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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to make my mother clean up her own accident?

715 replies

LaLaCascada · 29/03/2017 21:06

For many years my Mum has had a bit of a problem with sudden urge to wee. She's 70 and has given birth twice. She hates going to the doctor and has always suffered a variety of ailments about which there is much moaning and zero action.

During a recent visit to my parents I was driving my mum home from Sainsbury's in a rather nice rented car. It's only about a mile but there was a bit of school traffic so we had to sit a few minutes - about 1 song on the radio so definitely less than 5 mins- and she started panicking and saying get me home I really need the loo. I said hang on, it's only two more turns, keep calm and look the traffic is moving now, she snapped it's too late, I've wet meself. and then went silent.

Back at her house she went straight to the bathroom and sorted herself out while I unpacked the shopping and put the kettle on. When she came out I said have a coffee and where's some stuff to clean the car.

Then I said come on and she made a big show with getting her walking stick and hobbling to the car parked on the drive - 20 steps?- as I followed with the kitchen roll and keys. I unlocked the car and waited a moment and when she didn't respond I said clean the seat please which she did do but with a lot of huff and puff. My dad and husband and daughter were there and noticed us going out to the car but I just said we had to get something. Then we carried on the evening like normal. DH noticed things were a bit off but just assumed a little disagreement had happened.

At no point was I rude or shouty or anything. I was a bit cheesed off because we had a long journey the next day which meant I would sit there when DH was driving but it wasn't like she puked or poohed.

I spent the night researching because I care and don't want my mum to live like this and did encourage Mum to make a doctor's appointment and she is now getting some help that made her worse at first but she now is improving a bit. I haven't said anything about it until now so as not to embarrass my mum. HOWEVER there has been a certain chill since it happened. It hasn't been mentioned except to say the doctor knows about it and the making of various follow up appointments.

So, was I being unreasonable to expect her to clean up her own urine?

OP posts:
MumBod · 31/03/2017 10:23

That was to randomer

LouKout · 31/03/2017 10:26

You can have empathy without crying about a woman you don't know who is better now according to OP. I think people either are projecting, have their own issues, or are being competitively empathetic.

foxanddaisy · 31/03/2017 10:37

As someone who has bladder issues yabu.
I have been in the car with my Dad and suddenly been desperate and had to drive somewhere else instead to reach a loo urgently.

It is awful and upsets me massively. I have had every test/medicine and even operations. I wear pads but it wouldn't catch it all.

If it was me I would of course be mortified and clean it up but to drag her to the car and basically talk to her like a naughty puppy is awful.

foxanddaisy · 31/03/2017 10:45

Oh and to echo what someone else said I have urgency not stress incontinence and can go from not needing the loo to desperate in a very short period.

My kidneys are currently being monitored because I am so paranoid about it I don't drink anywhere near enough. I don't leave the house much other than work and have to either.

Falafelings · 31/03/2017 11:11

I have bladder problems myself but wouldn't want others cleaning up after me.

diaimchlo · 31/03/2017 11:14

OP IMHO I do think YWBU , I have read your opening post a couple of times and do think that you come over as being a cold person.

Empathy definitely comes to mind, it would have been much more compassionate if you had maybe you had told her that you understood how embarrassed she must be feeling and suggested cleaning it up together instead of asking where's the cleaning stuff, making a big issue of her mobility and asking her to clean the seat.

Please bear in mind that at any age medical problems like this are very embarrassing and difficult to divulge to anybody.

Your Mum seems to have an issue asking for medical help and visiting her GP, have you thought she may be scared of what she will be told? I can empathise with this after being 100% fit for 50 years and visiting a GP for a bout of illness and being diagnosed with a degenerative disease 8 years ago I am at a point where I have to be pushed into going to appointments because over the last 8 years I have been diagnosed with another 4 conditions. The reason being I am petrified of what else they are going to find.

I am not surprised that the atmosphere has chilled tbh.

sherazade · 31/03/2017 11:52

She's 70 and has given birth twice

Do you think there's a remote possibility that she might have given birth to you in one of those above mentioned incidents ?

dowhatnow · 31/03/2017 12:05

i think we can't really judge the situation unless we know the dynamics of the people involved and the tone used.

I most certainly would make my dm clean up after herself but it would be done with sympathy and she would totally expect to be doing it anyway. I would also use the situation to bully her into going to the doctors if more gentle approaches hadn't worked.

But I know my DM and my relationship with her. Obviously other people have different dynamics going on. We are all projecting our own dynamics on how we are commenting.

I certainly don't feel I owe my dm anything just because she gave birth to me. I do nice things for her because I like her and respect her and vice versa.
I feel sorry for pps who do things out of duty or because the relationship isn't mutually respectful. The ops mother should have cleaned up after herself or been apologetic. The op would have been more likely to say "don't worry I'll do it" if there had been a bit of remorse there in the first place. Ok there might have been embarrassment involved, but navigating round that is the sign of a good relationship.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 31/03/2017 13:14

I too have bladder issues - and on a couple of occasions, I have wet the bed (I have the 'going to the loo' dream, and don't wake up in time).

Both times dh has helped me change the bed and clean up after the accident, and he has never said or done anything to make me feel worse about what's happened.

@LaLaCascada - I can tell you that wetting yourself/having an accident, is a horrible, embarassing experience, and if dh had treated me the way you treated your poor mum, I would have been devastated - I was already upset and embarrassed enough, and that would have made it infinitely worse.

I can't believe you showed so little compassion towards your poor mother.

MyPerfectCousin · 31/03/2017 13:18

I can't believe there are still people suggesting that the OP should have cleaned up after her mum.

Why wouldn't she have cleaned up after herself?

However unpleasant/awkward/embarassing a situation it was, I can't imagine that that would have been ameliorated in any way by her standing back and watching her daughter clean up instead.

LouKout · 31/03/2017 13:19

Yes..and suggesting that the daughter was some sort of bastard for not doing so as well.

HateSummer · 31/03/2017 13:24

Poor mother. Do you think she relished the fact she'd wee'd herself infront of her child? Then she was ordered to clean it up infront of everyone 😱. I wonder if she did the same to you when you were being potty trained Angry. I'm actually really sickened by your behaviour.

(And I clean my dad's poo and wee regularly, and have done for a few years, so it's not even like I have no experience of this. No one like losing their dignity).

user1489179512 · 31/03/2017 13:25

Yes, OP.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 31/03/2017 13:30

@LouKout - so should dh have stood back and made me clean up after my night time accidents, and made me feel even worse than I already did? Would that have been OK?

Surely part of loving someone is caring enough not to make them feel worse about something they'll already feel bad enough about.

P1nkP0ppy · 31/03/2017 13:31

It's abundantly clear from this that you not only dislike your mother but also see nothing wrong in humiliating her and then posting about it on a public forum.
Shameful behaviour showing a complete lack of empathy.

LouKout · 31/03/2017 13:33

No idea. Am not the OP who has gone ages ago

motherinferior · 31/03/2017 13:36

There's nothing wrong with disliking your mother, though - whatever you think of he rest of her behaviour. We are not duty bound to love our parents.

Wingsofdesire · 31/03/2017 14:09

If we don't love our parents then they didn't succeed in loving us.

Onthecouchagain · 31/03/2017 14:21

Yabu.

FairytalesAreBullshit · 01/04/2017 19:26

I first wet the bed, over a decade ago, I was mortified, we had a toddler, I knew DH was glad to be asleep, so I got some old towels to soak it up, crying myself to sleep with embarrassment. I now wear the strongest towels they have, as my bladder now leaks in between being emptied like a leaky tap.

Obviously I'm ill so the way I'm treated might be different, but accidents happen, those with me help me get clean first and foremost, then deal with whatever they have to. I can tell you it is mortifying and beyond embarrassing.

I'm glad those around me, no matter what they think of me, have never gone to such extremes as well here's the cloth. There you go.

MipMipMip · 01/04/2017 20:28

I think the big difference between the people on this thread with bladder problems and the OP's mum is that the people on here are trying to do something about it, or have investigated the problem and found there's nothing to be done. The very first sentence of the OP says that her mum moans a lot but does nothing about it. I'm sure that if the OP's mum had tried to improve things then she wouldn't have been treated like that. You have to take responsibility for your actions, or inactions, and that is what the OP is making her mum do. (And it's working if her mum is now seeing the doctor).

randomer · 01/04/2017 20:31

I do get empathy but how can you cry over a scenario you basically know very little about?

AshesandDust · 01/04/2017 21:00

The mother obviously does clear up her own accidents - assuming
her house isn't knee deep in urine. But she didn't get chance to deal
with the car accident before she was marched out and ordered to
clean up.
There's nothing to say the OP's mother wasn't intending to clean it up
herself - perhaps when the judgemental daughter had given her half
a chance to get hold of the car keys and do it without a judgemental audience.

springflowers11 · 02/04/2017 05:33

falafelings you are blaming the ops mum for having mobility problems!! It's all her fault because she doesn't keep active enough!!!!!

springflowers11 · 02/04/2017 05:48

I expect all these 'complex relationship' abd 'dont owe my parents anything' type posters are going to not let that stand in the way ofinheriting from them?

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