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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Argh - my mother..how do I respond if at all.

62 replies

Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:12

I have teenagers and this week they are doing my head in. All off school and not doing the things I have asked while I am at work. They have been sanctioned appropriately.

My partner (not the kids dad) works away so I am effectively (and did for 5 years before we met) bringing the kids up alone.

My mum is great in the respect that she lives away but she has always come and stayed with the kids one weekend/week a year so I can go away.

Thing is I can't ever ask her for parenting advice. She has always sniggered and laughed in front of me and the kids when they have been naughty and thinks it's a big joke and kind of life's revenge on me because I was a nightmare teen who went right off the rails (partly due to not a great childhood).

Just had a rant on FB about my teens (typical self entitled lazy shit - they are on the whole pretty good kids) and she posts "I'm saying nothing" and loads of smiley faces.

It drives me MENTAL it is so unsupportive and I just never know how to respond without being accused of "over reacting".

How do I respond? Do I just bite my toungue? Feel like saying Fuck. Off.

Sorry stressful day and venting here rather than at my mother Smile

OP posts:
MakeItACider · 23/07/2015 21:16

How do you respond to her? Have you ever told her you find her unsupportive?

My DM is a PITA with comments and 'advice' but she knows that it will spark me telling her that given how she parented me (badly!) she has no right to make those judgments, so she now manages to bite her tongue most times as she doesn't find the repercussions very pleasant.

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:19

I just don't say anything - it truly upsets me though.

I think if she feels the need to do it she should say it to her friends and not to me esp not in front of the kids it totally undermines me.

OP posts:
Mintyy · 23/07/2015 21:20

If your own childhood was so awful, why would you want your Mum in your life anyway?

Don't go venting on Facebook! your children will see it. Not nice.

DoreenLethal · 23/07/2015 21:21

Can you delete her comment and block her?

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:21

I hid my children from the post.

I forgave my parents. I love them.

OP posts:
Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:25

I don't want to block her.

I would like to respond in a humorous way which tells her I do not appreciate it.

My eldest is 18 I think I've left this way too late Confused

OP posts:
chickenfuckingpox · 23/07/2015 21:26

were you ever this bad? grandparents always say "you were like this when you were x y z" crock of shite actually because i know i dam well wasn't i really wish i had the guts to call my mom on it but we don't speak now so it would be pointless

i would delete her reply it would make me fume if i had to look at it!

my dd is fine just fine but on a day i wish to vent i need someone to say she is a little shit isn't she tell her to pack it in or i will come and tell her Grin

poppym12 · 23/07/2015 21:29

i have this a lot too. i wasn't really a problematic teen either, just not as fucking perfect quiet, studious and stay at home as my elder sister.

my son (only grandchild) is 16 and over the years i've felt like cutting all contact as she has constantly enabled his crappy behaviour, attitude and been very smug saying 'you were just like it' whilst he was there too which has therefore made it seem like i have no right in telling him that he shouldn't be doing something or he should think twice.

a couple of years ago i found out he was smoking. i stopped giving him lunch money etc. she sneaked money to him because she refused to believe he was spending it on anything other than sweets Hmm.

similar situation now where i know he and his friends sometimes obtain alcohol and (i think) weed. my parents are 80. they idolise their grandchild. i don't want to hurt them but i think i have to be honest with them and say that they by sneakily giving him money, they could be funding a drug problem.

sorry, i have no advice to offer.

MakeItACider · 23/07/2015 21:30

You can forgive them, and understand why they were bad parents. But you can still put your foot down and not let them speak to you like that, nor undermine you in front of your DC. They are not mutually exclusive you know. Because the undermining is a FRESH action, and needs pulling up on as such.

I had a LOT of very loud arguments with my DM about her interference. I would bring up examples of her very poor parenting and tell her she didn't have the right to criticise me. It upset her a great deal, and she tried to tell me (loudly) that she had learned from her mistakes and didn't want me to make them. I told her I had learned from her mistakes sufficiently, thank you, as I was the one that had to live through them.

Twas a load of crap though, her interfering had nothing to do with her mistakes, but were because I was doing things differently to how she thought I should do them. Very much a 'my way or the highway' sort of person. But the though of me actually taking the highway scared her sufficiently to back right off.

TendonQueen · 23/07/2015 21:31

I'd respond with 'Yes Mum, I really think you should say nothing' followed by at least four passive aggressive smileys.

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:31

Aw Poppy my mum isn't quite that bad.

I was dreadful - imagine the worst I was it.

Kind of comforting I am not nuts in finding this difficult Smile

OP posts:
diddlediddledumpling · 23/07/2015 21:32

"Yeah, thanks for your support, mum Hmm " or somesuch.
Or keep it off Facebook and send it in a text. Or "way to kick me when I'm down, mum". or just have a conversation with her about it.

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 21:40

Tbh I wouldn't dream of telling my mum what I really think in regards to her. Blush

OP posts:
fourtothedozen · 23/07/2015 21:50

How old are your lids? What were they supposed to do that they didn't?

teeththief · 23/07/2015 21:56

I imagine she finds it funny that you get wound up by your teenagers' bad behaviour (which I guess is just not helping around the house or lazing about) when she managed to survive you 'going off the rails' and the worst dreadful we can imagine.

If you tell her it's upsetting you then maybe she'll stop though.

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 22:05

She never really takes me seriously - so I don't.

OP posts:
bigbluebus · 23/07/2015 22:06

Don't say you've left it too late with your eldest just because they are 18.
My DS is also 18 and has barely lifted a finger around the house up until now. He is awaiting A level results and hoping to go to Uni. He was supposed to be looking for a job for the Summer but didn't get far. He claims he's "on holiday". DH told him he's not - he's unemployed!

I told him that no way was he lounging in bed most of the day and playing on gadgets so each day he gets given jobs to do. He responds with all sort of abuse such as "you're taking the p**s" and "I thought slavery had been abolished" but I just remind him that he is an adult now and has to do his share. He has hoovered, mopped floors, dusted, tidied his very messy bedroom, deep cleaned the bathroom, ironed shirts and cooked dinner a number of times. I haven't paid him a penny - he lives here, he does it - not negotiable.

Just insist the jobs are completed and stop doing anything for the 18 year old unless they co-operate. They're no longer a child - stop treating them like one.

fourtothedozen · 23/07/2015 22:06

Maybe she doesn't like to hear you badmouthing her grandchildren in public,
It would make me wince.

AnyoneforTurps · 23/07/2015 22:09

YANBU to be annoyed with your DM but YABcompletelyU and daft to rant about your teens on FB. Even if they are not your FB friends, it will get back to them and their mates, humiliate them and make them less likely to respect you, so it's totally self-defeating if you want their behaviour to improve. If your DC are your FB friends, it's incredibly passive-aggressive and childish. It sounds as if both you and your DM need to grow up, if you want the next generation to take you seriously.

Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 22:09

I meant too late with my mum Grin

I was hardly bad mouthing them - I had a general vent about teens.

OP posts:
Original poster
Weathergames · 23/07/2015 22:10

Which my DC couldn't see and I am not FB friends with their friends.

OP posts:
Kiwiinkits · 23/07/2015 22:13

Please don't humiliate your own kids on FB. It's not nice.

Kiwiinkits · 23/07/2015 22:14

Oh. X post.

AnyoneforTurps · 23/07/2015 22:15

You are very naive if you think this won't get back to your DC. For a start, your DM may tell them. And equally naive to believe that they won't (correctly) interpret a "general vent about teens" to mean them.

How would you feel if your DM posted a "general rant about adult daughters" on FB?

Sandbrook · 23/07/2015 22:16

Why would you rant about your kids behaviour on facebook? Surely it is airing your dirty laundry. It seems your kids have no respect for you or you for them. Same goes for your mother