Why are some mothers so overbearing?

[Kibble29]

Some of the posts on here - mothers tracking their adult kids on nights out, getting ready to go to a hotel near the pub they’re in just in case, others taking great offence to a dark joke made by their 20-something year old child that didn’t involve them in the first place.

Then you get the replies with posters saying they track their 30 year old and get them to check in when they arrive at work, others saying they’d sit their 25 year old down for a serious talk if they got drunk and vomited.

Why do adults think that because you raised someone it entitles you to full access to their adult lives? It’s overbearing, inappropriate and completely cringeworthy to read about. God knows how their (grown up) kids feel.

I don’t actually know anyone in real life like this, but they’re bloody common on MN. 😁

I think you are exaggerating quite a bit, in real people rarely do all of these at once and at these extent. However a lot of them do one or the other and often have reasons for their actions. They might be having this alcohol talk at 25 because they’ve never had it before and things are going particularly bad.
Of course they don’t share it with you in real life because it’s private and because they don’t want your comments.
I'm not saying controlling is good, not at all, but being careful is and it means checking on each other sometimes.
The person who was ready to go to a hotel was thinking about potential risks to her daughter which were unfortunately very real. Just google Libby Squire. She was on a night out and separated with friends.

I agree that there are definitely times when it’s sensible, like the other poster who mentioned her friend who runs alone and likes the security.

But the posts on here of mothers checking in with other adults on a night out with their friends, wanting to drive to a hotel close to their night out to be available if they need her…that’s ridiculously overbearing and smothering IMO. What do these people have planned for when they die? Who’ll look after their 40 year olds?

You sound like an amazing Mum. I am so sorry for what you went through but I am in awe of how you have chosen to be with your own kids. Lucky kids. You rock.

We have a family map thing and if either of the teens are late late we will check it to see they are alive! (moving they cycle so we do worry about traffic) but apart from that……

My MIL can be like this. It’s a mixture of anxiety, grief of losing a child and she has adult children and has no identity outside of parenting so she is at a loss as what to do with her time.

I had to end a very long friendship because of this kind of behaviour. Their mum phoned me up, told me off like a 7 year old and accused me of making them cry. My friend was 34 and depressed because she was single. Then the mum tried to make me promise not to tell her she'd called me. Batshit behaviour that could have been avoided if they'd had a normal healthy relationship and she wasn't overbearing. He mum kept on interfering in the friendship, so in the end I just walked away. Not worth the aggro. My DH was gobsmacked at how her mum behaved. To this day, I'm the bad guy for dropping the friendship.

I have another friend who openly admits to tracking her 20 something DD. She says it's because she's so anxious about her mental health and the DD has threatened to self harm. But the family dynamics are very complex so suspect there's a lot of deep rooted dysfunction they just won't talk about.

A group of my friends were talking about how amazing the life 360 app was to track teens and dh so “you can see when he’s left work and get tea on”… can’t their dh message?! Mine used to (he’s wfh now so not relevant for us but dh lets me know where he’s going out of courtesy).

we tried the app because we have 3 teens. I hate it and find it really intrusive. My dc talk to me so I’d rather build our relationship than use an app. Dh and I learned that sometimes we will drive a longer way to get home because we’re listening to music. We’re both fine with this but it felt like this was our private time and tracking dh felt horrible. Dd is heading to a city tomorrow for the first time so I’ve turned off alerts but said let’s just keep it in case for tomorrow but then, on Thursday, we’ll all delete the app.

on reflection, friends who use the app are anxious people but I’m actually shocked they are raving about it when I feel very uncomfortable with it.

I’ll add that when df divorced and was going on tinder dates we all shared our location, but that was for a specific reason. She was 41.

Totally agree. Anxiety has become the most overused word in the English language 🙄

I think a lot of it has to do with the way the modern world is set up. Social media is a place where a lot of people choose to give up their privacy and post every detail of their lives, and a by product of that is that people feel entitled to know every detail about others lives, whether that’s parent, partner or someone else, and that includes tracking people and judging them. Its creating an environment where everyone is too involved with each others lives. I don’t think it’s just mothers who can be overbearing, everyone can be overbearing these days. Everyone feels entitled to your information.
Once upon a time it would have been considered abusive to track someone, now it’s seen as normal. Rewind to the 90s and only stalkers would know where you were every minute of the day, we would have avoided people who bored us with their photo albums, and we wouldn’t have looked through somebody’s appointment diary, but now it’s in digital form on social media that’s what people do with their spare time 🤷🏻‍♀️.
There have always been overbearing people, but I think the modern world encourages it and enables it so there are more of them, there’s no real escape from people anymore.

Interesting isn't it, and anxiety can also be so strong that it makes me doubt it is possible for any amount of therapy to sink in. I hate it when it is used as a justification for behaviour. I ended a friendship over this, she was suffocating as her anxiety was off the chart and she thought she was justified in everything she did. I still miss her in some ways but she was like a controlling tyrant.

My 25 year old son added himself to our live360 family group, didn’t ask or expect him to but he didn’t want to be left out 😂. He has his own family but loves local.

we don’t mind seeing where each of us are and it’s really handy at times.

my eldest dd22 isn’t on it and I don’t expect her to be, she lives about 300 miles away, that would be weird.

i must admit having life360 has been one of the best things I’ve had, dd3 is 14 and over the past 4 years (well we all have) has been terribly affected by things that have happened to our family and would have panic attacks where she’d also scream and cry if I or her elder sister left the house. It was an awful time for us, I couldn’t even walk the dog or pop to the shop. I downloaded life 360 and I let her track me wherever I went, it reassured her so much and she’s much better now

I get why you are doing this and I am pretty much the same.

However, it does make me sad that we can't safely share details of our lives without having to worry about meddling, pressuring or guilt-tripping to make "more acceptable" decisions, at least in the eyes of our family.

There is definitely something about some mothers in particular, though. You rarely see it with fathers. It's something that's developed as a result of society and the role of a mother.