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

My MIL does the whole deliberately using the wrong word/name thing. She also gets my family members names wrong. It's definitely deliberate. And it's nothing to do with aging as she's been merrily misnaming things for the whole 40 years I've known her.

Drives me batty. YANBU. But I probably wouldn't scream at her just in my head.

My word, why did this wind you up so much? Unless you know her to be deliberately provoking with vocabulary, but even then it's not a big deal.

I learned not to mention INSET days after years of this bloody conversation...

"We had an INSET day last week"
An insect day?
"No mum, an INSET day"
^An insect day?"
(repeat)
"No! An INSET day... Teacher Training Day!"
A what???
"A Teacher Training Day!!!"
A what???
"A BAKER DAY!!!"
Oh (now magically understands now I've finally referenced the Tory education secretary of my infant school years 🙄)

I think the PP that referred to them playing on not keeping up with changes was correct for my model of mum. Teacher Training Day is both clear enough at surface level and is what they were called throughout my school years if INSET was genuinely incomprehensible after years of me having several a year, but no, to get her to understand I had to dredge up a 1980s colloquialism each bloody time.

Oh and there was the ear/ smear test debacle where I ended up shouting S.M.E.A.R. down the phone. That one may be more reasonably attributed to shit hearing, but having dodgy hearing myself I end up putting a lot more effort into piecing the context together rather than constantly repeating something that is clearly not correct.

It's bloody tiresome trying to sustain a meaningful relationship with someone who plays dumb or doesn't put much effort into clear communicating and retaining information. It can cumulatively be quite diminishing over time (Add in other difficult behaviours such as being told off in your mid-40s for having an untidy bedroom as a teenager while conveniently overlooking that it was in a better state then than it is now with her hoarding disorder and cat-piss-soaked carpets...)

It's not being old, she's done it for decades and pissed most family members off at some point, and driven wedges between others.

lol yes

I get into trouble with my teenage grandchildren when I say are you going to the pictures? I believe its cinema these days!!

My mum kept telling people I studied at a school that back then was only Sixth Form level both when I did my bachelor's and my master's. My dad just got the university wrong but instead of calling me an economist, he has told people I am "economa" which is a cook. He has done this for more than twenty years. I found out last year.

I never did yell at any of them about it, but I might have had a voice that was a bit exasperated after the twentieth time I heard them say the wrong places of education.

When she starts up with this crap again flip it around on her. Act concerned about her declining memory annd inability to remember what you’ve told her, names of things etc.

Get others involved - Start sharing your concerns privately with family members etc -“I told her I’m buying DD a bike and 3 or 4 times a week for the last x number of weeks she is asking about when I’m buying a trike. I correct her every time, but she’s still calling it a trike” Mention the bonsai issue and a few other examples of her behaviour recently. Suggest “maybe we need her to speak to her GP, I’m concerned something is wrong?”

She’ll either soon stop that crap as either 1) she was making it up to wind you up, or 2) she is actually in mental decline. I’m guessing it’s 1.

Well, win-win really.

I'd suggest it but only to annoy the hell out of her

I would definitely recommend a memory clinic appointment to her.

She may or may not be doing it on purpose you can't always tell. (Dementia has long tendrils into your late thirties/early forties for some people)

the OP's mother has been doing it since she (mother) was 30. I doubt its dementia

yup...and yet the OP could do it in the blink of an eye.....

I see that many people feel YABU, but unless you’ve actually experienced it, in my case for years, then they don’t realize how bloody annoying it is. One family member continuously ‘got things wrong.’ They even started spelling my child’s name completely wrong. Despite numerous times of being corrected they decided to spend ages making my child a personalized item…. With the wrong spelling. I just shoved it in a drawer and when they asked why it wasn’t on display, and before I’d even had chance to reply said, “oh I spelt their name wrong didn’t I”. So that there proved they knew exactly what they were doing and iust CHOSE to be horrible for no reason at all. We don’t talk anymore so it’s no longer an issue.

Oh my mum used to do that and it would totally wind my sister up and she used to snap like you...

... My mum died from dementia.

Chill the fuck out!

If I could manage, as a teenager, to be excited cos mum made my favourite meal of macaroni cheese with the crumble top, not realising she had made it EVERY SINGLE DAY for weeks on end to the point that it was years before I could face macaroni cheese again... I think you can put up with her getting the word wrong.

I highly doubt it's in purpose but in the highly unlikely event that it is... Then you are giving it too much attention. Just answer without mentioning the word. "No, not yet.... I'm waiting for a good deal" or something similar.

And don't forget.... You're teaching your child how to deal with you when you go senile too!

Won’t stop these enmeshed families continuing to live in each other’s pockets though

Options:

1. Just get the bike so everyone can stop talking about it.
2. Don't tell your mum things that she doesn't need to know about.
3. Work on ignoring comments that annoy you - count to 10 or something.

No need to scream and swear at her. One day you'll be the batty/irritating older person and probably won't appreciate DD doing the same to you.

RTFT. She has been doing this to the op since she (the mother) was 30

its often said....the only person's behaviour you can control is your own....also ultimate madness, doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

Yes but won’t happen. They will continue likely crack in seeing each other very frequently, holidaying with one another,
family events etc… and all the while loads of
conflict and resentment .

My Mum has dementia. She gets hold of an idea (often wrongly) and repeats it over and over

shes currently telling everyone their cleaner left because she’s got a job in a supermarket. We know she’s got a job - nothing more. Dad just mentioned maybe she’s got a job in a supermarket and now it’s gospel, repeated up to 20 times an hour. Each time we have to react like it’s the first time we’ve heard that. Inside am I screaming - yes. Outwardly - gosh Mum, good luck to her, change subject - rarely works

you were vvvvv unreasonable to shout at her like that op whatever the circumstances but it does sound like some sort of cognitive decline

How old is she OP? You’re sure it’s not some kind of cognitive decline/dementia? If she’s only young (ie 50’s) when something like this is less likely (though obviously not impossible) then it sounds like some bizarre kind of manipulating/controlling/gaslighting behaviour. By playing daft she’s making herself seem vulnerable and gaining attention for herself, maybe because she doesn’t feel ‘needed’ by her adult kids anymore. Or it’s some weird passive aggression. She doesn’t think your child is big enough for a proper bike and is letting you know not by raising the issue directly but by repeatedly referring to a trike? Or she feels anxious about her riding a proper bike? And believe it or not some parents do deliberately try to play their children off against one another, again thriving on the conflict it causes. She told your sister about the ‘trike’, possibly having saved this piece of information up, perceiving that she would think she was too old for trike and bring it up with you, possibly based on a potentially spicy relationship between you and your sister? Trouble making. Stirring.
You need to call her out every single time. No doubt she’ll find a way to make herself the victim though, just as she seems to have done here. You need to say
’mum, I shouldn’t have shouted and swore at you but for goodness sake I’ve told you multiple times it’s a bike not a trike now you’ve gone and told maggie it’s a trike. Rap it please. Or go to the GP for a check up about your apparent memory loss’.

Which is why grey rock is a better option.

I totally get this.

My father used to do similar in terms of deciding he was right and that was it. He once decided that I had sewn a v shaped piece of fabric into the back of my jeans because I had to let them out because I had put weight on. I told him no, it was the fashion to have jeans with a v back panel with laces tied across it. He told me I was lying. He brought it up for years - remember when you had to let your jeans out because you were so fat and lied about it.

Another example. My DS had eczema and the GP suggested coming off cows milk products for a while to see if it helped so I didn’t buy him any ice cream. My father said I was lying and I just wanted to stop DS having any treats. Again for years, remember when you lied about the GP saying DS couldn’t have ice cream?

You’d argue and he’d laugh and say the fact you were getting so upset proved you’d been caught lying.

I went no contact in the end for various much more serious reasons but here to say they know exactly what they’re doing.

its about time she realised that her mother is winning then.....always do the same response, always get the same outcome.....

It always amazes me on these kinds of threads how few people understand this kind of low level manipulative, nasty behaviour that's purely aimed at upsetting and putting down other people but subtle enough to be plausibly deniable so they can paint themselves as the victim when the person tries to say anything about it. Or blows up about it in this case