Can you imagine in your wildest dreams that I like prawns at age 37, even though I hated them as a child? My mother can not.

[OrangeAid]

My mom is an odd-bod.

It seems beyond her comprehension that people change as they get older, particularly as they move from children to adults.

Last night I told her I was having prawn curry for tea. She was genuinely shocked to the core that I eat prawns because I never used to like them.

I've always liked prawns, says I.
Nope, she says. And then recounts a story from when I was nine years old and I tried a prawn and didn't like it.

A while back, my dog was sick from both ends at the same time in the kitchen. I was telling my mom about the military operation to clean up and she was, again, really shocked that I did it because I was so squeamish when I was younger. I was lost for words. I mean aside from the fact there's no other option (I'm not just going to leave the kitchen covered in dog vomit and shit), I'm not the same person that I was when I was twelve.

Anyone else's mom or dad like this? She's otherwise a perfectly normal human being!

My mother is actually the opposite of this. Whenever she is pouring coffee she never fails to pour me a cup, despite the fact that I have never once drunk a cup of coffee in my entire life (pushing on for five decades now), and told her many times that I don't like coffee.

I suppose she was right about the olives and feta and one day she may be right about the coffee.

Genius!!!

Or: 'Oh, have you given up the acting now, son? I thought that might be going somewhere finally'.

Both DM and MIL ask me if what I’m wearing is new, every time they see me. I wait for it now. I can guarantee it won’t be, haven’t bought anything new for ages (COL crisis and all that). But because DM hasn’t seen something, it must be new! I’m in my 40s and she hasn’t done my washing since I was about 16. How would she even know which clothes I have when we meet 3-4 times a year? MIL thinks I’m frivolous, which couldn’t be further from the truth. If only she knew the lengths I went to to budget and ensure the DC jabs at least their needs met 🥲

Oh yes it does come with a side helping of NOT remembering things that have been true forever. E.g. that I have an allergy to shellfish. "Since when?" "Since birth probably, can't you remember when I came out in hives and couldn't breathe at Auntie Brenda's wedding?" <puzzled look>

AND with the repetition of something that was wrong the first time she said it and is still wrong now, like "should you really be going swimming? it's bad for your asthma you know".

I think that families get into a groove of how they react and respond to each other.

So when adult siblings get together they immediately start to play out the dynamics they had when younger, for example.

My mother used to moan about my sister and I to everyone she met or was related to. We were just average teenage girls (so fleetingly horrible) but it was compounded by the fact she was a very violent alcoholic who used to beat us up.

I am now 50 and Dsis 52 and whenever we have the misfortune to meet my mother's best friend or extended family like my mother's cousins they usually have something to say. I went to the wedding of the grandchild o my mother's best friend a few years back and she said to me loudly ; 'You were such a horrible nasty little bitch and gave your mother so much trouble'.

Recollections may indeed vary and I recall avoiding my mother because she would start drinking early and would physically attack us on an almost daily basis.

But that besides. Most people realise that everyone in the teen years probably had their moments. using it to verbally attack decades later is just fucking horrid.

@Molehillminnie OMG YES!! I can totally relate to the clothes thing. When I'm wearing something that my Mum hasn't seen before, she says 'What top's that?'
How do I even answer that question? 😤

My dad thinks I love lemon. I don't (my mum did)
So he will go to somewhere like M&S, with all the glorious chocolate and caramel desserts and bring me... low fat lemon mousse
I mean it's the thought that counts

Yep my mum is like this, in quite a critics and negative way though, but she’s that sort of person unfortunately.

For example if I say something about making homemade chips- “we’ll you never would eat them when you lived with us…so we could never have them” (voiced with spite).

Honestly I’m usually just quite sarcastic back now.

This but also sometimes the total opposite. My sister has never eaten beans and my mum is always surprised that she still doesn’t like them. Yet she is amazed I can swallow tablets no problem because I had a huge tantrum aged 12 and vomited attempting to take one! 😂😂

Apparently I don't like Champagne, this gets repeated regularly with surprise when I show up to a family event with a bottle or accept a glass. This is based on the sip I had a 12 and didn't like. I have several qualifications in wine and adore Champagne, having visited the region many times.
People are also warned to hide the Christmas chocolates because they're not safe with me around, I don't have a sweet tooth and wouldn't buy tins of festive chocs (I'd buy Champagne!) because once as a small child my friend and I ate the chocolates on her Christmas tree.

Love these!

My parents live overseas and usually visit once per year for a few weeks. Every single time, we have the same discussion.

Dad: What time will you be up for work tomorrow, Creature?
Me: I'll get up at 6.45 and will leave the house at 7.30 for the 7.40 bus.
D (roaring): You've never got out of bed at 6.45am in your life. Hahaha, I'll believe it when I see it.
M: Well, you'll see it tomorrow. That's my schedule.
D: You need to be dragged out of bed at midday. There's no way you'll be up at that time.
M: Maybe when I was 15 but I'm 45 now and have a job.
Dad walks away chuckling to himself about how I'm kidding myself. Spends the next three days telling all our relatives about my ability to get out of bed.

One year later, we go through the same routine.

Aside from the getting up thing, my mum is also gobsmacked when I eat broccoli or drink coffee.

My dad is convinced I still take a half cup of tea with sugar in it. I stopped this aged 6.
He will also regularly ask me if I ‘still’ wear glasses? I’ve been wearing them continuously since I was 13 and I’m now 42. Sometimes I wear contacts on weekends. But it’s not like my eyes have somehow stopped being short sighted in the intervening 29 years!

My mum wouldn't let me keep my house key to hers as "you always lose keys". I lost two, aged 14. I'm in my late 30s and haven't lost a key since.

When my brother got together with his now wife my mother said how pleasantly surprised she was that he was so good and patient with her two small children, "he was awful with you".

Well yes, he was six and it was thirty years ago, he probably has learned a bit of patience in the interim!

I'm with your mum. YABU to like Prawns. 😂

I hated them as a kid and still think they look like disgusting slimy worm things. I still can't eat shellfish or most fish, to be honest.

I still don't eat Sprouts either. 🤷🏻‍♀️

My dad came round for a roast dinner and could not get over the fact that I both made gravy and put it on my dinner.
This is because when I was 11 we went out for a roast and I declined horseradish because I didn't like that it was 'spicy'. He then decided that I didn't like any form of sauce or spice and has been suprised at every non-dry or spicy meal I have had since.

He also believes this of my children, despite them being completely the opposite of fussy eaters. He has been surprised their entire lives that they eat sauce and spices.
I came round whilst I made a thai green curry once (one of mine and my childrens favourites) and he asked what the point of going to all that effort was if only my husband could eat it.

My mum was amazed I went to a volcanic island, what with me being terrified (aged 7) of volcanoes (thanks to stories on TV/school about Pompeii.)

It's both irritating and endearing that she remembers (I'm in my 50s).

I think she sees both my brother and I as children still. When he was 18 she sewed his name in his leather jacket 😆

My mother is always surprised when I cuddle newborn babies (when invited by their parent, I don't just go round picking up random babies!) because as a young teenager, I didn't like holding tiny babies because I was scared they would break. Until they could hold their own heads up, I didn't really want to hold them.
I'm now in my 30s. If nothing else, my arms are longer and so it's easier to hold the baby. I've had more experience.
But no, every time we are around a baby my mother will say "oh I''d love a cuddle, but Lobster doesn't like babies".

My MIL regularly talks about how DH can sleep anywhere, because as a child he once fell asleep on the floor of a ferry when they had been travelling all night.

I’ve lived with him for 12 years and he has never even fallen asleep on the couch!

I think most of my family are this way about me because I am the baby of the family by quite a bit. I'm 40 now but I still get an encouraging 'well done!' quite often for completing very basic daily tasks!

Whenever I argue about politics with my mum, at some point she will say- "you're not even interested in politics- if you were you would have watched Nelson Mandela" referring to the fact that I went to a friend's house rather than watching the news when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, when I was 8.

I actually have the opposite problem... my parents will still try to give me food that I've disliked ever since I was very young. Even when I say I've never liked it, they still conveniently forget!

I have a weird work variant of this going on where in 2014 I said I didn’t mind working Christmas Eve as I didn’t have children and wasn’t travelling far for Christmas. This is now enshrined as ‘Squirrel doesn’t like Christmas’ (I DO fucking like Christmas!)

Also my mum cannot believe I have an actual job with responsibilities because, I quote, ‘well, I don’t SEE you doing it’.

My dad still thinks I'm 10! So the whole idea that I can be a functioning adult is alien to him

He's surprised anytime I vaguely do anything adult. Such as cook or do DIY or deal with my car