Anyone else's mum a bit shit at giving advice <lighthearted>

[SooYoon]

I love my mum.

But she's not very reassuring!!

So if I go to her with a little niggle/moan I just end up feeling worse after!!

Can anyone relate??

Mine once said ' oh, you look nice, you must be going through a thin phase '. I borrowed it for my nn on here.

Just picked up new car, feeling happy & glad we've found a good secondhand car at good price etc as was urgently needed for work. All my mum could say was "you live in dodgy part of town so likely it will have been vandalised by end of the week" followed by "maybe you shouldn't be buying a secondhand car, a house in nicer area should be your priority"

Yes. My mum said I should have an abortion when I was 23 - fit and healthy with no history of any health conditions on either side of the baby to be's family - on the grounds that the baby could be born disabled and could need lots of specialist equipment that I wouldn't have the money for

1. WHY?
2. I'm sure we have an NHS for such eventualities.

Dd1 is now 11 and healthy btw.

my mum is great. At 83 she is still going strong. However when I broke up with exDH I was in bits. I could not eat and was probably quite depressed. Luckily my sister was aware and looked after me when she could. My Mum suggested I had put on weight - I had probably lost a stone.

I rang my dm the other day for some advice on a small thing but before that we were discussing aunts stomach bug (lovely I know !!)
(Background aunt and uncle retired , big travellers .... have the money not an issue , their eldest has recently emigrated to Australia )
Dm " well her stomach is still very bad and now she's going to Australia for 3 weeks in sept " hoiky indignant "explains the bug" tone
Me very confused " err right well that's great but what's the connection with being ill?"
Dm " lots of bugs on planes "
Me " mum .... she caught it from her dentist .... In Cardiff. ...what the hell has a plane in 8 months got to do with it?" Soft banging head on 3 year olds lego desk
Dm " well all this travel .... can't be good for you ... did you say you wanted to ask me something? "
Me " actually I'm fairly sure it's very good for you and no never mind now" !!

I was not asking advice from the batty person !! (No before anyone asks no sign whatsoever of issues with dementia at all )

It's gotta be an age thing she moved two young children across continents to move to the states once

So nope not trusting the advice at the mo

Oh dear GinThief, I do say things like that all the time! (Although we live in Londons gang capital and everyone is so desperate to move that it's become a bit of a joke to make!)

My mum is a nightmare. Too many tales to tell. But you are not alone.

Yep.

1. Told her I was worried about taking time off to look after DD for a day coming up. Wasn't sure if me or DH should do it. "Well he's got the proper full time job and is more relied on than you because you're part time."
2. Asked her what she thought of my wedding dress - was it a bit big? Did it need altering? "Good God it doesn't suit you at all. You look like Skeletor."
3. She says my house is horribly cluttered and says we should "empty it" if we want to sell it.
4. And I was advised to get a move on with having children because I was "behind on the conveyor belt of life." I was 30.

After I gave birth to Dd1 my mum visited me in hospital. Said don't bother trying to breastfeed, it's only women with enormous nipples that can breastfeed.....🤔

Omg howling at the image of women with enormous nipples!

The very helpful, 'I just don't let myself get depressed.' Well boofricketyhoo for you mother. She doesn't understand mental illness is an illness and thinks you can choose to be depressed or not.

Not advice as such but a corker. My friend came back from his hols and took his snaps round to his gran's for a cuppa and to spend some time with her. Whilst looking through them, she declared, 'Well, you don't look hungry in any of these.' Ouch!

My DM has absolutely no concept of how house prices and earnings relate. She thinks we should get a bigger house in a nicer area. And her advice is "just put a bit by and you'll be able to afford it."

Argh! We'd probably need £100K more to get that kind of thing. There's no way "putting a bit by" on mine and DH's reasonable but not high earning salaries would make any difference. She and DF had a mortgage in the 60s - long since paid off - and it doesn't compare.

My mum is a bit of a sympathy black hole. When being badly bullied she just told me to ignore them. Yeah, that worked beautifully.

Also on failing to get into my chosen university the first time round I was 'advised' not to bother trying again or I'd always be trying to keep up with the Joneses?! I re-tried and got in, thanks Mum.

mines a retired HV. All her advice is 50 years out of date.

I love my mum. She's ace, but used to give bizarre advice. One I will always remember, there was a horrible bully boy in our school. He used to call all the girls 'dogs' (what a charmer). In the main he was ignored, but my mum said I should say to him 'Well at least one day I will win Crufts. What will you ever achieve?'

Needless to say, I NEVER used that insult.

Enjoying this thread... Mine came to 'help' after DS2 was born, didn't do an awful lot except tell me everything I was doing was wrong, including the way I was BF. Because I 'should be doing 10 minutes on each side only' because that was the way they were told in the 1960s, and they knew all about BF then
She is currently staying with my DSis awaiting the birth of her second DC. Dsis phoned me last night and whispered she doesn't know how she is going to get thru the next day or 2 while not being able to drink lots of wine

My mum is from the "there's always someone worse off than you" school of sympathy. So telling her my woes was always met by terrible stories of people whose legs had fallen off and all 15 children had died from some tropical disease, followed by "now, wouldn't that be much worse than what you've got to deal with?"

For my maternity leave we have had a LOT of applicants. All rubbish though. Mum said "oh what a compliment, they must think you've actually got a good job" Er. I have?!?!

MY mum is also lovely but also gives crap advice.

He basic advice on babies was not to let them cry ever, even for a few moments.

Her advice on childcare has always been to go for the most complicated options possible, and also thought the best way to get an au pair would be "through the church".

She is also from the "it's so terrible that's happened, let's talk about how bad your problems make me feel, it's surely your fault if someone doesn't like you etc." school of sympathy.

My mother is a complete prophet of doom. There is no point confiding in her if i have a problem because she gets in such a state I then worry about having upset her and feel worse. A few years ago I'd messed something up at work and was really stressed out, though my boss was supportive and helping me sort it out. Made the mistake of mentioning it to mother who then phoned daily with plenty of hand wringing, tears and comments like "I just know you are going to lose your job over this" (I didn't). Er, thanks for the support Mum.
Also as a teen, got dumped by my first boyfriend. Mum said "well he was only going out with you until he found someone better". Maybe ... but did you REALLY have to say so?

My darling mum always told me never to have a bath within 3 hours of eating as I could get cramp and die. Don't swallow chewing gum as it stays in your stomach and you end up having to poo out a giant chewing gum ball. Likewise with hair sucking. She told me of many deaths where the cause was a giant hair ball in the stomach. She was a nurse for fucks sake! I think her sarcasm and attempt to get me out of bad habits was lost on me because she died before she could laugh at me I cottoned onto her thinking. Having said that I tell my dc that if they pick their nose there is a chance they could pick their brains out learned that one from mum too

Oh the best one was when I was feeling inferior to my 6ft blond long legged friend (me being a curvy short arse) she said I could be a model. A hand model! ha ha To be fair by then I was 15 and we both laughed about how she was trying to be lovely and supportive but instead made me feel that despite my face at least my hands were good ;)

Sadly, I have no funny anecdotes to add. My mum isn't really one for dolling out advice. Or listening to a person's problems. But she will happily talk about what Joan and Carol talked about over lunch. And who she saw down the doctors. Not forgetting the minute details of some poor old chap's funeral.

But she is a good Nan to the kids.

My husbands step mum on the issues of working, I don't know how you can be bothered...she has managed to live on FIL after working for about a year of her life! Yeah we should just give up this working malarky shoudn't we?