Aaaaarrrrrggghhhhhhhhhhh........... mothers!

[talie101]

I'm really sick to death of my mother ... she is toxic! Negative, emotionally blackmailing, depressed.. the list is endless! She has no reason to be or do any of these.. she could have a great life and a positive outlook if she chose!

I do have to say she is a better grandparent than she ever was a mother but she undermines me with MY children ALL of the time and always in front of them! To the point where they play up and want to stay with her when it's time for them to come away.. she encourages it and makes it worse for me.. where I end up shouting and getting cross with them. I have tried biting my tongue and ignoring and the other extreme of telling her that they are MY children and MY rules and not to tell ME what to do with them!... but to NO avail !! It all seems to fall on deaf ears.

I try to keep contact to a minimum but being a single parent and only having her to rely on as babysitter if I want some kind of social life makes things very difficult.

I don't want the children to be exposed to all this negativity or them thinking that she is a better person than 'bad cross mummy'!

My 4 year old told me today that she wanted to 'live' with her granny because "she lets me do what I want to do!".......... I was really upset... I know dd is only young and probably doesn't understand how hurtful that was but it was also in front of my mother and I could feel her feeding off this very comment!

I really am at a loss as to how to handle her and the situation..... roll on the time I find a knight in shining armour who can take me miles and miles and miles and miles away from this crap!

Any advice please?

[whereismumhiding]

Ah, toxic mother. I know that well.

Um, the difficulty is that you rely on her for baby sitting. So you have to find a way to deal with her belittling you.

Can you play her at her own game? When she says something mean about you to your children again, can you say something like

"Oh children is Nanny being mean again? Nanny's sounds jealous that you have the best Mummy in the world. You are very lucky children"

Or "Goodness children, listenning to Nanny, anyone would think she was a very unkind person. But we know she's just being silly, dont we?"

"Silly old Nanny has got muddled up again. Doesnt she know that you have the cleverest/most patient/most wonderful/ most best ever cook/(whatever she is criticising) Mummy in the whole world?!"

I think the difficulty is, if she is saying something that inwardly strikes a chord with you. SO, you could think of as many phrases like that as you can, and use them to reflect it all back on her each time she undermines you.

Hope this helps

[oranges]

You know, I kind of have this. Both dm and mil not toxic but always do things their own way and are more lenient etc. so i now let ds stay with them all day, or for a weekend, with their rules.

And they are EXHAUSTED with a crabby, over-tired toddler who was allowed to stay up late, eat irregular meals and watch tv all day. Now they follow all my "suggestions"

[seenitdoneit]

Hi Talie, you do have my sympathy and I understand how difficult it must be for you now she's acting as though she was mother of the year.

Another way of looking at it, is that its fantastic your little sproglets like being with Nanny. Lets face it, she's not supposed to be the second mum - time for grandchildren with grandparents is supposed to be fun time and "getting away with stuff". Its unhelpful if she undermines you, but if you make sure their behaviour when they are with you is good and consistent, any playing up and hassle they give her when she has them is her own look out. She'll soon get fed up with being lenient when they wont do what she tells them.

You could (as WIMH suggests) reflect her behaviour back at her, but by saying to your little ones - "oh come on you know you behave like that with mummy, dont you" - "we have rules in our house dont we darlings". "What you do with Nanny is when Nanny is in charge, but now Mummy is in charge again and now its mummy's rules".

That kind of thing - I think she'll soon get a bit fed up with it. Big smiles as though you couldnt give a stuff what she thinks when she's trying to criticise you - you know you're a great mum and you are the one offering stability and consistency of rules to your LOs.

Good luck.