Mum makes me feel guilty about my kids yet I hardly had the perfect childhood.

[lunamoon]

My mum has visited today and after she left I felt quite pissed off towards her.

Quite often she will make a comment along the lines of "Don't you let dd1 go on the bus alone."
oR "DD2 shouldn't walk to her friends house alone."

She queried my ds walking to rugby training alone. The rugby pitch is directly behind my house and the entrance is at the end of a row of about 15 houses. He is 13 years old!!!!

What irritates me the most is that I was never picked up or collected from friends houses, I always had to walk home and I was much younger than my dcs.

I have pointed this out to my mother. Her response is always to say that it wasn't dangerous then and that people didn't have time to go out and murder people because they were too tired after working all day!!

She always asks after dcs if they are not in and will follow the comment with are they alone, who are they with etc etc and she always makes me feel like I am at fault.

I feel that I am a good mother and always put my children first.
We live in a quiet cul de sac in a village and my children are not particularly streetwise but I do want them to be independant.

AIBU?
Is it more dangerous nowadays or are we just more aware of danger and what can I say to my mother to make her back off.
Dcs are 15, 13 and 10 btw.

From your description YANBU. They are all older now. I would possibly still only let the 10yo go local alone - which sounds like he/she does anyway, but the other 2 are secondary age.

I think you're in a better position to judge the safety of your children then she is/we are. You wouldn't put them in a danger.

I've got the feeling that no amount of you telling her politely will get the message through though

Sounds like she uses your Dc as a convenient way to 'get' at you

Either ignore her or point out that it was dangerous back then - Moors murders etc, but I expect if that shuts her up she will find something else

Youarekidding- I have only just started letting dd2 (10) go to another estate to play, it is still in our village and sometimes I take her myself and her friend's parent brings her home, but yes it is in the same village.
I usually pick dd2 up when she is out with friends too.
My mum pulled a face because I let her travel 25 mins to her gym class alone on the bus for the first time. I then picked her up when it had finished.
I do take her twice a week by car though and also dd2 by car.

Finally I hadn't though of that.
She is quite a "moaner" though lol!!!
Always criticising someone.
She just makes me feel quite bad at times though.

Yanbu

Not as bad as my ex MIL ranting to me about my DD who was 14 at the time being allowed to walk home from her friends 10 minutes up the road. Telling me if anything happened to her it would be MY fault.

I've no evidence to back up this statement, but I recall reading that incidences of child murder by strangers have remained stable over the last 50 years or so.

I believe that most child murders are carried out by a member of the child's family :(

What exactly is your mother's concern?

YANBU, point out to your mum that you are letting them take more and more responsibility as they show you that they can be trusted. If children don't learn how to look after themselves, with your guidance, they won't know how to assess risks and behave when they are older. Its too late then for you to show them.

I doubt she is trying to make you feel like a shit mum, she is probably just worried because of all the Daily Mail type stories that would have you believe the world is a much more dangerous place now than it was 30 or more years ago.

To be fair, in many parts of the country it is... but the danger comes mostly from gangs of kids, not from an increase in paedophiles.

"What exactly is your mother's concern?"

It's all those narsty dirty benefits scrounging scum going round killing teenagers because they are bored, innit? (From the 'people didn't have time to do murders when you were young' part of OP).

OP YANBU.

You're definitely NBU. Who knows better than you how responsible your children are and how safe your neighbourhood is? Kids need to learn to be independent and there has to be a first time for everything. The independence you describe sounds perfectly normal for children your DCs ages.

When I was young (approx. 35 years ago) the local landlord murdered his wife and 2 kids - so he managed to find the time!

She is always full of doom and gloom and always manages to somehow pass this on.
I can switch off when it doesn't directly concern me but it is as though she is trying to guilt trip me into the thinking of what if something happened to dcs when they are out, but what she thinks is the alternative I honestly don't know.
Thinking about it I was much a stay at home child. I did like to go to friends houses but didn't hang around the streets much.
It riles me more because I could have got into danger because she didn't come and pick me up from friends and I was still at infant school.