Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

with my mother wanting some sort of secret club with my daughter?

77 replies

VickyCM · 13/12/2011 22:56

I don't know if I am overreacting but my mother keeps talking to my daughter (she is three months - I know, I know) and saying things like ' Nanna is going to spoil you and you mustn't tell Mummy' and ' we will have more fun than with Mummy' and my favourite ' love Nanna, hate Mummy day' it is driving me mad and I think she thinks it is funny or she is trying to be funny but I am getting upset by it. If I try to tell her to do something my way she usually sees it as a huge slight and gets angry. Also she tips the pram to see my daughter and this drives me mad- I have told her not to do it but she still does!
vent over!! not sure how I should tell her to stop as she can be unreasonable.

OP posts:

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 16:48

I hope you're right exotic, I really do. I just remember having my dad's mum in my face telling me that my parents didn't love me and I should go and live with her.

I was 16.

Oh, nobody loves you like grandma, ooh you love your grandma don't you.

It didn't stop.

It doesn't always stop.

But, like I say. I sincerely hope you are right and I am totally wrong. So wrong there'll be a picture of me next to the word Wrong in the dictionary

Crosshair · 14/12/2011 16:56

In my experience it gradually gets worse and you end up resenting spending time with them. :(

I felt instantly better saying ''Look when you say its not nice and upsets me, how would you feel if someone said that to you''. At the time she laughed it off, but shes been alot nicer since.

KatieScarlett2833 · 14/12/2011 17:02

MIL would have loved to usurp me with DD and tried like a bear for many years with the "don't tell Mummy" and the "You love Grandma best" shite, despite me pulling her up every single time.

DD is now 16 and thinks her Granny is a mentaller. She actually said the other day that she vastly prefers my mum because, "she is normal". Actually feel a bit sorry for her now, still ,what goes around and all that.

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 17:07

Are you seriously saying that this gave you a close and loving relationship with your grandmother, Hecate, and that you would have gone to live with her? I wouldn't have only tolerated her when I had to, and at 16yrs I certainly wouldn't have believed her.

WilsonFrickett is a good example-the baby has to put up with it-the DCs doesn't!

I suppose it depends on what OP childhood was like and whether her mother is toxic or just unhinged with a baby!
If there is a long standing problem with her mother/daughter relationship then perhaps she ought to take it further BUT if she had a good childhood, they have a generally good relationship and she isn't toxic you can just put down as 'a phase' and ignore.

I would suspect Hecate that your mother and grandmother had issues going way back if she was still 'in the phase' 16 yrs later and you din't feel able to say 'don't be silly Grandma!'

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 17:11

Exactly-stay the normal one and don't get drawn in to competive, possessive, silly behavior'.

DCs are not silly, people can get all possessive over them as babies, but they make their long lasting relationships with those they feel comfortable with-and they are not the ones who go about 'Granny's little angel' etc!

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 17:16

No. I didn't suggest that it did. I don't see where I said that it did. I've read it back and I don't see anywhere I said that it was a good thing. In fact, I used it to illustrate that it doesn't always stop and it's a bad thing. Where did I say that it gave me a close and loving relationship with my grandmother? That you reply asking if I am "seriously saying" that? Where did I say that, seriously or otherwise?

My point was that it isn't nice. It doesn't make you feel good to hear that. It's not nice to have someone saying things about your parents. And it's better to stop them before the child has to grow up hearing that shit.

And no. I was in no fit state to say anything to her.

When I refused to go to stay with her, she screamed that she wanted nothing more to do with me.

I obliged.

But this isn't my story and I don't mean to turn it into that. My point was that it isn't nice and it isn't something that - imo and based on my experience - it is necessarily a good idea to remain mute about in the hope that they'll suddenly stop saying such things.

agedknees · 14/12/2011 17:17

I think the hate mummy day is nasty. Next time she says it, ask her if she means to be so rude/nasty.

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 17:38

I think that you missed my point Hecate-it was tongue in cheek. Your grandmother obviously wanted the real close relationship,with you,to say those things, and yet it did the opposite-you didn't like it.
DCs don't-and they make it clear.(and if they don't feel able to make it clear they keep their distance)

mamarara · 14/12/2011 17:44

I have this really badly with FIL. It makes me beyond angry and irrationally stabby. Dd is 2 and we've gone from having a pretty good relationship pre-dd to me not being able to stand spending a single minute with him.

I have gone for the ignore approach simply because aknowledging it seemed to make him worse and me more angry as I could see he knew what he was doing and continued to do it.

Wish I had some helpful advice. Maybe it will get better as dd gets older. Maybe I will conveniently move a very long way away.

Goof luck!

Crosshair · 14/12/2011 17:44

mamarara · 14/12/2011 17:45

Ha good clearly!

newgirl · 14/12/2011 18:02

You see I don't think many kids do walk away from overbearing grandparents. Young children can want to please. Ignoring is ok if the op is a very strong person and won't dwell on it but for many people it can be better to resolve then move forward.

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 18:04

They would have terrified me when small!!

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 18:04

I would have been hiding behind my mother!

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 18:33

ah, I see. I am not very good at reading tongue in cheek, I must be honest. Sorry

I was very confused. I must have read what I'd posted 20 times

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 18:34

Oh, but she didn't want a close relationship, she just wanted to 'win'

I was, to a great extent, irrelevant.

Miggsie · 14/12/2011 18:43

I'm with Hecate here, I also had an insanely controlling granny who told me my parents were horrible and only she loved me, it was terrible growing up like that.
I don't know OP if your mother will do this when the kids are older, but do look out for it. any problem I had as a child was due to to my mother "being a bad mother".

Ir's very unsettling as my granny, I now realise didn't love anyone, but she wanted attention, she wanted to score points off other people and she would shamelessly manipulate her grand children to achieve this. I find the "hate mummy" thing very disturbing when I was about 6 my granny said to me "I'm changing my will so you get my jewellery, my daughter thinks she'll get it all, just because she's my daughter but I don't think she deserves it!"
This was the daughter who waited hand and foot on my granny. And the jewellery was sold years before my granny died.

Anyway, just look out to see if this escalates or slowly fades out after the baby stage disappears. If she keeps it up limit your child's time with her as she'll say all sorts of crap and hurtful things to them.

spartafc · 14/12/2011 18:46

When they walk and get a voice of their own they look at Nanna as if she is a bit weird and move on - this made me laugh! I think it's spot on.
My DM told my DS, when he was maybe 6 months (so she was clearly either saying it for my benefit, or just rambling!) that he 'can tell Grandma anything. Even stuff you can't tell Mummy and it will be our little secret. We don't have to tell Mummy everything'. I just [hmmm] and said something along the lines of 'I'm not sure that would be particularly healthy, would it?'. She said she was joking and I said I was relieved as she had sounded a bit deranged.

JosieZ · 14/12/2011 18:48

OP's mother sounds v odd.

What psychological reasons could cause this behaviour.

Perhaps OP was Daddy's favourite DD. Daddy and mad mother have since divorced. Mad mother is having her revenge -- see if OP likes taking second place in her new daughter's life?????

Just my guess but I bet there is some underlying issue to this uncalled for behaviour.

Beachcomber · 14/12/2011 18:54

The hate mummy thing is weird and very unpleasant.

My reaction to something like that would be to ask the person to repeat what they said.

I often find that when people come out with nasty shit they become quite uncomfortable if you ask them to say it a second time.

I just say a simple 'could you repeat that please' - they either won't and will think about what they just said or they will in which case you say 'what an unpleasant thing to say' and then just stare at them.

My mum is like this with my children - it is because she is needy and toxic.

exoticfruits · 14/12/2011 19:02

Only OP can say whether her mother is generally 'normal' or toxic.

If she is just slightly 'off the wall' with a baby I still think that ignore is a good idea.

If she is toxic and you have never stood up to her-now is the time.

The 2 things are completely different.

(one thing is for sure, Hecate, she didn't 'win')

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 19:08

Ah, in her mind she's a blameless victim, very hard done by.

Mind you, she also talked about how caught in the middle she felt when her husband punched my dad so hard he lifted him off the ground.

Nuff said.

Such people never feel that they are in the wrong, that's the problem. We expect them to think like normal people and see things how we would see them - but if they could do that, they wouldn't behave the way they do in the first place.

I too hope that this woman is just talking shit to a little baby and will knock it on the head as soon as the child is capable of understanding.

BliggOfTheDump · 14/12/2011 19:09

I agree with previous poster. When DD is a bit older she will obviously make up her own mind. Granny doesn't stand a chance.

Original poster

VickyCM · 15/12/2011 08:51

Thanks everyone for your posts. I think that the next time she says anything like that I will say something silly back, she hates confrontation so would probably slam something, walk out etc etc, she can never see anything from another point of you its always me me me me me, she used to say ' when you are mother you will understand' I would love to say ' yeah, now I do understand...that you are manipulative and unhinged!!' I love my mUm but there is always something, she tries to buy affection and the emotional blackmail is off the chart. At the moment we are dreading boxing day as my MIL will be there who (due to distance) doesn't see my little one so much, I just hope my mother is not possessive and play games, oh dear god! I am taking a bit of distance from her as it has become too much and I need my own space.
As for some of your questions- I had a pretty unhappy childhood as my father (passed away last year) was controlling and they were in a loveless marriage for years and years but didn't do anything about it so as children we lived under a black cloud the entire time. Mum always wants to talk about her problems I listen and give advice- I have done all my life. I think the problem is that she is unhappy with her lot and she is clinging onto us, I can see it in her face that she is envious of our life as we are very very happy- really sad really. ON the other hand some days she is 'normal' and as nice as pie- head f*ck really!!
Again, thanks very much, really appreciate it! I think I could write a book about my mother and the unhinged things she has done. I told her yesterday that if she was upset about my brother to talk to him not me - she slammed the phone down!!! wtf?! grrrrr

OP posts:

exoticfruits · 15/12/2011 09:14

In the light of that information I think that it probably needs tackling head on-she sounds like Hecate's grandmother. My ignore advice was really for someone who just a bit besotted and OTT. She isn't going to stop, so I would say that the time has come to say something now.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Swipe left for the next trending thread