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I tried to keep the bedtime the same every night within about an hour or so. Hence, yes, I wanted routine. I did not run them ragged. They had plenty of down time each day and we had days where nothing was planned.
For a vacation like that they would said a verbal Thank you multiple times a day plus sent a written Thank you after they returned home (probably even more than one written Thank you letters).
I'm not expecting a thank you note that is for sure!
I take what I said about hubby only meeting them once back. My son had only met them once. Anyway, we are the only ones in the family that put forth the time & money into visiting relatives. It is what it is.
I think you hit the problem in this post. We have spent time and money trying to be good family communicators and find that unless we make the effort, most of the time no effort is made. Gets tiresome, doesn't it?
We drive miles for birthday parties, showers, weddings, etc. but when it was time for them to come our way suddenly the road disappeared and there was no way for them to get here.
Finally one day I decided to address the situation when a sister-in-law blamed me because we had not been to see them for a while. I explained to her that we had been traveling to their place for years and it would be nice to see the family without having to drive for miles before hand. I invited everyone to come see us. Finally at the end of the conversation she explained to me that we should come to visit them because we were the ones who moved away.
Suddenly I realized we had a perfect situation. We only have to see relatives when we choose to. I enjoy that now. I want to see them; I go see them. Facebook works for me! I now spend most of my time and energy with local friends and we have in common that their relatives are the same as ours. We laugh about it from time to time. My feeling is that people do what they want to do.
Just be glad those girls aren't yours and you don't have to invite them again unless you want to. It was a good effort on your part. I am quite sure the girls intended for you to see the notebook. They have a lot of anger issues is my guess.
Look, I think you had waaaaaay too high expectations. You uprooted two teenaged girls (that age group sucks, btw) for THREE WEEKS to spend time with a family they didn't know or barely knew. I know you thought you were being generous, but for kids who have never spent time away from home, that was just way way way too much.
You didn't know these kids. They didn't know you. You obviously knew nothing about their upbringing except that they were poor.
I'm reacquainting myself with one of my exes' sons who is in a bad spot and who had a horrible childhood. He is 18. With few exceptions, 18-year-old boys are absolute jerks. I go into every conversation with EXTREMELY low expectations and assume nothing. So far I'm quite happily surprised by the young man he has become, but I still allow myself to expect NOTHING, not even gratitude and certainly not affection.
Those girls behaved abominably, but they were fishes out of water with nothing familiar around them, likely for the first time in their lives. It must have been very strange and unsettling for them. And clearly their parents are not very effective. I'd say you got ahead of yourself and if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you need to take your time before extending an invitation for almost a month to people (especially teens) you don't know at all.
I'm sorry you had a crappy experience and I know your intentions were good, but you gotta look before you leap.
And really, you should know better than to take the rantings and opinions of a preteen and young teenagers personally.
And, when they look back in a few years...They will have a whole different outlook on the visit.
Poor?? Yet they talked about eating steak....That isn't poor in my book.....Kindles?? that isn't poor either.
I'd rethink your reading their journals....you are butt hurt, but you really should just chalk it up to age and being "strangers"...
Kids are weird....that is just a fact. You might just rethink your expectations, spend less money and more time. That is what a kid remembers later.
I'm curious about that, too. Was it just quiet in their bedroom or "light's out"?
Also, how old is your son? And when was his bedtime?
Did your husband talk to his brother about his daughters and their routines and your expectations before the trip?
Maybe in the summer the girls always stay up to midnight (or later) and get up at 10 AM (or later). That would have been something that their parents should have told you in advance. Then your husband could have said "At our house, we have bedtime (or quiet time) at 10 PM because I have to get up for work at 5:30 AM each day, and I can't sleep when the house is noisy."
I am so sorry that it turned out to be such as disaster. At least you know that they won't be asking you again to buy their plane tickets for a return visit.
Just out of curiosity, are your husband's parents alive? Do these girls treat their grandparents the same way that they treated you?
Last edited by germaine2626; 07-25-2015 at 09:44 PM..
I second what Stagemomma said, but I want to add that you have my sympathy, Heather.
I honestly don't think your expectations were too high, but I am guessing that you are "older" and that you just don't know what MANY teens and tweens -- I won't say most -- are like now. It seems to me that kids who have grown up with the Internet and with MTV and with female rock stars who parade "all they have" have just absorbed the idea that "manners" do NOT matter and they also have practically zero attention span.
I am a boomer, and my husband and I adopted our kids when they were four and six in 1998 when we were in our early 40's, and we were honestly not prepared for what we encountered when our kids entered adolescence. It was like what we considered to be the most basic courtesy seemed to be foreign to MANY of the kids who were the same age as our kids. I just thought that as we lived in a middle class "nice" community that most of the kids would not only say, but also know the concepts behind, "please" and "thank you", for example.
Anyway, I don't mean to go on and on and on, but I just want to say that I do both sympathize AND empathize with you, and I am very sorry for what you experienced! I also wish you better luck with your son than we had with our two kids.
Sniffles... I'm older at 42. LOL Yeah, I don't feel old, but when they didn't know things I was talking about, that made me feel old.
I haven't really encountered kids that my child interacts with that don't know simple manners of please and thank you. I could be worse and expect my kid to say sir and ma'am. I grew up in the south and even that makes me cringe.
As you may also be able to relate, I always ask myself if how my kid acts is it in his genes or how we've taught him or both. We adopted him at 5 years old. We lucked out and got a very happy kid, who is extremely outgoing and friendly to both kids and adults.
And, when they look back in a few years...They will have a whole different outlook on the visit.
Poor?? Yet they talked about eating steak....That isn't poor in my book.....Kindles?? that isn't poor either.
I'd rethink your reading their journals....you are butt hurt, but you really should just chalk it up to age and being "strangers"...
Kids are weird....that is just a fact. You might just rethink your expectations, spend less money and more time. That is what a kid remembers later.
Well they are poor, so I kind of felt they were asking for things they don't get at home. The kindle and luggage were borrowed. I couldn't convince them to check their bags either.
Trust me I learned my lesson. I know 3 weeks was long, but they came 3000 miles. It's not feasible to stay a day or two and leave. It was what it was to fit around everyone's schedules. I don't think having expectations of someone being polite is asking too much.
As I told hubby, if those girls are any indication of the children we would have had biologically, I am more than happy to get the kid we adopted. Trust me, I have a new found appreciation for him.
A kid is the product of their environment. You're simply better organized parents with more control. It has nothing to do with your son being adopted.
I hope that you don't differentiate this way often.
Well they are poor, so I kind of felt they were asking for things they don't get at home. The kindle and luggage were borrowed. I couldn't convince them to check their bags either.
So, do they eat steak for most meals at home? And, only drink bottled water at home? You made it sound like they demanded these things because they were used to them and always expected them.
I don't come from a family where shipping kids off to other relatives is the norm. In fact, it's kind of weird to me in general and absolutely weirder still when the kids in question do not know the people they are being shipped off to. You can be sure these girls did NOT want to come visit you and probably had some royal fights with their parents about it before getting on that plane.
I can't really imagine why anyone would feel it appropriate or positive to make 2 pre-teens visit strangers for 3 weeks.
Sorry if that sounds too harsh, but the idea of doing that blows my mind.
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