BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Why did I even come to Christmas?

How was everyone's holiday? Hopefully better than mine.

My brother recently married a woman with 2 sons, 5 and 7. He decided to bring them with him for Christmas this year...I wasn't thrilled, but, I still looked forward to spending time with my family.

My husband and I drove 9 1/2 hours to my parents' house, and opted to stay in a hotel with our dog since my brother and his new family were staying with my parents. My mom went child crazy and spent all of the time indulging these children, who screamed, fought, and never listened to my brother's directions (their mom was flying in 2 days later). I was told to go into the kitchen and cook and wash the dishes...after driving 9 1/2 hours. The children then started punching me...focusing their aggression on my breasts and rear end...nothing stopped them...not "don't hit people" from my brother, my husband, and myself...not even when my husband grabbed one kid's hand and told him to stop. I kind of gave my mom a pass because she loves children, and it killed her when I told her hubby and I were child freers...so I figured "ok, let her have fun with these kids."

What really upset me was Christmas eve and day...on Christmas eve, hubbs and I ended up pushed to the corner by ourselves while my mom, dad, brother, his wife, and her kids all had a family Christmas...literally, nobody even acknowledged us...no "thank you for the expensive presents." No "do you like what we got you?" No "would you like some eggnog?" We slipped out to walk the dog and were gone for an hour and no one noticed. We finally left and I asked my mom what time we should be back Christmas morning for breakfast and Christmas activities. My mom said "8:30-9 is fine"

We showed up at 8:30 exactly...everyone had already eaten, all of the presents were opened already. Hubbs and my stockings were put away and the contents were in a plastic grocery bag. (The only high point of that was my brother and his wife who are in a massive amount of credit card debt won $3 on the lotto tickets my mom put in their stockings, hubbs and I, who have no credit card debt and had extra money this year to go to the Caribbean as a reward for my difficult fall semester, won $100) Again, I cooked Christmas dinner by myself...I had to physically drag my mother away from the kids to get her to tell me where the honey was for my balsamic reduction I expertly crafted (if I do say so myself) to go with the roast beef.

After dinner, my mom and dad took the kids to my brother's room to look for legos and my old bedroom so they could pick through my old toys (without my knowledge). My brother and his new wife took the opportunity to pretty much have sex on the dinner table, so hubbs left to take a nap in the living room and I laid on the couch by myself in the dark to play on my phone. The only living creature that came to check on me was my parents' dog, who, I think, was as sick of the whole situation as I was. The dog climbed onto the couch with me and put her head on my knee for a restful nap before the chaos. I had had enough, so we left and my mom made a big deal about us stopping over for breakfast before we headed home.

We showed up at 7:30...we were told my brother's wife was making an egg casserole for breakfast and it wouldn't be ready until 9. Hubbs and I knew we couldn't spend 1 1/2 hours with screaming children, and the casserole was growing more and more disgusting looking the more they put in it, so we said we had to leave by 8:30 to miss rush hour traffic in DC...I took 3 more punches to my breasts and rear and packed up to leave.

The last straw came when my dog went into my old room and grabbed one of my Care Bears. I told my mom "I guess our dog has decided she wants my Care Bear." To which, she asked around if the children wanted it, then said "I guess the boys don't want it, so its ok if your dog has it" Um..really!?! It was MY Care Bear...shouldn't I decide who gets it?

Thanks for reading all of that...it just feels that no one else understand how it feels to be ignored because of children...I have taken a lot of rude treatment and comments from a lot of people...doctors, family members, newly baby crazed friends...I thought I could count on my mom and dad to treat me fairly...I may not have obnoxiously hyper children, but, I'm still part of the family...or so I thought.

Sounds like an awful holiday experience to me. You were truly disrespected in many ways. This is the sort of thing that makes me grateful that I never had children. The worst part of it is that the ones who have kids don't know how to discipline them these days. I bet you and your hubby were glad to be in the car and out of there, even if you had a long drive ahead.

My holiday was spent sick in bed, but I will take that over misbehaved kids any day.

All I can say is that the parents are in for a world of hurt if they don't find a way to rein in these kids. If they won't stop punching at 5 or 7, what will they do at 15 or 17?

Somebody needs parenting classes! And I'm not talking about you and Hubbs.

When I got to the bit about all the presents being opened I felt sick. You must have felt so hurt. It's like you don't count if you haven't got kids. what a horrible experience.

Thanks for all of the kind words, guys. You've made me feel loads better. I wish I could say "update, everything is peachy now." but, no. After mentioning it to my mother a few times and being ignored, I finally blew up and got into a huge fight with my mom a few weeks ago. She kept saying "what do you want me to do? He's my child, too." Until I finally told her that I wouldn't be back next year if I was coming into that mess again. She screamed at me and told me I have no family anymore (because obviously hubs doesn't count as family) then threatened to skip my nursing school graduation. So, by standing up for myself, I ended up in a worse situation.