mine. The more I read about crazy family arguments, the luckier I feel that my family has none of that drama. I should make one of those signs: “15,723 Days Without a Nuclear Family Meltdown”.
OK, now that it seems clear what the consensus is, can I just share that I am so very tired of all of this nonsense? We’re having a little BBQ at our house this weekend for my son’s birthday, and now my mom and sister probably won’t be speaking to each other (I half expect my sister to cancel on coming to the event at this point) and everything is tense and it’s all over SOME STUPID CRAP ABOUT A DANCE RECITAL. God.
Forget the grandmother going or not going. It’s ridiculous that your sister is choosing the dance recital over the wedding in the first place.
Perhaps, if the wedding/reception is an adults only affair, I could see that as a reason. It would be difficult to tell a child that not only must they miss their recital, but they’ll have to stay home with a babysitter all night while Mommy goes to a party.
Perhaps, if this is your cousin’s 3rd wedding, I could see being ambivalent about attending.
Other than that, weddings trump just about everything.
Just another spin on it.