My mum has a tendency to give me unsolicited advice / suggestions on how I should run my life.
Here's an example; we have a family wedding next weekend and my son is in the middle of GCSEs. Mum just called me to ask if he has any GCSEs on the Monday morning after the wedding. So I tell her again, yes, he does. She tells me "Oh, well you don't have to stay until the end of the wedding then, you can leave early and get him home."
I've discussed this with my husband already and we had already decided to do that as a couple, without her weighing in.
Another example. I recently had a minor surgery. She told me "I really want you to get a cleaner while you're recovering," and and that she would pay for it. A kind gesture, seemingly, but something I'd prefer to discuss with my husband and pay for ourselves.
For context I am 44, married, have a responsible and successful career. She did not have a career herself, and was a homemaker.
I know she thinks she's being helpful and caring, and that some might think I'm being ungrateful or cold, but I find it chips away at me and feels disempowering.
If you're reading this thinking why don't you just ask her to stop...on the couple of times that I have done that, she's been offended. I once asked her to not advise me on how much water to put in a vase of flowers, and she turned red and stormed out of my house in a huff.
This is a very entrenched dynamic that I've probably enabled for years. For example, she used to often answer for me when I was a kid. Then when I had my sons, she was very present and hands on involved with raising them, which was often super helpful but also overbearing at times. Whenever she's at my house, she'll get started with cleaning, or gardening, and always arrives with bags full of stuff for the house and for the boys.
YABU - Many of us would love the help of a caring mother, take the good from it and be grateful she cares in her way.
YANBU - This is overbearing behaviour and you need to set better boundaries with her.