My mum and I were on the way to my house with my 11-week old daughter. I parked, put my daughter in her pram and mum offered to push it. As I was shutting the boot I turned round and mum was pushing the pram up a slight hill, towards a blind corner IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.
I shouted at her to get onto the pavement, but it is such a tight corner, there are barriers on either side so she had to come back down the hill to do so. My road is a residential but reasonably busy through road with cars and motorbikes flying down it at all hours! My heart was pounding at this point.
I caught up with her and said 'please don't do that next time you're coming up this road alone with the baby' (she helps out a lot with her) and she sort of half acknowledged this. I can't actually remember what she said but it wasn't much. I think I then pointed out a car coming down the street at full speed, saying 'see what I mean, they don't look' to which she replied something like 'I know, I forgot where I was for a second'
As we went into the house I then said something like 'I feel really shaken by that mum' and she started shouting something like 'I've said sorry, what more do you want? Why are you still going on about it?' I replied very calmly and reasonably 'look she's my daughter, of course I'm going to worry when you do something like that'. Her (screamed) response was basically along the lines of 'I've raised children, I'm not a complete idiot, how dare you speak to me like this, I don't have to take it etc etc.' She was shouting so loudly that I said 'look I think you should go home.'
She then gave me a lecture about how I don't respect her and how I need to do some serious growing up as I have a child (?) and she was upset that I was banishing her from my house (no, just asked her to leave) and keeping her away from her adored grandaughter (was doing nothing of the sort), but to phone when I was ready to show my mother some respect. It felt like a massive overreaction and I was made to feel like the one in the wrong and an awful daughter.
Ok so, trying to be objective here, maybe I did say how worried I was about the incident one too many times, but I was genuinely shaken. She is my first child and I feel ridiculously anxious and overwhelmed with love for her. I just felt my mum needed to acknowledge how serious what she did was, then we could have moved on.
She is a wonderful mum and a fantastic grandmother, she adores my daughter and has been an absolute lifesaver to me in these tricky first weeks. I think the world of her and, apart from my husband, there is no one I'd usually trust more with my child. It was a silly mistake and it's not like I wanted to turn it into a massive argument, but I just couldn't help what I said. I really don't feel like I've done anything wrong, but prepared to hear your genuine thoughts...