Do you like your Mum?

[Lemonthyme3]

Do you like your Mum?

I don’t mean love - I mean like

Would you be friends with her if she wasn’t your mum?

Would you be able to work with her if you shared an office/same company?

…I’m writing this because I wish I liked mine and I’m deeply sad that I don’t. I find it tough spending time with her.

But I have young children, and often wonder if when they grow up, they’ll feel the same about me, which saddens me greatly 😔

So yeah - if you like your Mum, help me have some hope that it can work out? x

Yes. She's started backseat driving lately which is making me mildly nuts but I genuinely enjoy her company and love talking with her.

I'm sorry your own relationship with your mum is so fraught :/

Absolutely! My parents are two of my best friends. Probably the people I most enjoy spending time with. Of course they annoy me at times and do some things I think are bonkers - especially now they are older - but no one is as interested in me or cares about me and my kids they way they do. Also they are a good laugh.

We live in different countries, but generally spend a few weeks together twice a year.

No.

No.
I love her but no we'd never be friends if we worked together. I actually don't really like her although i realise that sounds horrible of me written down.
It's always been that way. I've accepted it. I've got lots of friends and I'm very close to my dd and ds.

I love her and yes I like her. Would we make good friends or colleagues? Nope. I have a huge amount of admiration for her and what’s she’s achieved in life but we are too opposite to be proper mates. We see each other for a few hours every few weeks and that’s fine.

My mum's dead but she was my absolute favourite person in the whole world. If I have have half the relationship with my daughter I had with her I'll have succeeded as a parent. She was the best.

Sadly my Mum is no longer with us. I miss her every day (it’s been 14 years) I never tired of her company, I would without a doubt be friends with her. She was a great friend as well as my Mum.

No, she can only concentrate on her favourite golden child. She’s difficult and judgmental, my marriage to a foreigner (her words) has lasted longer than any of her marriages. Forgets I have given her two grandchildren and is only interested in golden child’s kids. It makes it difficult to like her. She also has zero interest in me and my life.

Mine is dead, but no, I didn’t. We had no values or interests in common, nothing to build a friendship on.

My adult kids like me, though. There is every hope that yours will like you

No.
But i have DDs who seek out my company so i feel i'm doing better!

I struggle with mine too, and like you OP, I find this really sad. I do love her but I feel a strange mix of and guilt and annoyance when I’m with her and I wish I could change it, but have no idea how!

No and I'm pretty sure she didn't like me much. She was judgemental, had a quick temper and was always right. If we disagreed about something and I was proved right, she would stop speaking to me. I think she was disappointed in me because I am too easy going.

No unfortunately not. I care for her and I do love her in the way that she’s my mum and but I think she is horrible and if she was a friend we would have stopped talking a long time ago. I do feel sad that we don’t have the friendship level relationship.

No, and I'm not sad about it. I don't think she liked me much either.

Not really. She’s selfish.

Sadly, no. She has turned into a bitter, contankerous, argumentative woman. She has never shown any interest in my life, and now just moans about her nursing home (which is like a hotel!!). Unfortunately, I visit because I feel I have to, not because I want to.

No, but that’s because I know the real her. If I only knew her superficially, then possibly, but we’d never be close.

Nope. She was/is a bully and I don’t have a great deal of respect for her, unfortunately.

My mum died before we fully reached the friends stage. We were definitely going in that direction but it was a weird transition from following her to walking alongside her.

My deepest regret in life was not being able to see her as a grandmother. She was a great mum but had much more patience for other people’s children. I really think she would have been an amazing grandmother. She trained as a health visitor when we were in our teens and had a wealth of knowledge. I remember her clearly insisting that we should return to work after having children. Her first job as a health visitor was in a very middle class area with lots of professional mothers. She said it was heart breaking to see them struggle to make the decision to be a SAHM, this was during the 80s when opinions differed. She said that we should support women’s choices and make it ok to be career mothers, she was an early campaigner for longer maternity leave and better nursery provision. I never felt bad about returning to work part time when DS was 5 months old because I knew she would have been ok with it.

She always maintained that happy mums made the best mothers.

Not really.
We definitely wouldn't be friends if she wasn't my mum. We have nothing in common. I imagine she feels the same way.

No. We clash. I’ve made a very conscious decision when parenting my own children to try and hopefully have a much better relationship. And of course I hope that they like me and love me as adults 😂

Not really no. I do love her and she has plenty of good points but I also find her irritating and she can be very judgmental and sometimes selfish. To be fair, I don’t think she particularly likes me either, although she would deny it.

My mum is ace. She is the kindest person I know, and she has so many friends who are just as lovely, which I think says a lot about her as a person. If she wasn't my mum, I'd want her to be my friend.

No

I struggle. We have very little in common and find her negative , she also catastrophises everything which is really wearing.