Balancing family plans with personal goals can be especially difficult when both feel equally important.

So, what would you do if your parent planned a family trip during the same time your biggest competitions of the year were expected to happen? Would you go along with the plan to keep the peace? Or would you ask to move the dates?

In the following story, one teen athlete finds himself in this situation and asks his mom, but it doesn’t go as expected. Here’s what happened.

AITA if I kinda ruin my mother’s trip plans for my sport?

So, I am a teen athlete, and I know I will have the most important tournaments in May and June this year, but my mom is/was planning a trip during that same time to a nice place, plus her anniversary, birthday, and my birthday fall around that time, too.

Now, the dates for the tournaments haven’t come out yet, but my coach told me to avoid early and late May. Trends suggest I should entirely avoid going out in May and June.

I have been training really hard, focusing on my sport a lot the past nearly 2 years, and I don’t wanna lose the chance to compete in these matches, since they are lowkey nationals and national selections and all. But my mom doesn’t get it.

It almost seems like his mother just doesn’t respect him.

My mother takes everything as a personal attack and says that tournaments are just excuses, and if I don’t wanna go, I should just say that. I mostly do, but my parents and I do fight every time we go. She repeatedly got mad.

I asked her if we could go at the end of April- after cooperating with me on that too for a while, she again got mad and said I have a problem with everything. She initially also proposed the week of June 1st and now says that we just won’t go and stuff.

By the way, the tickets in April are cheaper than those in June, so that’s not an issue either. It seems like she just doesn’t respect me as an athlete, and tbh now I am scared that she might not even let me go for my tournaments that time.

AITA?

Eek! That’s a really tough situation.

Let’s see what advice the people over at Reddit have to offer.

This person thinks there’s another way.

Here’s a suggestion they can consider.

For this person, it’s about taking a gentle approach.

According to this comment, the mother should’ve known.

There must be some way this can work.

Perhaps finding a friend or other relative could work.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.