When your immediate family is fighting do you stay neutral or pick sides?

MayorMcCheese000

Because hot damn, being neutral is so tough! My mom and my sister are not on speaking terms. I totally get where my sister is coming from in regards to my mother, she is in a lot of ways not a good person and my sister wants nothing to do with her. I choose just to kind of overlook her shortcomings because she is my mom and she is a good grandmother to my kids even if she is not a great mom. The best way I can think to describer her is "arrogantly ignorant."

So here's the sitch, mom says she wants to fly up for DD's first birthday party. I am super close with my sister and she lives a town over and of course she will want to be there too. I am not sure what to do. I do want them both to be there, but I don't want to be in the middle and have everyone all uncomfortable, in fact I'm not ever sure if they WOULD be in the same room together.  Do I tell mom not to come?

 

I am trying to keep this board alive here if you can't tell

Just for fun I'd like to give you some facts on my mom

-her current boyfriend is her ex-husband

-she is a gypsy

-well I guess not so much anymore, she just bought herself a brand new trailer in FL (during hurricane season!! yippee!!)

-she bought a sports car the day she got a part time job at Target because she "deserved it' - she was fired 1 month later

-she is kinda BSC, smokes like a chimney and is often loud, inappropriate and embarassing.

goodheartedmommy

I'd tell them both to be grown-ups and behave, and if they don't feel they can do that, they can work it out for whoever not to come. I just don't get it--surely people can be civil and on good behavior for an hour or two, right? Of course, we generally have big birthday parties, so we could definitely have an entire party where 2 people can completely avoid each other.

mommynow

We kind of have the same problem with MIL and FIL...they don't want to be around each other but I always invite them to parties, dinners, etc because they both should be there.  If one of them chooses not to come because the other is there then it's their loss. 

Rebekah1021

Gypsy as in the gypsys where teh guys would be scam artists and do "painting" and then the ladies go "shop" at the mall?

When I worked in retail, I loved watching the gypsies at the mall. They were awesome at lifting stuff.

I would invite both of them and let them decide to come or not come.

emilykristene2006

goodheartedmommy:

I'd tell them both to be grown-ups and behave, and if they don't feel they can do that, they can work it out for whoever not to come. I just don't get it--surely people can be civil and on good behavior for an hour or two, right? Of course, we generally have big birthday parties, so we could definitely have an entire party where 2 people can completely avoid each other.

This. If one of them asks if the other will be there, say "yes and you guys need to act like adults." I would probably also say, "it's not mine or DD's fault you guys cannot get along. Figure it out for one day."