AIBU to snap after my mum kept calling a bike a trike?

Yabu. It's annoying yes but that's a massive overreaction.

yup

She's been patient since her mother was in her 30s. Are you suggesting her dementia started then?

But won’t

30 years my mum has referred to the London Tube as “the subway”

“Will you take the subway?”
“Yes Mum - the Tube runs quite regularly”

30 years. She won’t change 😂🤦‍♀️

God, you sound unhinged.

My mum is the same OP. I love her dearly but you tell her something once and you’ll never hear the end of it and she will also mispronounce words on purpose for attention. It gets exhausting after a while but the mispronunciation I have learnt to just ignore (through gritted teeth), because the more attention you give, the more it happens. The latest one is Digi-Cal instead of Digital. Don’t even get me started if someone doesn’t have an English name, she makes out like she is trying to pronounce something written in hieroglyphs.

I feel for you and I don’t blame you for snapping. I have done it in the past too as I can’t stand people that don’t listen and keep repeating themselves. I just have to remind myself it’s my mum and as much as it annoys me, I still love her. Every so often if it’s been particularly consistent I will have a break from seeing her for a couple of weeks to reset, and that normally works.

The way I see this is that either

a) You’re correct and she is doing this deliberately to wind you up. So then I’d ask why are you letting her? Why are you rising to it? Because if she is displaying such toxic behaviour then your rising to the bait is going to make it worse. Either just answer the question as if she’s said ‘bike’ not trike or stop speaking to her often enough for her to ask. I’ve seen you’ve said that you feel like she’s diminishing a big moment in your child’s life of her getting her first bike. So don’t let her. Don’t tell her things. Don’t engage in conversation about it with her. Should she behave that way? No. Are there things you can do as an adult to stop her from impacting on your daughter? Yes. You have a choice about how often you interact with people even your mother.

b) The other possibility here is that your sister is right and your mum is genuinely muddled. Has got the wrong word in her head and isn’t doing all of this deliberately. If that’s the case then yes you were being unreasonable and you should apologise for swearing and raising your voice.

Either way if it’s impacting you enough to make you that cross then you need to do something about it. Clearly this isn’t the first time your mum has done something like this and, if she is doing it on purpose, that’s not going to stop especially now you’ve given her a a big, angry reaction because people who wind up and goad thrive off things like that. You need to either maintain a totally calm and unaffected exterior when talking to her so she doesn’t get the reaction she wants or your withdraw from spending time with her.

As for your daughter you tell her that her grandmother gets a bit muddled with her words and that as long as your little girl knows her bike is a bike that’s all that matters. Honestly, at 5 I doubt she’ll care beyond thinking ‘silly grandma got the wrong word’ because she won’t see any ill intent or diminishing behind it. It’s you that will be hurt/bothered by that.

I recognise this behaviour and I can understand your reaction and I don’t think you were unreasonable, if she’d said something like ‘let’s watch a video’ meaning DVD it wouldn’t be irritating because the meaning is clear and it’s just an old fashioned was of saying the same thing, but a trike is for younger children and a bike is a grown up toy, clearly by your sisters reaction it’s insulting to call it a trike for a child of that age. It would be like asking a teenager if they want a tommee tipper cup for their juice.

Buy the bike then you can just say "yes".

Absolutely do this!

But a bungalow is a house!

Totally frustrating but your mother taught you to go to the toilet, use cutlery and everything else growing up - did she scream at you like then when you kept making mistakes? I experience similar and ooofftttt it’s frustrating but never shouted and sworn at her because she’s my mum.

I live in a bungalow and I call it my house sometimes and not always home. It’s quicker to say 🤣🤣🤣

I would also find this incredibly frustrating, OP. I think it comes down to some women who act all silly, almost like bimbos, because it gets some attention. It's very stupid and immature, and something they should have grown out of. Incidentally, is this something that she's always done around men for attention?

I came to the conclusion that she does it with me to minimise everything I do - “forgets” the right word for stuff to show me how unimportant my thing is.

That part. That's exactly it. That's what she's doing and that's why you snapped, because you don't want her doing this to your daughter as she has done all your life to you. I get why people think YABU because they have never probably never been on the receiving end of something like this but I totally get it. I would suggest taking a step back from her if you can, in my experience people like this never change and she will absolutely treat your DD the same way. Sending hugs from someone who knows 🩷

So it's not maliciously deliberate, just irritating? I'm sure your DC must be irritating at times, can't you reciprocate this tolerance to your Mum? Hopefully you will learn to reign in such disrespectful comments as you mature and realise how much you love her because it's not forever.

out of interest, what did your Mum say after you shouted at her about it?

Quite sure. Her pronunciation issues were very selective, and limited to things she didn't approve of. In her youth she was accepted for a prestigious drama school, so I doubt she was showing any pronunciation problems then.

My mother also occasionally seems to mispronounce words on purpose
I.e.

The name Bao which is pronounced to rhyme with How but instead pronouncing it Bay-ow, even when she's heard it pronounced properly??

I mean, why?

I hope you will always remain perfect & that when your daughter is older, you don’t do anything at all which causes that kind of reaction.

honestly, at least she’s showing interest in your child & their birthday.

Because it's incredibly irritating???

😂 😂 😂 😂

I've lived in Canada for 17 years but my brother still refers to me as 'living in America'

Are you sure your mum didn’t also have dyslexia? It commonly runs in families. If she had undignified dyslexia it would explain why she was struggling to pronounce unfamiliar words.

The thing is, you DO know what she means so just reply in good faith about the thing. It’s kinder if she is making a genuine mistake and it’s giving her no pleasure if she is trying to wind you up. My dad always mixes up abbreviations like DVD. He does it every time, no matter how many times he’s told the right order. I don’t get angry though because what’s the point? It’s not that deep.

Her asking about the ‘trike’ multiple times doesn’t mean she’s showing you she thinks it’s unimportant. Changing the subject, or saying it’s a silly idea to buy one at all, would be doing that. She’s showing interest, even if she is calling it the wrong thing.