Really shocked at my mother's comments....

[user1498244291]

Hi everyone!

Long one lurker here and just looking for some thoughts. Hope this is the right place to post!

My mother has a tendency to say inappropriate and careless comments. She's got worse recently (she isn't elderly) and seems to operate on a stream of consciousness basis, literally just says whatever she thinks without filtering anything. I was out with her today and she said some of the most horrendous things and it has left me wondering if I really know my mother at all. Her comments were much more callous than usual. To cut a long story short my brother had a baby with a woman, they separated and he doesn't see the baby. She lives in Denmark now. My mother has never seen the baby nor does she appear interested to do so. I happened to bring it up today and she said the following:

"That woman knew what she was doing, trying to ensnare him with a child. In this day and age no one is forced to have one."

"She has plenty of family to help her anyway. Why does she need him (my brother) to go over?"

"She probably thought having a child would keep him there and she could get his money."

AIBU in thinking these comments were disgusting? She was basically saying she should have got rid of the kid! I tend to take the things she says with a pinch of salt as mostly they are said without thought but these comments seemed the real deal. She is very close to my brother and tends to take a dislike to any female he is involved with. The sad thing to me is that she has no interest in forging any relationship with the grandchild due to the association with the mother. I think that's...well, a bit fucked up?!

I have been left feeling a bit upset tonight, wondering how she has ended up being so cruel about everything. She herself was a single mother with 3 young children once upon a time which makes it even more bizarre.

[KiaraS]

Perhaps she is actually devastated that there is a grandchild in another country that she will have no relationship with and her way of dealing with this is to ‘hate’ and apportion blame to the mother of the child. It’s a classic ‘defence’ mechanism that actually doesn’t work but it might take her a while to recognise that. Or am I being too kind?!

[pallasathena]

You're being too kind. She's a nasty piece of work.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Kiara

I think you are being too kind as well as naive; not all elderly people by any means are nice and it sounds like OPs mother has always had no filter either.
She also sounds like she has an unhealthy relationship with her son in that she wants him to remain dependent on her.

OP - what do you gain by having any contact with your mother now?.
She sounds poisonous frankly. What if anything as well do you know about her own childhood; that often provides clues.

[user1498244291]

Hi everyone.

Thanks for your replies.

Kiara - I wish I could believe what you have written to be the case but she appears to have shown zero interest in the child. She knows that I keep in touch and that I know all about her daily life yet she never asks me a thing!

Attila - Thanks for your reply. This has all been a fairly recent thing, in the sense that it is only in the last year or so that I've come to the frightening realisation that my mother isn't the person who I thought she was. She is on her own and I love her despite her behaviour but I gain nothing from it. I suppose I feel obliged to her with her being my mother. I have never known her to have had a bad childhood although in recent times she appears to have claimed on a few occasions that she was "abandoned" and "left to get on with it" although I suspect that this just suits her current pessimistic narrative rather than it being the truth. The problem is that I find I'm not sure what is the truth and what isn't with her anymore. She changes like the weather....do you think this could hint at mental illness? She is certainly not the person I remember her to be. Her empathy, compassion and general niceness have all but disappeared and it has come as a bit of a shock to the system. For her to dismiss her own grandchild on the basis that she has an unreasonable dislike of the mother seems utterly insane to me. She does have an unhealthy relationship with my brother. She has been divorced for ten years and has leaned on him heavily as a sort of replacement in an emotional sense. The problem there also is that he does nothing to stop it so you see my dilemma. I have thought about talking to her about it but she's not the sort of person who takes any criticism or who wants to even discuss emotional things

[Insomnibrat]

I've seen several family and extended family members become embittered as they've become older. Maybe it's the time they have to reflect on the cards life has dealt them, maybe it's an envy at becoming older and perhaps more irrelevant. Maybe it's something else, but it's 'a thing'. Believe me.
I also wonder if we might get there too, eventually, just fed up with people and life and their bullshit and no longer wishing to keep our thoughts inside. (Although id like to hope those thoughts don't become so bitter).

[Insomnibrat]

Incidentally, if you're suspecting Dementia etc, the first clues of that with my Grandma (not at all an embittered lady), were that she struggled writing cheques and would tell me about me, as if she were telling someone else. Although, I do know an embittered attitude can stem from the frustration of the condition, in certain people but id be wary of blaming your Mum's attitude problem on something like that straight away.

[VeganIan]

I sympathise - my mother was similarly inclined, one comment I remember off the top of my head was "finally she's given him a child" after my cousin's wife had a baby. I had to remind her of their earlier stillbirth. She couldn't remember and certainly never apologised. She rewrote history so many times I could never remember what actually happened. She was an alcoholic, but I don't know what came first. I do suspect there was some sort of personality disorder going on as well. It was terrifying growing up with the boundaries constantly changing. Detaching was the only thing that got me through.

[Bobbinsandthread]

Does she think DB can do no wrong and shifting blame to the woman.

It reminds me of someone I worked with whose son was with a woman and had 2 children (and then left him) and she was constantly going on about how this woman had ensnared her son and was only after his money and the children probably weren't even his.
He didn't work, he never had, he had no money - but her precious boy had to be in the right and was such a catch....

[LoverOfCake]

Well, there are plenty of women on MN who will admit to having a not-unexpected accident.

[SandyY2K]

Well, there are plenty of women on MN who will admit to having a not-unexpected accident.

Very true. It's not unheard of by a long shot ... however contraception is a dual responsibility.

[YellowMakesMeSmile]

Well, there are plenty of women on MN who will admit to having a not-unexpected accident.

Very true. If a partner says they are on contraception you tend to trust them, a lesson for all boys.

Sadly there are many that want a chid regardless or who think a surprise baby will make the man stay.