to be so angry? mum 'can't remember' if I had chickenpox or not

[dreamingbohemian]

Okay I have a rather fraught relationship with my mother so am prepared to be told I'm being unreasonable.

My DS has just come down with chickenpox. As it happens, my parents are visiting. I asked them what I looked like when I had it, and my stepfather says, Oh you never had chickenpox, you had measles.

Well, this was news to me! My mother has always regaled me with stories about how awful I looked when I had chickenpox, how the family called me Spot, etc.

Now she says, oh right, it was measles. She 'can't remember' if I also had chickenpox.

AIBU or is this total bullshit? My reasons for being angry are:

1. I took no precautions re CP when I was pregnant because I thought I'd already had it.

1. I spend a lot of time with the ILs which includes tiny babies and now a pregnant SIL -- now that I know I might get it from my son, I won't go near them, but I would have seen them this week otherwise and could have been infectious.

1. I could have got the vaccine myself years ago, or gotten one for DS. Now I just have to wait and see if I get it too in the next week.

I know normally chickenpox is no big deal, I'm not freaking out or anything, but it can indeed be serious sometimes and I'm just so angry that my mum has never mentioned anything or thought about it. She does know the risks because now she's super worried about DS, so I don't know what her deal is.

AIBU to be angry?

forgetting whether your DC had CP

For those born in the 1960s or 1970s or possibly the 1980s, why would anyone bother remembering if we'd had chickenpox? If we'd had it, we wouldn't get it again. If we hadn't had it, we probably would if we were exposed to it. There was no vaccination. The effects in pregnancy weren't remotely as well understood, and even if they had been, there wasn't a lot that could be done about it. Why was it more interesting than flu? You were ill, you got better, end of.

"Why was it more interesting than flu? You were ill, you got better, end of."

Actually, when the OP did or didn't catch CP, flu probably was considered a bigger deal. It could (and still can) be fatal. CP less so. Most children who get CP aren't particularly ill. And it's only fairly recently that the danger to pregnant women has been widely known, so unlike rubella, it wouldn't have been memorable for that reason either.

But correct me if I'm wrong, but back then people used to take their kids to 'chickenpox parties', so they would get it out of the way when they were young. Even if people didn't know all the possible complications and there was no vaccine, people did know that it was better to have it young and it could be really bad if you got it when older, right? Doesn't that make it slightly more memorable?

My mum doesn't seem to remember a thing about my childhood. I remember doing a school project once and needing to know my birth weight and day of the week I was born etc; mum didn't have a clue. She also has no idea which vaccinations I've had but "thinks" I've had everything.

makes me feel a bit shit that she doesn't remember any of this stuff, so I know where you're coming from.

Sorry but YABU. I'd be much more hurt if my mum couldn't remember my birth weight than if I'd had chicken pox. I asked mine and she said she thought I'd had it but wasn't fully sure. It didn't bother me at all that she only thought it instead of making notes about it.

I think your annoyance must be clouded by other issues with her. Get tested now and have the vaccine if you're thinking of having another child. Then forget all about it.

Sorry but YABU, my mother cannot remember giving birth to me.

In fairness, even if she thought you had chicken pox, you might not have.

A few months ago my kids came down with chicken pox - or so the creche said. I thought it was hand, foot and mouth. The GP said he couldn't differentiate without testing as they look exactly the same.

Now they have the same rash again - but more on their torsos, and less on their limbs - so I'm pretty certain that it was HFM last time, and CP this time.

But you can't be sure.

Chickenpox can be horrible when you are older. I had it at 16 and was really ill but children do not seem to get too poorly with it.

I know people who don't know if they have had it because their parents cannot remember for sure, especially those with a few siblings.

My mum can't remember if I had CP or not either - this was a massive problem when I was pregnant with DS and my DNs all caught it.
My medical records were in transit as we'd recently moved, and when they arrived had no mention of CP anyway. DM said she would never have taken me to the Docs for such a minor illness and risk infecting others.

My mum had kept a little journal for DSis and I of our early years, but these only went up to age 4 or so, again, no mention of CP on mine.
She explained that as we'd had pretty much the full list of childhood diseases, mumps measles rubella etc we'd probably had CP too, and I couldn't remember either!

I ended up having a complete palava with hospital blood tests and being sent from pillar to post, getting tutted at by everyone concerned, as apparently it was all my fault!

Suffice to say, if DS gets it and is dealt with at home, I will most certainly call the doc and have it added to his records.

I was mildly annoyed with my mother at the time as it was so inconvenient, but honestly, it wasn't seen as such a big deal when I was a child and she isn't one for details at the best of times.

YABU. No one in my family could remember if I had had CP as a child.

And in my area, it isn't routine to test for immunity to CP in pregnancy, otherwise when I came into contact with CP, and there was the uncertainty of whether I had immunity, they wouldn't of had me in asap to do a blood test as they would already have known.

YABU. I'm one of 3 siblings (an average amount) but my mum can't remember which of us had chicken pox or anything else for that matter! She gets us all mixed up quite frequently and she knows "1 or 2" of us had chicken pox but doesn't know who!

My mum did this when my boys had chickenpox last year. "Oh, I can't remember if you had it or not".

Luckily, I could, as I was a bit older and remember spending summer days sitting, itching, in granny's garden as I had to miss school.

In my mum's case it's just being vague. Understand why this is annoying though.

Sounds like she's been a bit daft, but luckily it looks from other posts as though you can find out if you've had it.

LongTailed I know your approach is the one I should have, mildly annoyed but understanding. Thanks for laying it out like that.

Jenny That's rotten. Thanks for understanding.

YABU. Neither of my parents can remember if I had chicken pox or not. I got a test done by the doctor when I was pregnant. It's not really any hassle.

yabu, parents are allowed to forget analects of their children's illnesses

.I expect you will too.

I agree - my mum is very hazy on which of us has had which childhood illnesses. In part, I think, because there were so many more childhood illnesses back then (now are children are vaccinated against many of them). Also the passage of time. And also because they just weren't seen as that big a deal, compared to nowadays.

Plus, as a PP said, it can be incredibly difficult to distinguish the rash illnesses from each other. My dad was a GP, and he always dreaded children being brought in with unidentified rashes because oftentimes unidentified was how they stayed. One of his colleagues missed a case of meningitis where the sufferer tragically died, and my dad always said that it was a case of 'there but for...'

Has anyone suggested getting an immunity test? It might set your mind to rest.

Don't rely on thinking they would have told you if you weren't immune when pregnant. True, they probably SHOULD have, but mistakes/oversights happen. Get it checked with a blood test (or actual medical notes) before you go near SIL.

YABU, my youngest is only 12 and I cannot honestly remember whether he ( or the third one) has had chicken pox. I think I only remember the other two having it as I had just gone back fter maternity leave and first one got it and was ill for 10 days, then the other and I was at missing so much time at work. Like many others have said it wasn't considered a particularly big deal, even that recently, plus having it does not confer life long immunity. I have had it twice and still needed to be vaccinated against it ( work related). I don't consider myself to be a spectacularly awful or disinterested parent, which seems to be what you are implying.

Do you know, I have a fraught relationship with my mum (it's much better know, but we didn't really bother that much with each other from when I was 19 to my late 20s) her misremembering a childhood illness wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Strangely I had a very similar conversation with her at the weekend re what age myself & my sister had our tonsils out. She had our ages completely wrong and that was several night hospital stays. Honestly I hadn't even thought twice about it until I read your OP.

I also agree chickenpox really was just a common childhood illness when I was growing up. German measles was the "big thing"

I've 3 kids - I could tell you the date of each of the elder girls first tooth coming up - I don't have a clue when dd3 got her first tooth and shes not 3 yet

I had whooping cough last year. It was horrible. I initially thought it couldn't be whooping cough but when discussing with my mother she suddenly said "Oh yes I remember now there was some sort of hoo haa (sp?) about vaccinations in the seventies so we didn't have you vaccinated, I didn't want you to come to any harm"

Me - "what any vaccinations?"

Mum "No, none"

Me - "didn't you think you might mention this?"

Mum - "well I didn't think about it until now. I think it was you anyway.. could have been your sister... No, definitely you."

Your mum isn't the only one.

I think your rage with her goes deeper than this. Is this just one thing in a very long line?

Sorry, just got back to this - dreaming, yes, it was mean to make fun of a sick child!

I hope this doesn't come across as telling you what you already know - but I think if you'd asked an AIBU if it was ok to be upset given your mum had spent so much time making fun of you for it, in those words, the reaction might have been different. And I think the way you expressed it in the OP is very much that you used her words - she 'can't remember', but the issue is not what a good mother should or shouldn't remember, it's whether her behaviour as a whole was kind to you. And I can totally understand this episode having an extra sting when she'd behaved like that.