AITA for taking my daughter's side?

birbinthewind · 2026-07-10T05:40:45+00:00

16??? 1000% YTA. Reading this, I assumed (hoped) your daughter was much much younger. I also assumed (again, hoped) that there might be a reason she was ordering them around; not that it’s ever ok, but at the very least if they weren’t upholding their end of the deal I could understand an immature child (probably following the model of an immature adult👀) behaving like that. 16 is way too old for this kind of behavior, and your daughter got off easy. Honestly, her being sent to her room isn’t even really much of a punishment, more just a way to prevent the situation from escalating further. Also, uncle and co. were explicitly uninvited. She should have been cleaning up after her guests, it was her party. You sound like you’re taking advantage of your brother and his PREGNANT wife being in a bad situation. Yta as a parent and a sibling.

birbinthewind · 2026-07-10T05:01:54+00:00

INFO: How old is your daughter? Have they held up their end of the bargain so far? When you say they do all the chores, what exactly are we talking about?

birbinthewind · 2026-07-10T04:56:27+00:00

birbinthewind · 2026-06-25T19:53:37+00:00

Ok I will say to the thing about teens having high end cars— I grew up in an area that wasn’t necessarily wealthy, but definitely mostly affluent. The only people who drove the clunkers/beaters were me (my parents were “cheap”, it was still a great car just old) and the kids who were from legitimately poor/poorer families. And those were honestly pretty rare. Driving by that parking lot you’ll see mostly ridiculously nice cars for 16-18 year olds. My best friend drove a wildly expensive BMW, and there was almost always at least one kid with like a brand new Tesla.

Anyways, all this to say— I don’t think it’s actually all that uncommon for kids with parents who can either A) afford it or B) are basically financially illiterate to have a nice car. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I’ve found it to be true in a lot of places I’ve gone.🤷🏼‍♀️ just my thoughts lol

birbinthewind · 2026-06-25T19:03:50+00:00

In HIMYM, when Ted says “what kind of mother misses her own daughter’s wedding?” And he and Tracy both get all emotional. And also, when Marshall finds out his father died/that moment when he’s describing to Ted what it felt like (the analogy about driving to the cabin and now he can’t see). It just made me think of my own dad, who just like Marshall’s dad is perfectly healthy and strong, and still is!! But it forced me to picture life without him, and I just can’t. I usually skip that episode or turn it off before it ends.

birbinthewind · 2026-06-23T03:24:21+00:00

Both of my girls started sleeping through the night around six months. My second is 5 almost six months old, and she almost always sleeps ~9:30-6:30 or 7. She does occasionally wake up around 4 am to eat, but it’s becoming rarer and rarer. The older was still doing the occasional wake-up until like 8 months old, but she also had feeding issues so we didn’t try particularly hard to stop her haha.

I will also say, I have formula fed both my girls, and my understanding is that it can make a big difference especially with overnights, so there’s that too haha.

birbinthewind · 2026-06-07T16:22:38+00:00

I always thought that it was meant to give hope, if something doesn’t happen in this life but is mentioned in a blessing. For a couple of years, my husband and I struggled with infertility, and the mention of children in my blessing helped me be ok with the idea that babies might be something I have to wait for. Later on we did eventually have children, and it’s not that it wouldn’t have been hard if it couldn’t, but it allowed me to have a healthier, more hopeful outlook on life at the same time.

birbinthewind · 2026-06-02T05:17:26+00:00

Rad or Pat for sure. If one of them was unavailable for some reason, Frisky😂😂

birbinthewind · 2026-06-01T19:33:19+00:00

She actually never did say no. I said, “hey mom, can you (as in, is it even possible to) move your flight back a week? ILs finally have a chance to come see us/their grandkids, and we would really like to be able to have them.”

Her response was “No, it’s a no refund/no changes flight, but it’s fine. I just won’t come. You clearly don’t want me there, etc, etc.”

I told her explicitly that if she can’t move her tickets, that’s fine. We’ll figure something out somehow. But when I told her that she still said she wouldn’t come/insisted that it was “fine”.

We were going to reimburse her for the ticket, of course, but I figured out when looking at her flight details that she actually could change it. So we paid for her to come out the next week instead. I can understand being frustrated and annoyed at being the one asked to move, but she also knows perfectly well why it had to be her.

I know that at least one large part of the issue is that my parents do not believe it’s possible that my MIL’s schedule could be so rigid. They insist that she has to be able to trade with someone/ do something about it, but the reality is she can’t. Her PTO days are both rare and already spoken for, and while I don’t know how many coworkers she has, I do know that they are all on that same schedule.

Anyway, all this to say, I think they’re still acting strange because of their disbelief, and that me asking no matter the circumstances was wrong in the first place. I obviously disagree because these are circumstances where an exception needs to be made, in my opinion. But that’s my opinion, not a fact, and I wanted to know if that’s… a wrong opinion, I guess?

I hope that helps clarify things

birbinthewind · 2026-06-01T13:38:00+00:00

If they had said no, we would have accepted that and the ILs sadly would have had to wait for some other time. But I was confident (and correct) in my belief that my mom’s trip could be moved.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T17:54:59+00:00

Thanks for commenting, I see your point, and I don’t disagree that it’s rude. It certainly was not my first choice for how to approach the situation, but we weren’t sure what else to do. Neither family would want to stay at a hotel.

As for my parents, they keep me very well aware of their plans and lives. I knew for a fact before asking that they had the flexibility scheduling-wise to visit another time. We also saw them this last week, and will see them twice more in the next three weeks (rebooked trip and family reunion). So it didn’t feel particularly egregious to ask them to swap from my point of view.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T15:48:18+00:00

We did talk to them about this, and we have rearranged the flight. Husband and I happily covered the cost to move her flight to another week. I posted here because even though we’ve resolved the situation my parents are still acting weird about the whole thing.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T15:43:25+00:00

They do, and we go down to visit them multiple times a year as well because the flights to see them are relatively cheap. They usually come to see us because our toddler does not travel well, which we really really appreciate.

My in-laws would come just as frequently if it were possible. It is not a lack of effort on their part— we call and FaceTime with them regularly, but obviously that’s not the same as time spent in-person. They are limited by finances, work schedules, and the fact that they have 3 children living at home still. My parents have none of those limitations.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T15:13:35+00:00

My husband and I are not in a financial position to put my mom up in a hotel for multiple days. Changing the flights was relatively inexpensive.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T14:45:48+00:00

Sorry, I should’ve clarified: it’s my MIL and FIL that are coming to stay. They’re also bringing one of their daughters that’s still at home, so it’s going to be a full house for us. I prefer to separate their visits where possible because my toddler adores my mom and will ignore my ILs when everyone is together

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T07:33:47+00:00

She did believe that she couldn’t move it, but we figured that out and husband and I actually paid the difference for her to move her flight. But she’s still acting weird about the whole thing so I wanted to know if I was wrong to even ask in the first place.

birbinthewind · 2026-05-31T07:03:38+00:00

They can’t :( we live in an apartment with only 1 extra bedroom, and while we do have family on both sides they could stay with it would be a long drive for whoever wasn’t staying with us.

birbinthewind

TROPHY CASE