Things that make you RAGE about your parents?

[Derby2022]

Okay, bit of a light-hearted topic whilst dinner is cooking

What things make you RAGE when talking to your parents?

This has all stemmed from a bit of a snappy row Ive just had with my mother this afternoon for context:

My mother has this thing where if, in the first 10 seconds, she isn't interested in a topic or what I or my sibling has to say she'll sigh and go "yeah yeah get to the point" - I've always found it quite rude, YES I know there are some people who do waffle (looking at the woman at the end of every staff meeting with the questions...) But I just find it so rude to say that, especially when the "point" is what you/I am currently explaining! It comes across to me that the person has zero interest in the conversation and just wants you to shut up.

Does anyone else think this is so rude?

ANYWAY, was talking to my sister about Mum and she mentioned she finds it really rude/irritating when Mum makes comments about the neighbour's garden...it's nothing to do with her and my sibling is getting sick of hearing about next doors bloody rotten fence!

So MN's tell me things that make you RAGE about your parents - to give me a chuckle!

My parents were abusive so... lots of things. But I'll be light-hearted and talk about my lovely MIL!

Husband and I don't really watch TV. We will watch the odd movie, maybe 4-5 times a year. MIL knows this, but she constantly asks if we've seen a certain show, and then of course we say we haven't. Then follows a 45 minute monologue of her telling us we should, it's amazing, a rundown of everyone who's in it and everything that's happened, how many episodes there are, what else the main actors have been in, which streaming service it's available on... We have a TV for gaming and it has Freeview, and she's even insisted on us recording some things there and then (which we obviously just delete later!). She's dismayed every time we say "oh well we don't have Netflix/Disney+/Now TV" etc.

My Mum is just so blinkered. She loves a blow by blow account of conversations so we get to hear how blinkered she is. A prime example is her telling her friends that no-one she knows was affected by Covid-19. Despite all 3 of her children losing their jobs, one getting separated from his family for a year and knowing I had been to the funeral of a friend's parent earlier in the year who died from it. Because she was retired it didn't impact her. As such she didn't know anyone impacted... I love her but she is very self centred

My mum will mention somebody and I'll say " I don't know them". She will then INSIST that I know them, followed up with helpful comments like "you do know them, you know the lady with the brown hair and the little white dog, the one with the limp? She lives by the postbox, the one on the street, by the tree. Oh, you do know her..."

My mum criticises everyone! Me and my sister, my niece, everyone on TV (she hates the way people pronounce certain words and will rewind so that we listen to them over and over). She hates the next door neighbour and criticises her garden. If it hangs over her garden even slightly she will take the garden shears to it.

She has driven away her own gardener and window cleaner because everything they do is below her standards (I’m convinced she’s been blacklisted by all the tradespeople in our area because she can never get anyone to come to her house anymore).

She is venomous about her own sisters. Her brothers are fine though. And their wives.

She is a drain to her around with her constant complaints. You would think that she’s perfect herself but she’s a bloody nightmare!

In comparison my dad was a lovely man. Kind, good natured, funny. A joy to be around. I never understood their relationship.

Whatever rubbish she's picked up from the Daily Mail or GB News. Constant talk of dieting. Anything about Meghan fing Markle, who she has a completely irrational interest in, I don't think she's particularly interested in the monarchy. I remember her as someone who was fairly tolerant when I was growing up, but she's now fallen right down the right wing populist rabbit hole, without even realising. It's like she's a different person. I don't call her much anymore.

She sounds exactly like my mum. We should get them together so they can talk at each other.

My mum has a swallow that I swear you can hear anywhere in the house! Plus she is a smoker which I find hard with young children. Also she can’t just do anything normally, like use a new shower, microwave etc without being told how to do it multiple times.

also she thinks people listen more if she is self deprecating so starts every major point she wants to make with ‘well, I know I don’t really know much about this compared to you..’ it sounds sweet but it’s so obvious it leaves me fuming!

she is generally a good egg, lovely person who would walk through fire for us/give us her last penny. So I’m not really complaining - very happy to get this off my chest though!!

Oh yeah, the Megan Markle thing too. Weird how do many mums have that!

Step FiL - never had a kid or raised one but has many opinions on how I should raise mine (and ultimately where he thinks I'm going wrong).

Omg are you me?

I tell my mum ANYTHING about my life she interrupts and then tells me a story I have heard 100 times about her life.

For example I attempt to tell her one thing about work. She interrupts to tell me a story a company she worked at for three months in the mid 80s in a totally unrelated field.

When I ask when she is raising that (again) she says it’s a similar situation. No, no it’s not! I’m telling you my laptop didn’t work all week and you’re telling me a story about a time when laptop computers had not been invented. It’s not a similar situation! Just listen to me for once without butting in! Grrrr

So many of these are also my Mum it's depressing

I am loving all these responses!! I'm very sad to hear some of you guys have had abusive or very unhappy past experiences and my heart goes out to you all!

Another thing my mother does

CLUTTER!!

Kitchen cupboards have a basic order to them - for example, the corner cupboard has the pans and pots in, under the sink has cleaning stuff, the cupboard next to the fridge has cutlery in, mugs are on a tree on the side, glasses above the plate rack... but then each cupboard will have a bit of random junk thrown in - COVID tests in the glasses cupboard, the spare lightbulbs in a tupperware in the corner cupboard next to the pans etc. It's never just a cupboard with one set thing in!

"Mum where do you keep your air freshner?"
"In the cupboard next to the george foreman, blender and scales" WHY IS IT NOT UNDER THE SINK!

My mum is obsessed with doing her “paperwork”. She sets aside whole days to keep up with it and had two rows of cupboards built into her study to house all the paperwork. She lives alone & is retired so I have absolutely no idea what it’s all for - I’m married with 4 kids, a husband, 2 businesses and spend far less time doing paperwork than she does 😆 If I occasionally need her to help with one of the kids unexpectedly it causes her great stress to get behind on the bloomin paperwork! I suspect she must just being doing things in very inefficient old fashioned ways

OMG, are you my sister?! (I don't have a sister).

My mum does this, plus gasps/sudden movements whenever I am trying to concentrate in the car. Last time I tried to park with her in the car she flung her hand towards the steering wheel while bracing herself, because she thought I was going to hit something. She hadn't realised I was backing into the space behind me not trying to go forwards into the space in front.

@AtleastitsnotMonday , have you seen the Catherine Tate character that screams when the toast pops up? Sounds like it's based on your DM. 😂

When my mum is cooking pizza and leaves the oven door open for ages while she twists and turns and checks each one. The reason they aren't bloody cooking is because you are letting all the heat out.
I have to leave the kitchen.

I spent an hour and a half with my Mum the other week and after I had dropped her off, realised that she never ever ask's about me, how I am doing etc. She talks at me the whole time, telling me how marvellous she is and all the wonderful things she has done. We see each other every week and every week its exactly the same.

Goodness, do you think so?! Wow ... what an insight! Here's all of us complaining about our parents stating the fucking obvious with no self-awareness, and here you are to explain to us that it's part of the human condition. Thank goodness we have you, eh? Otherwise I'm sure we'd never have figured out it's a lighthearted thread about the human condition.

Not believing me when I told them the gardener was abusing me.

Not believing me 30 years later.

Cutting me out of their wills because I had the audacity to find my birth mother.

Not nice people.

always playing the poor mouth. I am like really? you earn over 100k between the two of you? no mortgage the reason you have no money is because you drive off every day you not working and spend on crap. she will buy 5 coats that cost 10e each and then throw away instead of buying a decent coat for 50e for one. will drive to the next county to save 2 cents on milk. makes everything about her it's such a drama. milks her work place sick policy. get a head cold out for three weeks. am always the last though as the only one of my siblings that doesn't have children. never sits still always cleaning or washing etc.but won't use labour saving devices. there is a reason I only see her once a month

I have such wonderful memories of my dad when I was younger. Can't fault his parenting but as he has gotten older, he's gone full scale conspiracy theory nut. Every time I visit he goes off on some nonsensical rant and it drives me up the wall. He never used to be this way. He joined a new church after us kids grew up and has become worse over the years. He almost died from covid after his pastor told him some story about it being made up by the government to stop people going to church so he shouldn't get vaccinated. Still, he is still adamant he will never be vaccinated. He was also convinced he could cure his church friends cancer by changing his diet rather than seeing drs.

So many of these comments are mentioning the Daily Mail. I was convinced for years that if I could just stop my parents from reading it our relationship would be much much better. I never succeeded.

Someone on this thread used the word "draining" ....that's exactly the right word for it.

I'm taking my mum shopping for something for her flat tomorrow. I know that I will fell completely drained afterwards.

I feel bad about that but that's how it is.

My mum assumes anyone doing anything outside her terraced house must be up to no good. She’ll hear a vaguely strange noise outside on the street and I might think “delivery lorry pulling up” and she seems to think “van filled with masked men about to commit daylight robbery”. She will rush to the window or even go outside the front door with a look of extreme concern and it is never anything untoward or out of the ordinary. Heaven help you if you are a delivery truck trying to do a 3 point turn.

This thread cuts deep! Sorry OP I know it was intended to be light heated but it's very interesting. I can relate to so many posters. I do wonder if more self centeredness comes with age.... the thing my mum does that drives me mad is that she slates my late dad, though she stayed with him throughout his life.. ever since he's died its like I'm not allowed to miss him as she will only focus on the negatives of his actions in life. He was so much more than some of his mistakes, and I know alot about their relationship and how it wasn't easy on both sides. I do want to look after my mum, especially in the last couple of years she's been alone, but sometimes she's remarkably insensitive...