To be upset by DM’s behaviour today?

What time did your DM think you were supposed to be there?

The first time someone shouted and swore at me, particularly with my young son in the house, would be the last time.

This is my family set up too, though no swearing and no uncertainty about what time to arrive. There would have already been an intense discussion about whether 11.30am worked for mum and how 11.31 would be far too late and 11.29 too early 🤣

Don’t worry, once you recognise the dynamic you’ll find ways of managing it that work for you all. You don’t need to totally cut them off unless you want to!

Warning- she loves your DS now. Just keep an eye on that. Mine went off my kids when they stopped being compliant. As you’ve already noticed, your mum is the only one ‘allowed’ intense emotions. Everyone else has to fit in around the edges of her. She steals the oxygen in the room.

It’s manageable, imo. But it takes active management and you will feel much better about it when you give up hopes of an equitable authentic relationship and relax into ‘managing’ the situation.

Horrible. Who does she think she is!
Surely the lunch/day was ruined after that.

How do you know she doesn't swear and shout while looking after him

Yup

her language is horrible, unnecessary.

There is one thing wrong here…and that is that as a family you are all WAY too enmeshed. Unhealthily so @Sdux39.

So you're saying you're scared to stand up to her because you rely on her for childcare?

Hmmmmm

OP you need to quit people pleasing. Lots of people pleasers have grown up with parent/s like this. I always had to walk on eggshells with my father and the resultant people pleasing that I have engaged in for decades after leaving home has really not served me well.

What you need to think about, when you are people pleasing, is whether you would treat another person as you are being treated.

Can you ever imagine a scenario in which your ds comes to visit you as an adult and you greet him with “ENGAGE WITH THE FUCKING ARRANGEMENTS” - I bet you can’t.

Also your dad is an adult. You have nothing to fear if you answer your very rude mother back, even if it is his birthday.

I would have replied:

-The arrangements were for us to arrive between 11:30 and 12:00. It’s 12:00 so I didn’t envisage this upsetting you.

then if she yapped back at that,

-we arrived towards the end of the arrival window because we had a toddler toileting issue to deal with.

most people would leave it there. If she continued, then “stop being so unpleasant otherwise we’ll be leaving.” And follow through.

she has you over a barrel re childcare. It’s giving her a licence to speak to you abusively. You need to put a stop to her behaviour - it’s not likely that it will stop her doing childcare and if she does,
it isn’t the end of the world - you can send him to nursery instead.

Shocking on her behalf to think it is acceptable to shout at you like that. My sister used to do this to me all the time but would rarely do to anyone else. Last time she started I said stop the car and I just got out as not been verbally abused anymore. It is their anger issues and if we let them get away with it they will keep doing it. I would really look for other childcare as she does not sound stable enough to be behaving like this. If your child does something wrong is she going to shout like a maniac at her also. She needs anger management or to do something to help her to calm down as not the way normal people behave. Yes she has a right to be upset if you are late but let her talk to you like an adult and not like a bloody lunatic. Very distressing and I think I would just have handed the presents/cards to your dad and left and went home and waited for an apology from her but I understand you did not want to ruin your dad's birthday. Does she shout at your dad like this also.

You weren't late though?
She sounds unhinged. How can you go for Sunday lunch any earlier than 12 anyway? The pubs probably wouldn't even be open.
I'd tell her she needs to apologise.

I'm shocked your DH just stood by without intervening when she was swearing and shouting at you.DF didn't intervene either. It sounds like they are both used to this behaviour. Which is not a good thing.

I think she must have meant for you to arrive at 11.30am, spend half an hour watching DF open presents, then set off at 12 for restaurant.

So she spent 30 mins getting revved up to fever pitch.
However swearing and shouting at you like that, especially with her young grandchild in the house, isn't acceptable behaviour.

Sorry OP but I agree with this.
Was there any room for you to have emotions while you were tiptoeing around everyone else's 'big feelings'?

You're now a grown woman & a mother yourself. Under no circumstances should anyone be talking to you like that, especially over something as trivial as being later than planned to watch your dad open presents.

Life gets better when you stop worrying & start calling this aggressive bullshit out for what it is, instead of tiptoeing about & playing emotion roulette every time you see your Mum.

I really hope that you can realise this isn’t a normal way for a mother to speak to their daughter. Not normal at all.
The fact you just carried on the visit and have thought about how to prevent it again is even more worrying. I’m sorry she has presumably always acted like this and led you to believe it’s acceptable in some way. What was your father doing when she was shouting? Is he scared of her?

I would look for new childcare.

Why did she “have a right to be angry?” What an overreaction to a daughter with a four year old grandchild being late. It really doesn’t merit anger. Was she making souffle and had overbaked them?

Were you late for the roast dinner?

i’ve put yabu because you could have take 1 minute to drop her a message as soon as you knew you were going to be late. even if you didn’t do that you could have apologised for being late when you arrived and explained why. you don’t even seem to accept you were late even though you knew the pre arranged timings. she had the right to be angry but she didn’t need to shout and swear at you.

Surely as a headteacher you have a responsibility to protect children in your care but yet you're allowing your mother continue to be abusive to you and your child. Your child will have heard her swearing and shouting at you despite you trying to minimise it. She's probably doing the same to your child when she's "minding" him, leopards don't change their spots.

You need to stop walking on eggshells around your mother, organise different childcare and stop tolerating her abusive behaviour. I'm shocked your DH just stood by without intervening when she was swearing and shouting at you.

Your son must be soon be old enough to be going to school and hopefully you won’t have to rely on your mother for childcare. Maybe then you won’t feel so obliged to keep the peace in situations like this.

You arrived bang on 12 so the limit of the "window". A text saying "hi, be there soon" type thing would have been polite

But still doesn't excuse her behaviour. It was OTT.

And you clearly resent her taking holidays because that was irrelevant to the story but you mentioned it anyway. She's free childcare and can go away when she wants, you don't need to confront her over that

As per my PP - so you are already working out what you need to change to prevent your mother losing her temper next time.
Look at this objectively. Say, you were meant to be there dead on 11.30am but didn't turn up until 12pm. What problem has this caused? So you might have to open presents after lunch, rather than before? Was this such a dreadful thing to happen that it was worth all the upset?

In "normal" households, your mother would say "oh, I thought we'd agree you would be here at 11.30am" and you would reply - "oh, I thought we'd said between 11.30 and 12; we did mean to be earlier but DS took ages on the loo".

And that would be that and everyone would wish your father happy birthday and move on.

So, in other words, you were brought up in stressful environment where you learnt to bend over backwards to keep the peace, rather than ever speaking up.

However, your parents had the monopoly on "having feelings" - you were not allowed to show emotions and hence learnt to suppress your own (probably to the point that you don't even know what you feel about anything any more).

I would be very concerned about your own DS spending so much time with them unsupervised. Are you happy for him to be brought up in the same environment that you were?

With regards to the current situation - it sounds like you upset your mother because you didn't do what she wanted. The fact that she'd not clearly comunicated what she wanted is no excuse for you not doing it. You were doing your "job" which is to bend over backwards to make sure your mother doesn't get upset.

Dramatic and emotional=you mean abusive. I would have turned round and messaged later to say you won’t be shouted at like that. Seriously, find alternative childcare, god knows what she’s like with your child if she was a screaming harridan with you.