Have you ever had a friend who is always late? I’m not talking about late by just a few minutes. I’m talking about being late by like an hour.

In today’s story, one woman has a friend who is always late, and her friend blames it on her kids. Yet, this woman doesn’t think that should be an excuse.

Now, she’s wondering if her friend thinks she’s a jerk.

Let’s read the whole story to see who is actually the problem in this friendship.

AITA for telling my friend that it’s unfair for me to be on stand-by just because she has kids?

This happened a few weeks ago but I’m still thinking about it.

My (36F) friend (39F) has two kids (2&6 yo) with her husband.

We’ve known in each for 10 years and in all those years, not once has she showed up on time. Doesn’t matter if it’s a casual coffee date, a play, my birthday dinner – she’s always late and usually no less than 20 minutes.

One time she even managed to be 45 minutes late to a dinner she invited me to because “she just needed to grab a few things on the way”.

Her friend refuses to change her ways.

I have tried to talk to her about it many times in different ways and make her understand how I feel.

I hate being late and don’t appreciate others being late more than the customary 5-10 minutes either, especially if they don’t give me a heads up because it feels dismissive and like my time is not as important as theirs.

She’s always brushed it off, so I’ve just started to add about 20 minutes to any time we’re supposed to meet.

I don’t like it, but it sort of works since we don’t see each other as much as we used to.

This time, she was the one who was late.

A few weeks ago we decided to go for a walk, just the two of us.

She pushed the time about an hour because the youngest needed to be put down for a nap which was fine.

As always, I went out right around the time we were supposed to meet and actually ended up being a few minutes late myself because I took a wrong turn and got lost.

When I showed up, she commented on it, I apologized and we got to talking.

Her friend had a suggestion.

She started going on about how she couldn’t set a time if we wanted to meet because it didn’t always work out with the kids and lots of unpredictable stuff could happen. Her take was that it would be better if we could meet between for example 1 and 2pm and she could just text me whenever she’s ready.

We don’t live that far apart and usually meet somewhere in the middle, but it would still mean that I’d have to sit on stand-by for whenever she feels ready (and I am sure an hour would not be enough with her time management abilities) and couldn’t really plan my day very efficiently.

So I told her that I get how kids are unpredictable and I don’t mind a bit of lateness because of that, but I also don’t think it’s fair to me to just sit and wait on her for however long just because she has children.

She thinks there’s no excuse for her friend always being late.

Her husband is super involved and has had no issues with taking both kids for an evening, so I know it’s doable – and all my other friends are completely able to be on time despite having small children as well.

She sort of got quietly annoyed and said “well, that’s just how it is”, which I guess is code for “live with it” which is why I think I might be the jerk in her mind.

But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s fair to me at all because it’s not a question of her having responsibilities, but more an excuse to finally just not give a crap about other people’s time and plans.

So, AITA?

If she wants to stay friends with her, it seems that means accepting that her friend will never be on time.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person has a question about the kids.

Her friend’s behavior is unlikely to change.

She has a decision to make.

Here’s a suggestion on what to say to the friend.

Her friend is being inconsiderate.

It’s hard to be friends with someone who is always late.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.