As you get older, is it normal to find your mum increasingly irritating?

[makeminealeosayer]

I do mine. She is baby boomer age. She used to be very easy going, laid back, open minded. Now she is very DM in views, moans about immigrants, generally uptight and of a curtain-twitcher mentality. Anybody else found this?

What is baby boomer age?

I found my mother was all of those things during and just after her menopause, but after my dads death, she did completely change her outlook on life, and became a much more tolerant person. She could still be hard work and had her moments though... I think all mothers do.

Sorry. baby boomer is post war baby - 60 plus

Baby boomer age? I used to have enough brain cells to work that one out - but sadly no longer? Is she in her 50's?

Anyway - my mum drives me to the point of exquisite irritation - she's fixated on Barack Obama and the death of Gaddafi. BUT - and here's the important thing - she's my mum and she's still here and one day she won't be and.......so many ands.........how many people wish their mum was still around to drive them crazy? I would imagine quite a few!

My MIL is that age then... I would say she has become more panicky in recent years.. a lot less confident and sadly yes, she reads the DM and does believe every shock headline...

love my mum to bits.

drives me insane after 2 days.

never used to, its her getting older and me getting more ratty

No.

Mine's always driven me up the pole - then round the bend!!

Yes.

My Grandma is the worst, along with her husband.

And like you I have got increasingly irritated at their behaviour.

While I sit there and listen to their stupid racist comments because I can't be bothered to get embroiled in an argument, I don't know what to do when they say it in front of my DS age 3, who at some point will start to understand.

OP, I feel your pain. And I don't know what to do about it as people like this are unlikely to moderate their behaviour the more self-righteous they become.

have agreed though that if she starts reading DM, i am to free to book her on a one flight to switzerland- her words not mine. her parents started off left wing and were to the right of hitler by the time they died.

Mother going through menopause. An interesting role reversal whereby parent exacts revenge on children for the hormonal hell of the teenage years. Except with my menopausal mother it seems to go on indefinitely an not for a period of max 8 years unlike puberty.

I thought having children would make me sympathetic with my mother and all she went through bringing us up. WRONG. When I had children I thought, my god, I am actually better at this than you. Which is a horrid thing to say. Worsened only by DBro who wrote on my facebook wall about something I did for DS1: "Wow that is so cool, how come our mum never did anything like that with us" .

She is scred of becoming like our grandmother (who is a nightmare), problem is, every day that passes the metamorphosis for fun mum to neurotic gran is nearly complete.

So NO YANBU!!

Also avid DM reader. Gets very sniffy "oh you put down everyone else and think you are clever than them" if I express malcontent at its facist leanings, which she adopts wholeheartedly.

"bloody London no English people left, it's an embarrassment to Britain, only place referred to the news, should be wiped off the face of the planet" says she of my home.

This is one of those things that might come off as guilt tripping, and I'm genuinely not intending it to be. However, my mum died when I was nineteen. She would have been 61 now, so probably not far off the age of your mum. One of the things that was so upsetting (I mean apart from the obvious bit that she had died!) was that I felt we were starting to move past those difficult teenage years and beginning a relationship that felt like a close friendship. Obviously she still irritated me in ways only a mother can, but but she was letting go a bit and I was growing up a bit. Could you try to start relating to her as a friend, which might mean that you can be more forgiving of some of those boggling annoyances?

Sorry...boggling should be niggling. Stupid iPad. Which helpfully autocorrects it's own name.

My mum has drove me mad since I hit my teens, I fail to see how she can become any more irritating then she already is now.

Ah mummy dearest. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

My moaning will be back to bite me on the bottom when I am making DS's lives a misery in 30 years.

I guess with me there are a few things I struggle to be around with her. The racism (covert but always there); the pig-headedness and unwillingness to see other viewpoints; and the general negativity and seeing the worst in people. Is this what happens when you get old ffs?

Nope - my mum is 71 and I have always, always loved her to bits. I still have fond memories of going clothes shopping with her - she really got what I liked and why I liked it, even when I was a horrible teenager.

She has always been there for me and for my Dsis, though their relationship was rocky for a while (is now very close). She is open-minded, educated and warm-hearted. The only time she ever irritated me was by saying that I was unlikely to be able to BF my baby because she couldn't BF me and my sis, so I shouldn't try. She was very, very pleased to be proved wrong, though - so that didn't last long.

Now she is main carer for my dad who has Parkinsons and heart problems so I try to keep in touch despite living in another country.

My mum rules, I will be devastated when I lose her.

cheers pointythings - feeling much better now lol

Mum was really irritating when I was a teenager. Now I've moved out and have my own space to be scatty, loud and last-minuty (i.e. the complete opposite personality type from her) we get on loads better and I'd go so far as to say that she is one of my best friends.

When I'm back at my parents for the hols she does still nag me to wear a coat/check the train times/try not to get mugged on my way home though. That never stops being irritating!

op, it's practically compulsory. sigh.

No, not at all. I find my mum much less hard work now that I'm older because I don't live with her. She is quite a controlling person and it took me several years after moving out to finally realise that she couldn't tell me what to do any more and when it did dawn on me it was utter bliss .

Besides, my DM is far more interested in my DD than anything else in the world, which is lovely for DD and rather convenient for me if I need a babysitter . No complaints here!

OP I am so with you.

Aquafunf you are so lucky to get 2 days before she drives you mad, I don't even get 2 hours.

When my DH first met her (14 years ago) he couldn't believe how close we were and what a fab relationship we had. Makes me sad that those days are long gone.

Sorry, OP - I know how lucky I am, I wish everyone else was too.

I've got closer to my Mum recently due to having DCs.

However my Dad and I...that's a whole thread to itself (it seriously is, have been composing it in my head for weeks, will post it soon).

PILs are definitely as you describe. And so intolerant of other cultures - in spite of them personally knowing many people from many different cultures!