Mum cancels holiday less than 24 hours after arriving after sons 'acted like brats'
One mum canceled a family trip less than 24 hours after arriving when her sons 'acted like brats'.
The mum-of-three quite literally threw the towel in after being brought to her wits' end by a holiday from hell, complete with bad language, broken rules and a whole lot of 'sibling rivalry'.
The woman then decided to give the boys a 'real consequence' which resulted in quite the family drama.
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She and her husband share three children together, two sons, aged nine and eight, and one three-year-old daughter.
Taking to the 'Am I the A**hole' thread on Reddit, she began by saying that her boys were driving her 'crazy'.
"They fight like cats and dogs," she explained. "We’ve had countless talks with them about respecting each other, to no avail. I understand sibling rivalry but it’s gotten to the point it’s disruptive to us all, every day."
She had previously voiced some concerns over the holiday being a 'good idea', but was 'shut down pretty much immediately' by her husband.
The first red flag of the trip was the three-and-a-half-hour car ride, which was 'predictably hell'.
The boys were 'fighting and riling each other up the whole time' while the parents attempted to console one another that things would 'be better once we got there'.
"We were wrong." she continued.
Upon arriving at the rental house, the boys did 'everything wrong from the get go' despite being given 'many reminders of what not to do'.
"Shoes on the white furniture? Check. Running in the house? Check. I turned my back for 2 seconds and the 8 y/o threw a box of chalk in the pool to keep his brother from getting it." she said.
After finally getting to the beach, the boys were still 'frankly being brats'. They refused to wear suncream, bickered over toys and swore. They also disobeyed safety instructions.
"[They were] pushing their luck repeatedly going farther and farther out in the water than we told them to." she said.
By the time they all got back to the holiday home, she was well and truly 'fed up'.
"They were totally ruining it for everybody," she went. on. "Nothing had worked and I told my husband we needed to go home, for the reasons mentioned above, mainly that they needed to see a REAL consequence."
Despite her husband's insistence that the trip 'would get better', she decided to 'put [her] foot down'.
The mum told him that she 'didn’t even want to be there at that point' and said either she would leave or they all would, seeing 'no other choice at this point'.
"Of course when I tell the kids they immediately burst into tears and are begging to stay, promising they will behave," she continued.
The woman's mother, who was on the trip as well, was also 'near tears'.
"She thinks her precious grandbabies do no wrong. She argued with me too, begging me to 'just let it go' but I refused to budge," she wrote.
And the result?
The family ended up leaving 'less than 24 hours into a four-day vacation'.
Unsurprisingly, the journey back was awkward with the two sons 'sobbing' half the time while the husband gave her 'the silent treatment the whole way'.
And many were eager to share their verdict on the situation.
Some agreed with the mum, as one person commented: "Actions have consequences. Your sons are learning a needed lesson."
Another said the husband was in the wrong for 'questioning her authority in front of the kids'.
Others, however, didn't think that leaving would help with their behaviour, with another saying: "Consequences can't just pop out of nowhere.
"To have good discipline you need to say 'If you do X, Y will happen' and then you follow through every time.
"If you don't give that warning, and just spring consequences out of nowhere, sometimes, but not always, they won't actually learn to listen."
And someone else said their kids misbehaving was a 'consequence of their s**t parenting'.
Rhiannon Ingle