To not believe how things escalated

I have a lovely friend at work who is a Sikh. 3 of her 4 children have married within her religion but the 4th much younger child has fallen in love with a young white woman. She has been hysterical, she's going to be made homeless (he lives with her, husband dead), how will she be able to hold her head up within her community, she wishes she'll die soon etc. The girl is from a very nice, well educated family.

Did you type that with a straight face?!

Look she’s obviously got issues. But your approach is making things worse!

Forget about cultural expectations don’t go anywhere near her unless and until she invites you. Make arrangements to see the cousins separately. Take your kids on a normal holiday.

If they ask why they’ve not seen her just tell them that Grandma is very old and gets vety tired so she needs some alone time.

@Scentedjasmin with respect you don’t know what your talking about.
Many of us have dm’s that don’t even like us.
It’s bad enough feeling rejected without being told by a stranger that you’re wrong.
When I told my dm I have incurable blood cancer she said that whilst she wouldn’t want it herself she envied the associated weight loss.

You’ve clearly been lucky enough not to have a narcissistic parent.

It's so different in our culture - if I just called my mum and said we're coming she'd get the tea and snacks going asap. I know it's different per family but it's sad when I hear that it's not always like that

Definitely an ethnic thing, no such thing as too many guests when it comes to immediate family. 7 of us will squash into one room if we had to! Sorry your mum isn't being more welcoming xx

I think you need to distance yourself from your mother. I can see the problems with this: MIL asking questions and your children missing family.
But on balance, these constant knock backs by her are really bad for your mental health.
Focus on having your children see cousins in other settings. If MIL asks questions, answer in a bland brief way and move the conversation on.

I don't think any of us can provide you with answers, but I'd definitely encourage you to delve deeper in to your mum's life. Something must have happened.

The fact that she is shunning you makes that really difficult, but it might be worth it.

I understand the cultural perspective, it really gives her behaviour more negative weight because it is so, so unusual not to gather as a whole family, and especially to exclude certain grandchildren.

To put your inlaws off you could book an Airbnb in the area your mom lives in and just visit the area talk about how nice it was seeing the hometown again just don't bother with your mother

Fwiw my mom is shite too she is currently ignoring me because I'm caring for her ex husband (my father) I'm assuming 🙃 and it's pissed her daughter off (my sister) because I'm not supposed to be the kind caring one that's HER ROLE (community carer) the fact that she has had fuck all to do with him since he came out is meaningless it's still something she would clearly be better than me at and I shouldn't be doing it I'm tired of it all and I'm letting her ignore me fuck it I'm letting them BOTH ignore me
It's quieter 😂

I get it, @DyfunctionalFsmily.

It shouldn’t matter what race or ethnicity or religion or nationality you are.
When your mum is off-putting it’s really, really hard. It hurts your heart.
For me it was my dad — he jerked me around my entire adult life. And he did it in front of family and friends and strangers. It was embarrassing and stressful.
I finally resigned myself to the fact that he just didn’t like me, that he had something against me. And I kept my distance.
My siblings loved that.
I know it wasn’t me - it was some weird hang up my dad had had. I tried the very hardest I could, and then I put it down.
I let it go. I let him go.
He lost me. I didn’t lose him.

Honestly, it sounds as though you have a chip on your shoulder. Do you love one of your own children more than the other? Do you single one out for better treatment? Of course you don't....so why on earth do you feel like your mother has done so to you? You should surely know that mothers love all their children equally, even if at times, they differentiate in their treatment of them. How would you feel if your children accused you of the same? You're in your late 30s and a mother now. You really need to get over this whole sibling rivalry thing and just enjoy life. You could start by ringing up your mother to apologise and hopefully she will too. Life's too short for all this rubbish.

Seriously?? It’s your children and grandchildren!! Food is more important than family relationships?

@DyfunctionalFsmily I'm sorry you're getting a bit of a hard time on here. While there are cultural dynamics factoring in, the classic scapegoat and narcissistic parent themes transcend culture.

I'm sorry, but your mother isn't likely to change, no matter how much you want things to be different. All you can do is decide how much you want her, as she is, to be involved and to be able to affect you. It sounds like you have other, positive relationships and support, so nurture those and find joy in them.

I can completely see why you’re upset OP. Even without the cultural context it’s hard to feel like you’re unwelcome in your mum’s home.
I have this relationship with my mum and have just resigned myself to the fact that this is just how it is for us but it will not be how I will behave toward my kids when they are grown xx

OP, sorry you feel worse. Can you talk to one of your siblings and ask their opinion? Or would that not work?
Your mum sounds not the best towards you and that's horrible for you.

Well your mom sounds absolutely deranged @DyfunctionalFsmily, indian or not. I suspect you might be a scapegoat in your family, there really is no justification to her behaving like this. She could have said, sorry it’s already a mayhem here and im super stressed, can we arrange to meet next weekend when it’s a bit quieter. But no, straight into amateur dramatics. This is not normal.

Btw, i love it that there is a special word to describe the noise and mayhem in your language

I'm white British and I think that sounds incredibly hurtful. My own parents are dead but if they were alive, I imagine it would be open house....just as it was at my grandma's house when we were growing up. We could have turned up anytime and there would have been a warm welcome, no question. No invite needed. I'm sorry op.

OP do you feel the concern for riots is genuine or very much to put you off? What do your sisters think or have you not broached this feeling you have with them?

I really do feel for your children, but I think in this instance, to protect them when possible, don’t share information with them about cousins visiting etc. is it possible for you to go and visit any of the cousins in the next few weeks outside of their time at Grandmas?

The OTT reaction from your mum is quite telling tbh. It’s a classic narc gaslighting technique, to make it in to something you did wrong. I would co low contact if possible and just tell family your mum is away or something, if that’s possible.

🫂🫂🫂

If I called my mum and said we're coming up to visit she'd be ecstatic, so I think that's a personal one TBH.

I would delete this post and start again with the culture info and the fact that you were asking for two weeks ahead as if you read original post then it sounds like you rang up to say I’m coming today while you already have a house full of people.

bit crazy to go to don’t come to my funeral.

I wonder if something happened to your mum that was bad. Maybe she didn’t want more kids and was forced to have you and is projecting that hate onto you. It’s not your fault that she’s unkind.

I don’t speak to my mum as she’s narcissistic and lies and everything is about her. You don’t have to have contact with her if it makes you sad regardless of culture.

Sounds extremely hurtful for you not to be welcomed with open arms, no wonder you are upset. Sorry the conversation went like this, nothing you did at all. Hope you can plan something else to do with the children.

OP, how many siblings? How many are female and how many are male? What are the age gaps? What do you all do for a living? What colour skin do you all have? Any of you divorced? What do your partners do? Anyone married out of religion, caste, race or class, married down in this case? As an Indian I'm going to take a guess as to what your mum's issue is. Get this deleted and put in South Asian Mumsnet.

From experience it doesn't take long for Asian mums to go from a mundane conversation to state that they are dead you and you are dead to them! Many low rent drama serials being churned out in the mother land with those dialogues. I blame these stupid shows where they are full of female actresses and it's always petty family drama. Then our older women watch those shows and get influenced.

It just means shaking head 🫨

I suggest your read up about narcissistic mothers and scapegoating.