My MIL is narrating our Christmas Day

[LadyCampanulaTottington]

Caveat before I begin, I love my MIL. Adore her. She’s wonderful, kind, caring and treats me like a daughter.

You know the saying, if you want to know me come and live with me …. She lives alone so I can only assume that she does this narration as a way to cope with feeling alone sometimes. But OMG I’m ready to stick forks in my ears to stop it. We’ve had a running commentary of the day.

What annoying habits are your loved ones driving you crazy with?

My in-laws used to do a thing where they'd read out loud every sign or notice we either drove past or that came up on the TV: 'two for the price if one meal deal, eh?'

And every for example that appeared in full view would be named: 'ah! Cows!' Etc.

🙄😊

I had a great aunt like this, but she used to sing it

🎶 the forks go in the draw 🎵
The FOOORKS go in the DRAW
The plates go on the shelf
The PLATES go on the SHELF 🎶

So I spoke at least she isn’t warbling

Haha, my Mum does this all the time(in her 70s).

Once she went through in great detail about my Auntie’s bank card being cloned - she told me what myAuntie thought, what she did, the conversation she had with the bank ie what she said, what he said, all the transactions, how strange it was, where she thought it may have happened, what the bank then said and did. OMG, I kept waiting for something particularly gobsmacking but no, on and on the story went.

So I said “basically, Auntie Maggie had her bank card cloned and the bank refunded it” . Reply “yes”.

I love her but I really can’t be doing with such longwinded explanations.

I think it’s because she doesn’t have much to talk about 🤷‍♀️

@Papertrail392

Bless her, I bet you're right and she does it at home.

I do it. I'm mother-in-law age and I live alone. I love the sound of my voice (it's much nicer than other people's ) and I do find it comforting. I do it in the supermarket, too.

My grandma (93 so I really shouldn't complain) took me for a walk earlier and narrated every house, person, and dog we walked past. 'This one here has a blue door. Ooh, red door. Festive. Another blue door, with a lovely dormer window. Labrador, waggy tail. Family. Two lovely little girls'. Then launched into a story of why she's just left her husband. It was quite a change in tack!

@BringBackCoffeeCreams that properly made me 😂😂

@LadyCampanulaTottington

Ok example:

“Now, a coffee I think, I’ll heat the cup first because I just want a single espresso and it will go cold otherwise. Which capsule this time, the Lavazza Maestro I think”. Walks to the fridge. “Milk, ok here it is, I think I need to replace it soon it feels light” etc etc.

Oh god my MIL does this except she does it through talking to the dog 🙄

I do it.

My mother does it.

Her mother does it.

Not sorry. Don’t care. 😁

This is my ds. He's 17!!!🤦🏼‍♀️🤣🤣🤣

He's generally very disorganised and I think it helps him remember how to do stuff.

But I can't disagree it's annoying

Oh Lord I do it too. I think it is because I had a child who was completely non-verbal until 5 so it was a way of trying to get him to engage I think. he is autistic and gets really anxious so needs to be prepared for things so i narrate to him 'We will get in the car and then go to Aldi. I have to get sausages, croissants and a car jack. Then to the checkout.Maybe Caroline will be working on the checkout today but if she is not that is okay too. Then home, and we will go the long way because i want to see that house's extension is getting on'.

I do it when I am alone too.

My DM is 63 and she CONSTANTLY talks to herself!? She was always a bit “eccentric” but now I’m looking at DS going “ who is she talking to? Is she talking to us?” And DS who lives with her, shrugs “ that’s her all day”
And THEN she’ll storm in from another room going “ I ASKED you if you wanted a TEA!?”
Me “ I just tuned you out , DM, as you’ve been blethering to yourself ALL DAY!”
I hear her , in the garden chatting away, I assume there’s a neighbour. No she’s just telling the sweet peas what her plans for the potatoes are

My mil does this but narrates what she thinks my young children are thinking, they are 1 and 3. So the kids will be playing and mil will be narrating constantly. She is lovely but my god I find this so annoying as you can't just sit and ignore her you have to respond in some way 🤦‍♀️

@Fordian I used to run a cafe and there was a particular type of older couple who'd stop to read the sign on the pavement outside. Usually it was a short message e.g soup and sandwich £5. You could read the sign easily and quickly from afar but they just couldn't help stopping to read it aloud. Sign readers.

she’s just telling the sweet peas what her plans for the potatoes are

Ahahah that’s brilliant

My kid is speech delayed and I've been told to do this to try and encourage him. I'm driving myself insane. "I'm just going into the fridge, oh look how much milk do we have? Will we need to buy milk at the supermarket? I will just put some milk in your cup, here is your cup, do you like the milk?" SHUT THE F* UP . Pretty sure my son not speaking is a big wind up to keep mummy sounding loopy.

My mother has started to do it. We've also had a lot of screeching along to music today. And huffing. One of my siblings now doesn't want to come for New Year

Get her to do it in David Attenborough’s voice and you could pretend you’re being filmed for a wildlife documentary.

DFIL has been at it here. Also, he's quite competitive and evidently a suspicious, not to say paranoid person. We just finished playing a board game and he was convinced I was cheating. As the other 5 people know me well enough to know it's just noticed in me to cheat, it was more comedy than anything else. Bit tiring though.

Oh, my mum does this. She is a widow now and lives alone, but she did it while we were children, thirty years ago, too, so it's not (only) caused by loneliness. She used to be a primary school teacher, and I don't know if it's a hangover from that. It did feel as a child as though we were constantly in an episode of Blue Peter.

Sympathies, I long ago learned to tune it out, but I imagine if you didn't grow up with it, it would seem quite odd.

If she lives alone, early dementia can set in and it is a recommended tool to speak out aloud to pets, plants or just to describe what you are doing to help counteract this.

She may have been told to do this by a GP or she may have just stumbled upon it herself as a way to keep her brain active.

@IcedAbstinente

Oh Lord I do it too. I think it is because I had a child who was completely non-verbal until 5 so it was a way of trying to get him to engage I think. he is autistic and gets really anxious so needs to be prepared for things so i narrate to him 'We will get in the car and then go to Aldi. I have to get sausages, croissants and a car jack. Then to the checkout.Maybe Caroline will be working on the checkout today but if she is not that is okay too. Then home, and we will go the long way because i want to see that house's extension is getting on'.

I do it when I am alone too.

This maybe why my ds does it 🤣

He's also autistic and I narrated so much to keep his anxiety down and he maybe doing the same as a learnt coping mechanism?

My DH does this all the time. Love him lots but it does drive me up the wall.

This is my granny! I get a FULL amount of the past week even conversations with people - word for word- when I call her as well. Make my ears bleed.

@Lemonandlime123 my DM does this!! It's infuriating, luckily now DS can talk he does a constant narration of what he's thinking so she doesn't have to. I actually told her to stop on many occasions and she just wouldn't. My MIL's equivalent is to ask loads of questions to the child which I like so much more.

To an extent my DM does the talk to self commentary, in her case it's thinking out loud.

@BleuJay this isn’t new and I repeat, she doesn’t have cognitive issues. She’s always been like this and it’s fine for a Sunday afternoon when we visit. However she’s staying for a few days and it gets old quickly.