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Original poster

Things that make you RAGE about your parents?

199 replies

Derby2022 · 05/02/2023 17:11

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!

OP posts:
AffableApple · 05/02/2023 22:25

Bin day

Littleoxforddictionary · 05/02/2023 22:30

DM has decided she is genetically unable to use technology and so just doesn't which is self sabotaging and shrinks her life considerably. She won't even try despite being perfectly competent in all other areas and very intelligent.

HildasLostSock · 05/02/2023 22:33

It doesn't give me the rage but my mum puts dates on EVERYTHING. So, buys a bag of flour, frozen fish fingers some loo rolls and hand-wash, writes the date that she bought them on it (occasionally which shop it was bought from and how much it was on each item). I guess I can understand e.g. the soap in that it helps her use the oldest item first but food has a best before date? Back when you got free lateral flow tests, the date they collected it and from which pharmacy. Pins a piece of paper on the curtains with the date that she last washed them, that sort of thing. It's...curious.

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Families
Crikeyalmighty · 05/02/2023 22:45

I would have said Brexit and the Tory's but my FIL at83 has in the last 3 years had a complete about turn and now hates the Tory's and Farage and Brexit and thinks they are complete con men

Patienceofasaint1 · 05/02/2023 22:46

Every time I call my mum, she has to put me on speaker phone so my dad can listen too. Any doesn’t always tell me until my dad chips in with his view!

FunnysInLaJardin · 05/02/2023 22:54

My parents used to drive me mad. However they are now both dead and oddly all I can remember are the nice bits. Give it time OP!

notprincehamlet · 05/02/2023 22:55

My mother can't sit through a meal with anyone - if you're out having a coffe or dinner, or in a hotel having breakfast, she'll just get up and leave you on your own to go off and do something less boring. I was once pity-serenaded for the duration of my pizza Hmm

Ripleysgameface · 05/02/2023 23:13

I get anxious about telling my mum if one of my children are sick.

She thinks EVERYTHING requires a doctors visit or admittance to hospital and if I tell her they don't need to go she'll say something to the effect 'well Ripley, that's what I would do...I suppose we're different like that. Better to be safe than sorry...'

Whowhatwherewhenwhynow · 05/02/2023 23:21

My father is just negative about everything. You get him a gift, show him a room you’ve just decorated, give him a cake you’ve just made etc then his first comment will always be negative. “Why didn’t you do it like x” or “I would have…” or “if you’d have”.

worst of all is my 8 yr old has become aware of it. He made a film the other day and said “I won’t show grandpa because he’ll just say everything that is wrong with it”.

ehb102 · 05/02/2023 23:27

Keeping stuff. Not hoarding, Dad always has a really good reason for anything he has kept, but the three of everything. The good one. The spare one. The broken on for parts. Trouble is, I have to keep quiet because often what he keeps is needed. Like when he downsized, he kept some crutches he acquired. I didn't push but it annoyed me. Then he needed a knee replacement and had to provide his own. Good job I didn't say anything! Downsizing him was a relief but the tip bill was enormous.

bunhead1979 · 05/02/2023 23:28

My parent gets really annoyed when websites don’t work the way they want them to, and phone me to try to get me to explain to them how to make them work the way they want. It’s so baffling, i have to carefully explain that whatever website it is is just the way it is and i can’t change it.

Allschoolsareartschools · 05/02/2023 23:29

Dm absolutely refuses to use her phone proudly telling us that it's switched off in her bag ready for 'emergencies'.
The reality is that she doesn't have a clue how to use it & won't let anyone show her even though texting would be great for her as she's hard of hearing. God help her in any emergency she just wouldn't be able to use it.

verdantverdure · 05/02/2023 23:29

Brexit.

Absolutely vitriolic hatred of Meghan Duchess of Sussex despite never having any personal experience of her whatsoever.

I hate that they're so easily manipulated by the Daily Mail. If they ring to have a vent about something I click to the DM online and 8 times out of 10 there it is. Between that and Brexit it's hard for the grandchildren to respect them I think.

My mum doesn't understand why I don't always answer my phone. I don't think she remembers what it's like working full time, with a home and a family. She thinks she's busier than any of us and never gets a minute to herself despite being retired and having downsized.

Phone calls aren't really a conversation. I'm expected to listen attentively but not take a turn. It'll all be about people I don't know anyway. Unless it's people I do know and then it will be slagging them off. Will ask after us but woebegone if I give more than a five word answer.

Permanently on a diet, apparently diet culture never ends.

My dad thinks the British press is against Conservatives that's why they tell us about things like the billions funnelled to Tory donors via the VIP lane for unfit PPE that had to be burned. "Labour will be up to much worse you mark my words!" *taps nose"

Honestly. Will we be mad when old? My kids'll have to Logan's Run me when it starts.

Phrenologistsfinger · 05/02/2023 23:34

Hoarding multiple homes to waist and shoulder height. Tonnes of waste.
Keeping her hoard in our spare room, because her hoarding made her homeless. Now making our house smell like rotten food. Having a giant toddler tantrum when we try to tidy up. Taking no action to make changes or find somewhere to live - just sitting there like a passive victim of her own life, expecting people to fix it without any kind of action or change on her part.

Oh and being really insensitive about my miscarriages and IVF (“I wouldn’t have trued this hard to have you”). And insisting on talking about the baby of the daughter of some random she met in a coffee shop even when I tell her it’s bloody insensitive.

ShakeYourFeathers · 05/02/2023 23:37

Dad- pessimistic about everything.
Mum- she has to be right about everything.

Both of them is burying hard stuff under the carpet and never having those awkward conversations

newlove22 · 05/02/2023 23:46

My Mum goes on about the clothes I buy. Growing up I had 2 outfits and a School uniform as we had no money. I have a professional job and therefore dress smartly, but it's only from Next or Wallis. It's like she expects me to have only a couple of outfits still.
The other thing she goes on about is childbirth, I'm childless!

bellamountain · 06/02/2023 00:00

My father's total incompetence at anything technical. He calls me up like the world is about to end because his iPad is doing something it shouldn't or Netflix or Amazon Prime aren't working and he needs the passwords asap (because they are my bloody accounts). Expects me to drop everything and go round there to sort it out! If I can't help straight away he throws a major strop.

OngoingCrisis · 06/02/2023 00:12

My mom thinks I'm google.

"what is the weather like today?"
"what time does sainsburys shut?"
"Do you think the chicken is cooked?"

Also, she constantly invalidates my feelings, says I'm making something out of nothing and that she's "had it hard too" and "you just need to toughen up and get on with it" etc

LadyCassandra · 06/02/2023 00:22

So many of the above, Meghan, the criticisms of everyone and the long-winded stories.
But as this is a lighthearted thread:
We live overseas and we video call with the kids regularly. My parents dog-sit for a living. They will tell us about each dog they are looking after each week and the entire conversation is punctuated by “look at him sitting there”. With random dogs. That aren’t theirs. That I don’t care about. Because they are nothing to me and I call from the other side of the world to talk to my parents!

FrozenGhost · 06/02/2023 02:00

The majority of the time I start a conversation with my mum, she isn't interested and will just say 'right' in a bored voice instead of continuing the conversation. This applies whether it's about something that's happened to me, a current event, news, whatever. OK thats one thing, maybe she isn't interested. But then she'll immediately say "well? Whats new with you then?". I literally just tried to tell you what is new!

Ostagazuzulum · 06/02/2023 04:14

Mine are extremely self-centered, completely
Out of touch with reality and insensitive. Oh could go on forever about some of stuff they've done or do. They are absolutely loaded and think nothing of going out and spending 1000s on random things (fine as it's their money and I want to stress that I have no expectations they should help me financially in any way) BUT they then mock me and my sibling for not being able to afford stuff like having the heating on when we fancy it, or telling us that they have something so much better than us or questioning why we don't buy something they think we should have. They are oblivious to the cost of living crisis and belittle people who have no money. It's awful.
They never ask how I am but will
Spend their entire phone calls telling me about various doctors appointments and the worse bit is they absolutely delight in telling me I'll likely get in same state as them with arthritis etc. I've told them it sounds like they wish it on me and they just laugh. I'm 100% not over sensitive.
When I try to end a phone call telling them I have to go as I need to go to work, get to shops etc. they start a new conversation. My mother is worst, she never listens to anything I say, it's like she shuts down when I start talking. She's not deaf. If I whispered something I didn't want her to hear whilst she is 100 metres from me she'd bloody hear it.
They're not great parents. They are however good grandparents which is baffling.

Ostagazuzulum · 06/02/2023 04:36

Also the way my mum licks yoghurt pot lids turns my stomach. It's gross and like she slathers and I can't stand it.

AND they are negative and usually only see the bad in people. But it's random. The man that sold them their house was deliberately conning them as he hasn't been open enough about the lack of plug sockets Hmm however the builder who is grossly overcharging them for a new wall.......he's a professional. I've tried telling them he's charging them double but they're convinced it's expensive because it'll be a better wall than anyone else's. He's just a shifty builder who saw two old people coming.
Lastly (and I really could go on forever) they watch too many crime dramas and have decided they are experts on crime matters and like to share their knowledge. A tradesman recently told them about how he got conned with some eBay selling and my mother has told him that organised crime groups will likely be watching his house overnight now to go back and steal stuff. I just despair.

ScreamALullabye · 06/02/2023 05:05

Mum "I rang you the other day, weren't you in?"

Me" did you, I've not had a missed call?"

This convo happens on a very regular basis and ALWAYS ends up that she's rung the landline number when I haven't had a house phone since 2010 which I tell her every single time. There are no memory issues here, just a refusal to ring someone's mobile phone number. Despite the fact both her and my dad have unlimited minutes and texts, much the same as every other person in the universe.

Lucylock · 06/02/2023 05:22

Dad - sexist , aggressive , alcoholic. I'm NC now which is bliss. But when we did speak he just talked about himself.

Mum - love her dearly, but can be irritating. Does a 'he says' 'she says' monologue when telling me something that could take a fraction of the time.

Colinthedaxi · 06/02/2023 06:56

Littleoxforddictionary · 05/02/2023 22:30

DM has decided she is genetically unable to use technology and so just doesn't which is self sabotaging and shrinks her life considerably. She won't even try despite being perfectly competent in all other areas and very intelligent.

So many of these posts resonate but this one made me smile, IT incompetency is apparently genetic down my female line too!!

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