My sons are brats so I cancelled our holiday - they’re mad but they deserve it

“Half the ride home was spent with them sobbing and my husband pretty much gave me the silent treatment the whole way,” Rebecca shares in the post.

Alexandra Feiam

2 min read

July 25, 2023 - 1:49PM

Rebecca has had it with her kids' constant fighting. Source: iStock

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Life raising three sons and a daughter isn’t easy for Rebecca* and Steve*.

Aged between three and nine, the boys are constantly rough-housing and causing trouble.

Rebecca, who understood that sibling rivalry is normal and healthy, is fed up with them fighting “like cats and dogs.”

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Rebecca has had it with her kids' constant fighting. Source: iStock

Mum cancels holiday less than 24 hours after arriving

She shared her frustrations on Reddit, explaining that the behaviour with her boys is becoming “disruptive” for the entire family.

She and Steve organised a holiday with the whole family and her mum weeks prior, but since their kid's behaviour was getting worse, she floated the idea of cancelling it altogether.

“My husband shut me down pretty much immediately and things went ahead as planned,” she said.

The holiday rolled around, and as the family completed the three-and-a-half-hour journey, Rebecca and Steve were at their wit’s end.

“The car ride was (predictably) hell,” she confessed. But she hoped things would improve once they arrived at the hotel.

“We were wrong,” she said. “Shoes on the white furniture? Check. Running in the house? Check.”

They refused sunscreen at the beach, fought over toys, and acted “frankly, like brats.”

So Rebecca put her foot down. “I told [Steve] either I was leaving, or we all were,” she wrote.

After arguing with her husband and mum about leaving, she packed everything and cancelled the holiday less than 24 hours in.

“Half the ride home was spent with them sobbing and my husband pretty much gave me the silent treatment the whole way,” she confessed.

“My mother decided to stay behind a little longer but then started randomly texting me about 30 minutes in, asking if I was serious, and told me the whole reason she came was to spend time with the kids.”

“So I had now 'ruined it for everybody' and 'they’re only little once',” she added.

“Next time, leave it to Dad and Grandma to wrangle the kids!”

Sympathy rolled in for the exhausted mum, who told her she deserved a break, and to take her daughter along for a girl’s day.

“Make it up to daughter; demonstrate that she shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of her brothers’ behaviour,” someone suggested.

“I would've left with the daughter to stay somewhere else for three days and let Dad and Grandma deal with the boys if they didn't want to leave,” someone commented.

“We would have backed the truck up and gone home if this is how they behaved, too,” someone wrote.

“Next time this happens, Rebecca should bail on her own and leave Dad and Grandma to deal with them,” said another. “I bet once Mum isn't around to wrangle the kids and be the 'bad guy', they'll change their tunes real fast.”

*Names have been changed