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?

Hmmm... I've noticed since my Mum retired that she has become a bit barmy. She was a bright, engaged and generally with it person, until about 18 months ago, and has somehow become a 'loony' ( my sister's definition). She is very forgetful and gets worked up about the least little thing. She's only 62, and I can't believe that she's changed so much in such a short time..... :( But her Mum died at 49, so we have no point of reference. So, yes, our Mum drives us nuts at the moment. Sadly.

nope ,I'm quite tolerant of my mum tbh

I have found more recently that I care less about my mother than I have in the past. Today I didn't drop everything to take her to the cemetery when she called. I feel guilty - but not -. I feel I have spent most of my adult life trying to please her and am now going through some kind of second teenage rebellion. It's terrible. But she's incredibly self-sufficient most of the time. I have offered her help so many times, just to be turned down, that I think I have now given up. I spent a long time trying to do the right thing by her, and it tended to be the wrong thing, I now simply can't be arsed about her opinion any more. She's lovely, a wonderful person, a good person. But played so hard to get for so long and I don't want to play that game any more. She also has her cake and eats it. She has everything she wants, does whatever she wants but doesn't actually do anything for anyone else. OK she doesn't owe anyone any favours, but suddenly I feel no moral duty to drop everything for her any more.

Its a shame so many people on MN have such bad relationships with their mothers

As she gets older, my mum complains more bitterly about my gran, but funnily enough, they're so alike that every thing she whines about she does herself, e.g. she tells me sixteen times "Gran's getting really repetitive". I do realise this will be me in a few years.

I've always found my mum difficult, but as I get older I realise just how much she was squashing us as children, how free we can be, and how wrong she was and therefore how very right I am !) She used to tell us constantly that we were small and silly, ignorant and unappreciative of her many virtues, and if only we were less small and silly and ignorant we'd realise how wonderful and superior she was. It's taken me years to realise just what was going on there, so in many ways I'm finding her much more irritating as she gets older, as I'm seeing her in a new light.

My Gran was ruthless in child rearing, possibly even vicious and nasty to my mum, and I think it's scarred my mum somewhat. My mum was a disciplinarian but milder than my gran. I'm trying to break the cycle, but I'm not sure how successful I'm being at that. When I was visiting mum once my DD was being awkward and whiney, I had stern words with her, my DBro who was also visiting told me "You've turned out exactly like mum" .

I'm glad my grown up DDs still like me

I'm 59 therefore a baby boomer, the only use I can envisage for the Daily Mail would be during a national lavatory paper shortage.

You've just described my mum! My mum is 69 and growing up in Tottenham, she showed me how to be open minded and to focus on similarities, not differences. Now she too has become a DM victim, speaks in blanket terms about various people and is bloody hard work. I am a little hot tempered and soap boxy and really have to bite my tongue when I'm with her. I think some of it is fear of everyone as she gets older, everything and everyone represents a threat in some way, be it muggers or people who could affect her financial security by draining the country dry.

Mine irritates me because she is such a bimbo! All she talks about is shopping, dancing and dogs. Sometimes a bit of neighbourly gossip gets chucked into the mix. She texted me today to say she's bought me some shoes for Christmas as I sounded so keen about them on the phone earlier... I wasn't keen earlier, I was trying to break up a fist fight between the DCs so just kept enthusiastically agreeing with whatever she was chattering on about at the time. Turns out it was wine red mary janes with contrasting stitching on the strap...

I'm 51. I would still dearly love to do something that pleases my mother. I never have. When DS was born I loved him so much and cried buckets because I couldn't understand how my mother could ever have told me she didn't want me in the first place and would have had an abortion if it had been legal.

I have never been good enough for her. My moment of realisation was when dd came home from five days with her last year and said "I'm not going again in the holidays, how did you put up with her mum".

For 51 years I have not been pretty enough, not been bubbly enough, been too bookish, been too serious, been too honest, get involved too much with other people, married the wrong man, live in a ghastly house, the children don't socialise enough when I have visitors, etc., etc..

I would still give anything to do something to please her

My mum has become more prickly with age. She used to be a hardcore leftie, and was members of groups such as Greenpeace et al, now she actually reads the Daily Mail, and even worse, agrees with the majority of it's views.

She recently told me to fuck off when having a discussion about something trivial, and had to be corrected by her DH. She seems to like disagreements these days.

However - she has always supported me throughout my life and has been a source of real comfort and help. Although she can be prickly we generally get on great, and we're always sharing recipes, knitting and sewing patterns and stuff for my DC's. She can be a truly amazing woman and nothing could make me properly mad at her. I love her to bits - plus she is always great with my DC's. Even when she has lost patience for everyone else, she will always have time for them. So yes, aging doesn't suit her, but it's a good job she's fabulous in other ways.

I live with mine and she's only in her 50's. We get on brilliantly, couldn't manage without her!
Can't bear to imagine life without her. DH lost his Mum recently and we're all struggling with that but mine has taken on a more maternal role with him which I think has helped him a lot.
She's not perfect but neither am I!

*was a member of such groups as

Oh and she's a bit of a leftie generally.
My gm however is a different kettle of fish. I struggle to see how they are related most of the time.

how many people wish their mum was still around to drive them crazy?

me... I do..my mum died nearly 20 years ago. Dh's mum is enough for judgey comments though. My mum was quite quiet so I don't think she would have criticised openly, MIL has no problem with that

It's not just your mums, I've been going to WI for the last 10 years and the post war lot are far harder to get on with than the lovely old ladies who were alive during the war and now are sadly either dead or very elderly.
The some of the 55 to 70 bunch a bit huffy and smug.

bugger, I lost my post.

The gist was that I write off my Granny's 'bad behaviour' with the mantra 'old people do weird stuff'

I am going to remember that so I don't take it personally when my mum goes fruitloop in future.

And for when I am old and have a stick and wear purple.

I'm 52 ,I think I may have hit the huffy stage

Well, my dc seem to think its normal, they're always telling me I'm weird.

I seem to have gone in cycles with my own mother. We weren't close at all when I was a teen, then once I had dc of my own she became a fab gran - all down to guilt I think. Then, once the dc were a bit older, things from the past started to re-occur to me, and I became resentful. Now, though, that she's older and not in great health, I can see her as a person in her own right, rather than just as "my Mum", and she's actually quite awe inspiring.

For her time she was forward thinking and dynamic, which when I was a dc, were qualities that took her away from me. She hasn't really changed much, she's still amazing in lots of ways, it's just that I can appreciate her more now not that I'm not small and craving her time and attention.

My mum is a war baby and is pretty tolerant, DHs lovely eccentric mum would have been 85 last month. The judgy baby boomers certainly wouldn't have coped with her She never bothered about clothes, went horse riding, to drama group, church choir, gardened and walked miles and kept a wonderful messy house with mad cats. The tiresome middle class empty nesters of the generation below are so dull and I miss her

I don't get on badly with my mum, she's the best mum in the world (I really believe that, I didn't copy it off a mug, honest!) and I can't imagine her not being here. She's my number one supporter. She is a normal human being though, and does have her odd moments of slight intolerance but given she has put up with me for over four decades, I can forgive her that. I don't go on about it on mumsnet precisely because so many people don't seem to get on with their mums, or don't get much help from them, and mine is just the opposite of that and it might make me sound smug (and if I'm honest, I am smug about having such a good mum).

Mine hasn't gone more right wing but just so much more intense - all she talks about is politics and how much she hates Ed balls (she's a leftie btw).

She has become increasingly belligerent and irrational and sees everything in black and White terms. She's become increasingly negative and argumentative and I hate it when she's had a drink (which she seems to do more of now and earlier in the day). She's also become quite emotional and constantly repeats herself , lecturing me on bizarre African tribes or Cornish basket weaving techniques, in which I have no interest. Her decision making is also totally whimsical and rash which I find worrying (as it often involves money).

I feel like a total bitch saying this as of course I love her but after 2 days I'm going absolutely nuts as it's all so intense and negative. It makes me feel a bit sad as I don't remember her being like this when I was growing up - she was so much more easy going and positive.

My mother drives me crazy. I'm glad there's a stretch of water between us,, it means she can't visit unexpectedly. Also, she won't stay at our house because we're living in sin (not her words, but that's what she means). Good reason not to get married in a hurry.

Of course, daughters and DsiL don't send the mothers crazy, do they...

Can't do right for doing wrong...

I thought it was me having less time and energy since having the DC to deal with her.

MIL - when things were going on with her life did get difficult for a few years in late 50 - sick parents, jobs loss, fear of ageing ect - but it passed.

Think with mum - it is more awareness that I'm never going to be good enough and she is always going to find fault. Think she loves me but doesn't like me, or my DH and my DC are less important than other DGC. Suppose I have less tolerance as time and energy get more sparse.