To think my mum is overstepping the mark

[kitkat321]

I don't really get on with my mum - we're very different personalities. I'm independant and introvert, she's very much an extrovert but quite a needy person who can't stand being on her own or in just her own company.

I have an amazing 2 year old dd who my mum very kindly looks after 2 days a week including an overnight when I'm at work. We've had this arrangement since dd was 4 months old and my dad passed away as it give my mum something to focus on.

However, I think sometimes she forgets that dd is my daughter not hers - she constantly pesters her to tell her she loves her "do you love grannie? do you love grannie? tell grannie you love her".

She went out and bought a potty recently without discussing it with us and then started trying to potty train dd and was sending me texts telling me that dd had pee'd and poo'd in the potty - I told her to stop as it was too early - she says that's fine but I don't trust her not to do as I ask.

She took her to see santa this year before we did - again with no mention to us until after the fact. DD is terrified of santa so we asked her if she wanted to see him and she said no - my mum took her and surprise surprise she was terrified and burst into tears and she still tells me now that she cried when she saw santa.

The latest issue relates to dd's 2nd birthday - we took her away on holiday for her birthday but the day before had a wee party at our house for her 2 grans and her aunties & uncles - all very small because she'd had a big party last year and we had loads to organise for the holiday - my mum has gone and arranged another party for my extended family this week - she has cake, party games etc - again we weren't asked, she just decided she was doing it then told us afterwards.

Now dd will love the party and I accept that there are some family members that we didn't invite to our party that want to see her but AIBU or is this all a bit too much and do I need to have a word?

I can already see that dd is starting to become less keen to go see my mum - she's not upset about it but when we did have both of her grans over for the party she much preferred spending time with my MIL much to the disgust of my mum (she sat with her face like thunder!).

Is the potty training working OP? If so I'd let her continue it to avoid mixed messages to DC.

She does sound a bit OTT, especially with the party.

But I agree with pp that the potty training is really not big deal. She's just bought a potty and is encouraging your 2 yr old to sit on it. It won't do any harm and it might even help you out.

I think if you like the current child care arrangement, there will always be little niggles like this. But YANBU to be a bit . I too would be annoyed about the party (and probably a bit miffed about the Santa trip too!)

Do you know different from the experts? Glad you aren't my childs grandparent!

Indeed, you certainly wouldn't be getting all that free childminding for a start. And what do the bloody experts say?

Have a chat, make sure your mum knows how grateful you are for free child care.

As your mum lost your dad less than two years ago be kind, she may still be in shock and she is looking for Iove from a child because she is in pain still.

Point out that asking who loves granny... Well... It is not great and it puts pressure on a child to express it. Better to do fun stuff and enjoy the relationship
A child will express the love and affection in words and actions AND you will know how genuine it is when not solicited!

You knew Santa was a no no and that kind of thing is scary for some so your mum needs to run activists by you to ensure that little one is not scared etc. This is for everyone's benefit. You can't be expected to anticipate everything your mum might plan!

I'd do a kind of review, we've had this arrangement for a year/18 months, whatever, how is it working? I'd keep the idea of an annual review in mind because one day your mum may say it is too much for her, or you may feel it is not good to continue.

The potty thing is not on. I think actually 2 is fine to try potty but she's not my child! Same goes for your mum!

The party is both a lovely and kind idea and a total over stepping of the mark! It's not doing it that is the problem, IMHO, it is planning it without telling you or consulting you.

I think it is important for your mum to know that this upsets you. Because you are her daughter, you appreciate what she does (I hope) and her behaviour is upsetting to you.

So even if your mum cannot see why this or that is not acceptable she needs to get into the habit of saying.
" I thought me and dgc would do xyz." Then you can say..
"Lovely."
Or Ok but 'remember abc"
Or "I am not comfortable with that."

Let your mum have her say too and remember to make sure your mum is ok, generally.

My mum lost my dad 12 years ago after 50 years together and it TOTALLY knocked her for six. Remember to keep your relationship with your mum special. She is not just your child's grandma or your child's babysitter; ideally, you are to her what your dd is to you, keep that central if you can.

If not, pay for child care and let your dd and mum develop a less intense grandma and grand child relationship, IMVHO.

All the best.

I would say that the Santa without checking whether you planned to take her, and the party are overstepping.

The potty training, personally I'd let her crack on, and wouldn't be in a mad rush to call dibs on that "first".

I've actually heard way worse overstepping from DMs and MILs on these boards :

eg hair cutting, stripping them of their clothes and redressing them how they want them dressed as soon as their DM is gone, getting the child to call them Mum etc I don't think "Do you love Granny?" is a "bit much" at all by comparison.

You ARE getting free childcare from this, so you are benefitting, your complaints are quite mild and could be dealt with by better communication.

I'm a grandma and while l do babysit l would never do the amount your dm does. So it's worth being a bit put out for that. I agree with other posters that the potty thing is not a big deal. Believe me when you begin you will be glad to hand that task to her gm. But the party is mad. That's going too far. I could never in a million years imagine doing that with my gd. And as someone already said l leave Santa visits to the parents. I think you will need some straight talking. Maybe don't throw out everything together but take her up on one thing. She sounds like she could do with some life of her own. Could you encourage her to take up some new hobby.
By the way you were very rude to poster questioning does she know more than the experts.. If she has potty trained a few children successfully without scaring them for life she is an expert herself. Your tone was mean.

In my experience there is no such thing as free childcare in the same way that there is no such thing as a free lunch!
My eldest was looked after by both my Mum & MIL a lot when he was little & I experienced everything you are & more. When my youngest was born I made sure she went to full time nursery so that I decided how she would be cared for.
My MIL has my SD every week & is like this with her, another reason that I minimise baby sitting to only when I really need help.

I love this from ItalianGreyhound and think it's so wise:

My mum lost my dad 12 years ago after 50 years together and it TOTALLY knocked her for six. Remember to keep your relationship with your mum special. She is not just your child's grandma or your child's babysitter; ideally, you are to her what your dd is to you, keep that central if you can.

OP, you're not a parent-in-a-vacuum and your mother is a part of your daughter's life. She's also stepping in and doing a significant amount of childcare for you and make no mistake - childcare can be onerous, it's not the same as getting to be a doting gran for a few hours.

I don't know what your own relationship is like with your mum or how you felt after losing your dad/stepdad(?), but it's really integral to any relationship your daughter will form with her gran. I tell my brother the same thing; as much as I love my nephew and niece, HE is my brother and my pivotal relationship is with him not them.

You know what OP,just get childcare.You obviously resent whatever is done in good faith and do not trust the one person in the world who loves your child as much as you do.

Hats off to the stamina of this Gran...and God help the world of young women who are so entranced by experts. (The' THEY SAY') of the internet.

Throwing back all their Mothers' advice and knowledge in their 'interfering know nothing,even though they are old nurses',faces.

I agree gotthemoon. My mum potty trained me and my siblings at 1 years old using the advice around at the time, and potty trained my neice and dsd around the same age too. Not sure why this is considered so awful. The 'wait til they're ready' is just one of many potty training theories.

Yes 'wait until they are ready ' and hugely embarrassed in kindergarten and even primary school still in pull-ups.

Poor teachers having to deal with it all.

Lots of kids don't like clowns, but Santa? Did your mother know this? She may have just been out and about with her GC and thought it was a nice idea at the time, unfortunately it went horribly wrong!

While I can understand you want to be in control of the potty training, I think you should cut your mum some slack. It was probably very hurtful to your mother seeing your daughter spend more time with MIL, (not unusual with kids, if she doesn't see her as often) after she had arranged a special birthday party, even without your permission.

Perhaps as other pp have suggested a quiet talk with her, while making it obvious that you love her and are grateful for the care and attention she gives your daughter. Give her another chance before you go down the other childcare arrangements others have suggested. Think how devastating that would be to your mum. It's a fine balancing act sometimes.

She does need to learn to be tactful and take her lead from you.

Potty training, parties - those are things a parent decides on and does. Looking for reassurance from a tiny child is sad.

At the end of the day, you hold all the cards. You can say goodbye to this arrangement if it's not working for you and your DD. Perhaps she has forgotten this.

KitKat, I could have written your post. I totally get what you're saying about your mum needing a focus after losing your dad, and about your different personalities.

As others have said, I know you and I benefit hugely in one way from our mothers' childcare, but like you, my mum needs it too. She won't do hobbies or interests, join groups or do evening classes etc, and doesn't have many friends. Mine has become depressed and withdrawn before when she's assumed we won't need her help anymore e.g. when I went on maternity leave with my second child (she just assumed this - I couldn't have needed her more of course!).

How do you think your mum would react if you spoke to her about 'crossing the line'? Would she understand your point of view/empathise at all? Mine, for example, would stop speaking to me, for at least a week or two. If I stopped her involvement in childcare, she'd never speak to me again. If yours wouldn't react like this, I'd definitely speak to her to set some boundaries now, because it may well get worse if you don't.

And for what it's worth, I choose my battles. If it's something which makes me feel uncomfortable but doesn't upset my children, I let it go e.g. party. If it's something which affects their wellbeing in any way, I speak to her, and risk being blanked!

I appreciate that I'm probably projecting a lot here and that your mum may be very different to mine, but I get what you're saying and do feel for your situation. From my point of view, boundaries have always been a problem in my relationship with my mum - the situation with the kids is just another example of that, and that's probably why I feel so uncomfortable about it. It must be difficult for people who have healthier relationships with their mothers to understand that it's not a case of being ungrateful for the help with childcare.

slender the op does not 'hold all the cards'!! Her mother may choose not to stick to this arrangement at any time. I am not sure where one would even get overnight childcare! But two days a week subsidised in our area was about 50 pound a week, that is 200 a month and so over 2,000 a year and that was over 7 years ago! It might 'have double that now!

The OP may find she cannot even 'afford' to work without her mum's help so I think the idea the OP holds all the cards is totally wrong!

Better to build a good 'workable' relationship than to foster the idea one person is doing the other a favour! It seems to be mutually beneficial.

The OP has said the arrangement is primarily for her mum's benefit italian. Did you miss that?

I didn't say she was doing her mum a favour - just that she is the one who can choose what to do at any time. Sometimes these relationship arrangements fail because someone feels they're losing control - it can fix things just to realise that they're making a choice and can make a different one at any time. Boundaries, you know?

OP thinks she's doing her mum a favour - probably thinks her mil will pick up the slack, as she doesn't seem to have considered the financial implications of pissing her off at all. Each to their own I guess. I personally am not the type to Sweat over the small stuff so have never thought about wrecking a close family for petty jealousy.

Firstly, I do recognise that my mum is helping me out but I could easily affort full time nursery - it wouldn't cause me any problems financially so I'm absolutely not using my mum to make my life easier.

She doesn't stay there overnight because I need her too - she stays overnight because my mum want her overnight - she finds evenings the hardest since my dad has passed and having my dd there keeps her busy for that one evening a week - it wouldn't bother me if she couldn't take her overnight and I wouldn't need to find an alternative arrangement for overnight stays - I'm not exactly out painting the town - I'm usually at home doing the housework!

I do however know that if I was to change the current arrangement it would crush my mum - she literally counts down the days to seeing my dd and as she doesn't live local to me or drive she only sees her on those days unless we've arrange something at the weekends which is rare.

Flipflap - I don't have a great relationship with my mum - we don't argue but I don't have any particular feelings for her - my main memories from childhood are of having to continually behave in a certain way to ensure not to show her up - she very much cares about what everyone else thinks rather than what her children actually need or feel - she was nagging me about going out for lunch and afternoon tea because that's what all of her friends do with their daughters - like we should just conform to what everyone else does. I've never been close to her and if I'm brutally honest (and I know I'll get shot down for this given what she does for dd), if I never saw her again it wouldn't bother me at all - my dad was a different issue, he was the most amazing human being I've ever met and I feel that the world is a poorer place without him in it.

I'm going to draw a line under this for now - what's done is done - she's taken her to see santa, she's having the party tomorrow. Next time something happens I'll have a subtle word - although subtle doesn't tend to work - my brother and SIL tried to subtly tell her to not get involved in their wedding planning and she did - to the extent that she went behind SIL's back and arranged to meet SIL's estranged mother before the wedding because she felt it was embarrassing to have never met her sons future MIL before the big day (I mean what would people think!) - my own brother has only met his MIL once becasue the woman is mentally unstable and kicked SIL out when she was 16 when MIL got a new boyfriend. The only thing that actually stopped her meeting her was me telling her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business - that show's just how "subtle" you have to be with my mother.

And to those who don't see the potty training as an issue - my dd is my one and only child - I don't plan to have another and as horrible and unpleasant the process may be, I'd really love for me and my DP to do this with dd - people might not understand that but there are only so many things I personally have left to teach dd and therefore I don't want to pass on this.

She is out of order re potty training and needs to stop reenacting her mothering days with your lg. All a bit much i think. Decide what your boundaries are (potty training etc) and be firm on those.

I agree that dailmail is talking shit.

You are unhappy and rightly so! Dont let it fester

Good luck

Ok slender I did miss that it was primarily for the mums benefit. Sorry.

kitkat I did not realise that the cost of. Homecare was not an issue for you. That amount of money would be massive for us.

Your mum does sound very difficult and the relationship in general very odd and awkward.

Please feel free to ignore all I have said, I'm obviously thinking about things from a very different place to how they really are and so my comments are not helpful.

I wish you all the best.

to be honest that 'do you love grannie' 'tell grannie you love her' is a bit emotionally abusive isn't it?

All comments are helpful Italiangreyhound! I'm extremely fortunate to have a really good job that would allow me to pay for full time nursery care for dd and I have considered it but I also recognise that with the exception of the issues mentioned, my mum is a great grannie and takes amazing care of my dd but its just trying to strike that balance.

She is overstepping the mark. I think you need to scale back on her childcare if possible and have a heart to heart with your mum. She sounds incredibly controlling.