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?

Bigmouth I am the same. My mother has made some choices and behaved in ways that I made a conscious decision to forgive, overlook, try to understand, whatever, until I had a child of my own. I feel like such an idiot for having been understanding. I now have to cope with her unpredictability with my child, the effect her bad choices had on me, and the prospect of years and years of more of the same.

lesley33 I am just not that good at switching off! I like people and don't want to have to switch off! But your advice is the same as dh's and he is brilliant at it so I should probably listen

Oh how I wish my mum was a DM reader! But no, she is hard core Guardianista who blames every single woe in the world from the weather to the broken dishwasher to childhood illiteracy on TONY BLAIR and his ILLEGAL WAR.

Now she's threatening to camp out with the protesters in the town centre, but luckily she's also bone idle and can't live 5 mins without central heating and hot and cold running Amazon so I don't think she'll actually do it :)

Seriously, my mum is annoying, contrary, domineering etc to ludicrous degree, but I love her to tiny pieces. When I needed her, she was my rock. I couldn't live without her, and I love watching her growing relationship with my wee DS.

I just let all the annoying stuff slide - she isn't going to change, so why get het up.

"I don't think I can truly forgive her for some of her choices now I have my own family. "

I don't know some of the crap decisions we makes are really what you'd call 'choices' though. You get steered a certain way by circumstances, by your own experiences and your own inadquacies. I would say that, for example, my mother was quite badly neglected as a child (from what I've heard) but the circumstances my granny found herself if were exceptional and I am not sure there were any choices for her.

I have found myself making compromise all the time since I had my children, and those seem to get more frequent as they get older. Because nothing is simple. I would hate for my children to be describing me in the ways mothers are being described on this thread When I have made my way through it all the best way I could rather than the best way.

My Mum and Dad drove me to distraction but I think that is an elderly parent's duty. :o

'Choices' was probably the wrong word but in a way it felt truer and kinder than saying her inadequacies' which protrays her as a victim of circumstance unable to break free of her poor upbringing. I love mum but she doesn't make it easy. She was horrible to my Dad much of the time and blamed him for her unhappiness this may not have been her choice but the consequences were a very unhappy tense family much of the time, then my father died and the tension and unhappiness continued.

This is only part of the story it was not all bad and my mum and dad were/ are lovely people and I love/d them but they like all adults should be accountable for their actions as I will be one day by my own f'd up children.

This is such a sad thread. I'm looking at my 7 year old DD who, at this point in her life, thinks I'm the "best mummy in the whole world" and wondering what she will think of me when we're both older.

In my mother's case, the word 'choices' is appropriate for some of the things she did.
Yes she's a product of her upbringing too but she's not daft, at least not when talking about other people's children.
Anyway, long story, yada yada...best to try to forget it all.

I am sure that some mothers have deliberately made the wrong choice through selfishness or lack of thought but I'd be willing to bet they are in the minority .

Maybe I am confusing forgiveness with forgetting. I will never forget what an arse my mum has been at times but it's forgiven.

JessieLeGrund don't let it make you sad. We all have our faults. The fact we can see faults in our parents doesn't make our love for them any less.

My mum was slightly possessive and controlling (esp. after my dad died), very stubborn and slightly selfish. That said she was the kindest person I will ever know with the biggest heart and I raise my children in her shadow hoping I am making her proud and that I can be half the mum she was.

Mine has become a lot less uptight about many things since I was a teenager during Ireland's divorce and abortion referendum years. She hasn't really changed her political sympathies but she has got a life now and doesn't feel the need to dwell on things as she used to, especially since she learned to drive at 68ish after years of encouragement to do so.

She has taken to doing some really reckless things apparently just to defy her age (almost 80) like climbing into the attic on a step ladder or up the same ladder to wash windows, painting ceilings, yelling at a friend of the local drug pusher to get lost and stop knocking on her door late one night, leaving her alarm button necklace thing upstairs neatly folded during the day. She also refuses to take nutrition and health advice until years of nagging have elapsed, and will not turn on the heat. One fine day she will die of hypothermia and it will be completely her own fault.

The most annoying thing is endless criticism of her older sister. Endless, and always the same stupid complaints. I say, yes, hmm, yes, hmm, and even the occasional mischievous 'oh isn't that just lovely, good for Auntie Z' to wind her up; she doesn't seem to notice that I change the subject at the first sign that she is running out of steam.

Though all that being said, I am waiting anxiously for one of the DCs to publish a first novel...

jessie, don't be sad. My parent's drove me crazy but I adored them and wouldn't have changed them for the world and they definitely were the best Mummy and Daddy in the world, both when I was little and an adult. I'd love to be able to be driven mad by them again.

Not read all of the thread - tis very long so apologies if this has already been said. My theory is that your parents become more irritating the older they get so that when they eventually pass over to the other side it doesn't hurt quite as much as it would otherwise as you have become slightly distanced and detached from them.

My mother is like everyone else's by the sound of it. I think her more rabid moments are caused by the aches and pains of aging and generally being quite angry that she is getting older. I try to be tolerant.

My mum is one of those people who just doesn't have a bad bone in her body, I meet so many ego-driven people at work and in society that my mum seems like an angel in comparison, to the point where I almost feel a bit protective of her, she naturally never says a bad word about anyone and if she does she takes it back, very gentle and never irritating no. There it is.

She sounds wonderful crackedblackpepper - you are very lucky

This thread started funny but is now so sad. So much of who we are is infuenced by our parents,i realise that now and sometimes wonder why i never lose the plot but the tuth is i cant be arsed to taint my life further.

My parents split when i was 2 and i hardly saw my Dad who seemed happy for us to live in hovels whilst he remained in the family home.We moved frequently,i had to change schools give up dancing which i loved and even lived in one place with no bathroom and was using a potty at about 6.

We were poor so i was bullied as i never had nice things but Mum seemd to always have her fags.

She was kind and loving tho to me and my brother but bitter towards my Dad and didnt hide it.

She remarried when we were about 10 and 12 and had 2 more babies who i was expected to look after whilsrt she worked cos sf was a lazy twat.
They couldnt afford for me to go through college even tho i was accepted into RADA and so i eneded up running away and dancing on cruise ships.
I then got pg at 17 and had to move out and have watched my sisters have a charmed life with 2 parents when i had nobody and go through Uni.
She clearly favours them and has 2 pics of them on the wall in graduation gear but didnt even attend mine
They get together at xmas and not me,and get far more spent on them even tho they are now adults too.
My Mum openly tells me about the camera she has bought one of them whilst handing me a small gift.

My Dad however after years of not bothering has decided he is now lonely as the women arent so keen anymore.He tries to be my friend but the truth is i dont know him.I dont even like him,he has adm attitude and is a sexist pig and i dont want to hear about his sex life etc.He never listens just talks.

Sorry for the rant but ive never said it outloud.

Thank God for my sanity,friends and fab dh and dc's.

Hi ledkr

I'm so sorry to hear how little support you had growing up. You've had it so tough but come out so strong. You should be really proud of everything you've achieved.

Do you have any pictures of your family you could give to your mother in a nice frame for Christmas ?! Just a thought. Hopefully she might put it up and that would be nice for you and your DC's to see when you go round there.

Sometimes I think we have to think more about the new family we're creating than about the one we came from, especially when it's been as tough and un-supportive as yours has.

"Look to the future now, it's only just begun ..."

juggling, we may well be long lost sisters.... My mum also had beast cancer a while ago but is perfectly fine. I now feel like a bitch for saying bad things about her, but they are true and it has made me feel better! i also remembered something else she does, talk over me. As in, someone asks me a question and my mum answers it for me. Intensely irritating!

Like others have said, just because your parents are irritating, doesn't mean you don't love them. I also find my DH irritating occassionally (hi honey, if you're reading this!), but i still married him recently. That's life, no one is perfect all the time.

To answer the OP, YES!

My God is my mother irritating. I love her so much, but she makes me want to scream!

I can't look at another word of this without countering this indulgence in petty first world problems, the level of irritation felt correlates with the level of expectation people place upon their mothers who carried us and did their own best for us, don't we need to grow up, stop expecting them to be super human and put their needs first instead of letting them irritate us they wont be here forever every day is precious?

Just because people may have bigger problems somewhere else doesn't mean a problem isn't a problem for the person experiencing it.

There's always one, isn't there?

I can't look at another word of this without countering this indulgence in petty first world problems

Oh dear. Hair shirt for one.