Is anyone else's mother obsessed with them being 'lazy'?

[TinaTwinkleToes]

My mother always calls me lazy. This is the woman who spent my childhood asleep on the couch.
Not that I have to justify myself but I have a primary aged child, dogs and a 4 day week job. I'm also at the gym 3 to 4 times a week. But apparently I'm bone idle

If you are worried about being called lazy, maybe deep down you suspect that you are ?

No I just think my mother is abusive

Or maybe your mother is like some I know and takes pleasure in making you feel bad, even if what she saying has no bearing on reality……..

In what scenarios would she fling this accusation at you? Has she done this since you were little?

But yeah, as per PP some people just chat shit

If I sit down I'm lazy. She told me I was lazy on Xmas day for reasons not known to me. I just don't feel like I have to broadcast what I'm doing to the world. When we were young if she had to do anything my god you'd know about it.

No, quite the opposite. 2 small kids plus an intense job plus a house to run means my mum is constantly worried I’m going to run myself into the ground. Your mum sounds a bit silly really.

When I was a single parent with 90 percent custody apparently I was still lazy then .

She sounds like an arsehole. Don’t pay her any mind. Hope you don’t spend a great deal of time with her, for the sake of your sanity!

I keep contact to a minimum let's just say.

My mum who is lovely os always telling me off for working too hard. Your mum sounds horrible. She’s probably realised it is something you are sensitive about so says it even if it has no relation to reality.

Me too.

Everything I do is lazy.

Weirdest time she called me lazy was when I ate a couple of slices of cheese once. She told me I could have had a sandwich, I said I didn't want a sandwich, she said "you're just lazy."

I think she's always expected me to do things exactly the same as her and she doesn't understand that I have different priorities and different ways of doing things, so she calls me lazy to try to shame me into doing things her way.

Hahaha yes, my mum could be like this too. I worked part time from 14, and through uni. Often 2 jobs at a time. She went nuts when I took a days holiday from work between school and uni (having worked 20 hours a week during term time and 40 hours a week during school holidays) Have worked either full time or almost full time since becoming a parent: my mum was a SAHM. We were always skint growing up (us kids didn’t go without though; but mum and dad did), whereas we earn a decent wage, but we pay for a cleaner which is lazy

Yep, I get this from my father. Even when I was a working parent of a preschooler with no family support. I long realised this is just a way to undermine and control me.

I'm very much the family scapegoat despite having a job, fàmily, home etc.

These days I'm very detached from it all. It's sad but I can't fix it.

Yeah I feel the same as many of you. She was a crap mother who didn't want kids really. Thank god women have got choices now.

Sounds like she's blaming you for her own faults

I would retort “says the woman who spent my childhood on the couch" back. Every time. If she wants to be rude, snap back. At least you are being honest. She'll soon stop.

Nice try on the psychobabble but this is coming from her mother not a stranger.

The thing is, even if you were lazy, it wouldn’t be the greatest sin in the world. Are we to be in perpetual motion? I am extremely lazy but I couldn’t give a shit.

And some people just have weird ideas about what constitutes ‘laziness’. I was a bookish child, and the sight of me with a book in my hand used to enrage my mother because it was ‘lazy’. I overheard her telling a neighbour when I won a prestigious scholarship to Oxford (which got my picture in the local paper, hence the neighbour congratulating her) that I was just too lazy to get a job, so I was going to just read more books.

Oh yeah. If I fancy a nap on a Saturday afternoon I get barbed comments despite the fact she's always napping. I don't have any kids or other caring responsibilities so I can damn well have a nap if I want one

Yep

I was lazy because as a single parent my ds would get up at 5;30 am. I’d take him to childminders and then go back to bed. I was ‘sleeping my life away’

I was lazy because l wanted a dishwasher.

I was lazy because l wouldn’t mow the lawn after being up at 5:30 am and teaching all day.

l was lazy because l didn’t make her endless cups of tea correctly.

l was lazy because l wouldn’t do her decorating being a single parent with a very tiring job

Despite being lazy l got a 2:1 and worked all my life and raised a child alone.

No but my abusive ex regularly called me lazy.

Yes. If I ever sat down she’d find something she wanted me to do for her - she’d wait until I was settled and comfy before asking me to go and get her something. If she couldn’t think of anything then she’d try and find something completely unnecessary like rearranging a cupboard or something (cupboard didn’t need rearranging) and start pressuring me - and no I didn’t get up and start rearranging my cupboard which would go down like a cup of cold vomit. She was obsessed with control.

My mum says this and I know she means it to be kind but she’s detached from reality - my DH and I both need to earn otherwise we couldn’t pay the mortgage, food, bills etc. She only had one child (me) and no job and says I “ought to work much less” around my two kids but unlike her mothering years I’m not living in the 80s where a four bedroom house and family life could be run on a single public sector salary 😵‍💫