Some people expect celebration on their own terms, no matter how impractical.

One man learned this the hard way when his mom called off Mother’s Day plans, even though he’d already spent time, energy, and money trying to meet her already unreasonable request.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for not conforming to my mother’s schedule when she was the one who asked me to help her?

This started on Friday with a simple phone call. I was checking in with my mother to see what time she was thinking of coming over this weekend.

His mother then shared that she had a very specific vision for her Mother’s Day celebration this year.

You see, about a month ago, she told me on the phone, “This Mother’s Day, I don’t want a gift. I was wondering if you could fix my door locks on my car?”

Now even in the moment, I didn’t like that wording — it’s still a gift. I’m fixing her car, saving her potentially hundreds of dollars.

So when he tries to schedule this labor intensive request, her scheduling constraints make things even harder for him.

She proceeds to tell me she’s busy Saturday, so that’s off the table.

Then she has lunch on Sunday and asked if I was going. I deflected because I was more concerned about how much time that left me to work on her car.

She said they planned on getting drinks after lunch and didn’t know.

Every time he tries to propose something, she immediately shuts it down.

So I asked if she could come over at 8 a.m.

It would still give me time to work and get her back and ready for lunch. She then proceeded to get upset and tell me she doesn’t want to do that on “her” weekend.

And can we do it another weekend?

Finally, he begins to push back a little, which she is having none of.

That’s when I told her I was really busy and I didn’t have time to celebrate at lunch but also visit while working on her car as well.

That’s when she told me it wasn’t “Son’s Day,” it’s Mother’s Day.

He tells her how this all makes him feel and how much stress it’s adding to his plate.

I was upset as well at this point and decided to tell her how she doesn’t see the value in the time I devote to her, and it feels disrespectful.

I’ve been working 50+ hours a week, and researched how to fix her car, and I bought $60 worth of stuff off Amazon to fix it.

But she doesn’t seem to care about any of that.

At that time, she hung up. We have not talked since.

I won’t initiate conversation since she hung up on me.

AITA?

He went out of his way to help, but still his mother chose to only focus on the negative.

What did Reddit think?

Just because they’re family doesn’t mean they should be able to boss you around without consequence.

This commenter makes a needed analogy.

Perhaps this whole arrangement was built on one big misunderstanding.

This commenter has some choice words about this momzilla.

He tried to celebrate her in the exact way she asked, but it still wasn’t enough

Maybe her expectations were just too high to ever be adequately met.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.