The frustration simmered quietly, shared only in whispered complaints and secret jokes between her and her grandmother, who tried to outsmart the habit by shifting event times. Yet, beneath the humor and tolerance, a deep ache lingered—especially on her 22nd birthday, when the late arrival wasn’t just inconvenient, but painfully emblematic of the distance growing between them.
My (22F) mom (mid 40′ F) is one of those people who is always late to everything. I’m talking family gettogethers, birthdays, graduations, wedding’s, you name it she’s showing up late.
At first growing up I just thought it was because she’s bad with time, but as I’ve gotten older I genuinely believe she likes making an entrance.
I personally find it 1) rude and 2) embarrassing because it’s not like it happens once in a while, it literally happens at every single function she is invited to that has a set time.
Many family members have complained about this, nothing ever changes. It’s gotten to the point that whenever my grandma has family lunches or dinners she’ll tell me mom it starts an hour earlier that it actually does, so she’ll be there on time.
(My mom doesn’t know that my grandma does this, it’s a joke between grandma and I).
This past weekend was my 22nd birthday. My grandma wanted to do a lunch for me at her place with our immediate family. The lunch was to start at 2pm, but we told my mom 1pm.
I had plans later that evening to go out for dinner with my boyfriend, so I wanted to leave my grandma’s house at around 5 the absolute latest because I needed to go home and get all ready.
Well of course my mom was late. We called her at like 2:30PM to see where she was because you know, it’s her daughters birthday. She had just left her house at 2:30PM and still had to pick up her bf on her way to my grandma’s (30-35 mins away) so none of us were expecting her to arrive until like 3:30PM.
She finally arrives 2 and a half hours late from the time we told her, makes her little entrance. We question her about. She tells us she thought the lunch started at 2? We asked her where she heard this from, she said my aunt (who was present at the lunch) told her.
We questioned my aunt and she said she felt bad “lying to my mom”.
Everyone is pretty annoyed, but we all move on. Fast forward an hour later (4:30PM) I have to start leaving.
My mom starts getting all annoyed with me that I’m leaving “so soon” and that she barely got to see me for my birthday. I told her that my life doesn’t revolve around her, and that she should’ve been there sooner.
She started giving me attitude and listing all these excuses as to why she’s late. I couldn’t be bothered to hear them and left.
Later that night she messaged me saying that I was acting like an AH towards her and it was rude of me to lie to her about the time the lunch started. My mom and my aunt think I’m an AH for lying to her.
My grandma doesn’t think it’s a big deal and they’re overacting. I came here for some outside opinions.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) is dealing with the persistent issue of their mother habitually arriving very late to important events, causing the OP embarrassment and disrupting plans, especially on their own birthday. The central conflict lies between the OP’s need for respect and punctuality, and the mother’s apparent need to make an entrance, which led the family to resort to deceptive time adjustments, ultimately causing friction when the mother confronted the OP about being lied to.
Did the OP act inappropriately by lying about the start time to secure their mother’s timely arrival for a significant event, or was this a necessary, justifiable tactic given years of repeated disrespect and failure to change the mother’s pattern of behavior?
Here’s how people reacted:
>I genuinely believe she likes making an entrance.
I have relatives who were similar, we dealt with it by making a betting pool on how late they would be and then happily congratulating the winner when the relatives arrived. This stole the attention from the relatives and embarrassed them all at the same time as well as turning their rudeness from a frustration to entertainment for the rest of us. Strangely enough the relatives are now on time to family events…
Your mother refuses to work on her own issues that you have brought up many times previously, so you provided her with a bandaid solution.
If the bandaid got this kind of response, I’d expect that the next step will unfortunately be not inviting her to things whatsoever.
She is reaping what she’s sewn, and as such, shouldn’t be surprised when the result is her effectively phasing herself out of your life.
Being late once in a while for legit reasons is fine but to be late consistently is just RUDE.
There’s NO WAY I would have waited. I’d have tucked into my delicious birthday cake and asked Grandma to pass the snacks. No one else wants to eat? Fine! Wait for mom the snail to slither in 2 hours late, I don’t care!
You were right to leave and enjoy the rest of your evening. Fuck waiting for your selfish mom.
Stop giving her the attention and start giving her reasons to regret being late. The problem will solve itself. Or it won’t, but it’ll be her problem, not yours.
NTA.
Maybe next time tell her the event starts an hour before it finishes so she arrives after it’s over. Hopefully that will make her arrive on time in the future, since if there is no one there, no one can see “how awesome” she is.
Either way, NTA. She’s disrespecting the time of others with her being late all the time. She needs to find a fix.
The fact that your mom was still late *even though she knew the real time* indicates that she does not respect your time, or the time of other people.
Your approach to chastising her was a bit harsh, but seems warranted.
Stop giving her the attention she’s craving, don’t let her make her scene, don’t call, don’t ask why she’s late, go live your life and she can decide to be part of it or be late.
You can tell your guest to arrive at whatever time you want to your own party.
From now on, Aunt gets the fake time, too.
NTA – Listen to grandma she makes a lot of sense…
It’s clear she did that on purpose and you’re right, your life doesn’t revolve around her