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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be annoyed at my DM still treating me like a teenager?

111 replies

RoseLillian · 22/10/2018 12:12

DM sent me a birthday card along the lines of a daughter who brings happiness where ever she goes, mess too, but happiness as well. Ok the sentiment is sweet, but I am in my late 30’s, married and a mother of 2 and I am actually quite a tidy person. I admit I was quite messy in my teens and probably into my 20’s, but a lot of people are. I grew out of it. I was also on the phone to her the other day and mentioned we had someone round taking photos of the house as we are putting it on the market. She said ‘well I hope the house was tidy’. Does she think we are stupid? I wouldn’t mind, but she has never been round our house and it not be tidy. The other thing she likes to comment on is me taking ages to get ready. Again I did as a teenager, but it is something I grew out of around 20 years ago. Certainly as a mother to young children, I don’t get time to spend on myself.

Is it something I should just accept? Are all Mums like this? Certainly not worth an argument, but it bugs me.

OP posts:

MereDintofPandiculation · 23/10/2018 09:37

I have a good, professional career and my parents don’t know what my job is. Nor have they made any effort to find out. Hard to keep the balance between being interested in your children's life and being intrusive and not recognising that they have their own lives now. Though "not made any effort" sounds like they haven't even tried to find the balance!

MereDintofPandiculation · 23/10/2018 09:42

One day you realise they are old and frail and relying on you, as an adult to understand life and help them. Yeah. My DF is used to being the person everyone relied on and came to for help. He's finding it so hard. If he couldn't offer me street maps and route finding directions, it would bring home to him his declining capacity.

LucieMorningstar · 23/10/2018 09:43

My mother is similar too. She also calls me by my maiden name when I’m at hers and she’s calling me from another room. That really annoys me.

PhilomenaDeathsHeadHawkMoth · 23/10/2018 09:47

DM's 73, has had 4 operations in the last 3 years and still insists on doing everything herself.

hammeringinmyhead · 23/10/2018 09:55

As someone else said, it wasn't started as a thread to complain about parents fussing, but more insisting you are still X or Y because of something that happened at 16. Or making things up entirely. I was sick in the car on holiday once at about 9 and now my MIL (she and mum are friends) always asks me if I want to sit in the front if going out as I apparently get car sick. I don't even know how many times I've told both that this is Not A Thing!

Tiredofitalltoday122 · 23/10/2018 09:58

It's such a relief to read this thread because I honestly feel drained by having to deal with a mother who treats me like a useless teenager who can't cope all the time, when I'm in my late 30s. E.g. buying me tights for my first day back from maternity leave, which was sweet, but the price was a sneering comment that she knew I wouldn't have thought about it myself (I've worked in the City for 12 years and I know you need to wear tights with a skirt suit so yes, I'd thought about it). That was one of half a dozen similar comments in the same ten-minute car journey, including saying that she'd put my sleeping baby in the cot because I wouldn't be able to do it without waking her. And when I replied with a tetchy "no, I can do it myself" to the last one, DM insinuated that she was worried about my mental health because I was so aggressive.

She also still defines me by the episode of depression that I had more than a decade ago. Sometimes, I'm on the brink of telling her than a big factor in my depression was the fact that I was being sexually harassed by her sleazy cunt of a partner, who even went as far as to send me pornography. They're still together and I don't think she'd believe me, so I doubt I will.

Firstbornunicorn · 23/10/2018 09:59

My mum tells everyone I have terrible balance and jokes about it.

I was a bit of a clumsy child, but I took up figure skating a few years ago and have only fallen once in that time.

Dunno why they're like this.

She also tells everyone (and me) that my singing voice was the worst she's ever heard. She literally begs me not to sing when we go to church together. I was super confused in school when my teacher wanted me to sing a solo at assembly. And doubly confused when the church's worship leader approached me to sing at the carol service after sitting next to me one Sunday.

Mothers, eh?

Babdoc · 23/10/2018 09:59

I don’t think all mums do this. I was a widowed single parent right from when my DDs were babies, and I’m delighted, now that they’re grown up, to be able to let go of all the responsibility of parenthood!
Now when I go on holiday with them, I expect them to navigate the electronic check in at the airport, get us to the right gate etc, while I browse the bookshop.
And likewise, I expect them to use google street maps to roll me back to the hotel after a few jugs of sangria or whatever!
I will advise if asked - DD2 is buying her first home, so I’ve gone over mortgage paperwork, legal fees etc with her at her request, and provided a handhold when she’s stressed.
I was never particularly keen on babies or toddlers, much as I loved my own - I much prefer being able to chat to my DDs as adults.
Maybe mothers who can’t let go are the other way round, and wish their kids were still helpless dependents?

PhilomenaDeathsHeadHawkMoth · 23/10/2018 10:05

DS2 broke a charger cable by accident. My aunt said, "Don't you think you should take control?" FFS, he's 7, if I was in the same room as him 24/7, food wouldn't get cooked, washing wouldn't get done, uniforms wouldn't get put out, baths wouldn't get run...

SaucyJack · 23/10/2018 10:10

My Mum is also like this- with regards to my lateness and messiness.

Unfortunately, when taken in the context of her own life- it’s extremely difficult to see it as anything other than snide and hypocritical.

purpleme12 · 23/10/2018 10:11

All these people saying it's normal and you might do the same, I do think I'm different to my mum. I am very different with my child (who's only 5 still) than she is with her even now. So I'm quite confident I won't be the same as her. And I'm glad. Too much water has passed under the bridge about what she's done and said and not done

RandomObject · 23/10/2018 10:18

I don't even get to be a teenager, my parents still go on about how 'clumsy' I am (I knocked over some glasses in a shop when I was about 6 and literally not one other incident) and also what a 'fussy eater' I am (I didn't like peppers as a child) oh and how vain and precious I am about my hair as if I'm still an insecure 13 year old begging for hair straighteners.

Gottagetmoving · 23/10/2018 11:11

And then you get grown up kids who talk to their mother like she knows fuck all and has no idea how to look after a baby (grandchild) despite the fact she managed to keep THEM alive and well to adulthood
It's amazing how much my adult children know that I couldn't possibly know

Onthebrink87 · 23/10/2018 11:12

I find this thread amusing! Im 31 and my parents where 20 (dm) and 23 (df) when I was born. They where fantastic parents and we had such a fantastic relationship! Now if we are all together and something a gone tits up we kind of stand around looking for a grown up 🤣

ErickBroch · 23/10/2018 11:15

I feel you OP! Drives me mad I am constantly described as 'lazy' by my parents - I have worked since I was 16, all throughout University, and last year was working a full-time job and part-time to save extra money... not having any free time at all.

Not sure when I was really ever lazy than wanting to sleep in as a young teenager, still going on over a decade later.

blueskiesandforests · 23/10/2018 17:11

Gittagetmoving but sometimes it seems we survived more by luck than judgement. My mother drove my baby nephew around in a brand new top of the range car seat - not buckled into the car. My parents leave my nephews unsupervised in a room alone with their dog while they're elsewhere in the lsrge house. My sister nearly drowned in an unfenced river by their house but they let the same happen to a 2 year old relative my mother was "looking after" - and she blamed his 4 year old brother for not watching him while she gardened out of sight.

My parents repeatedly offered to babysit my dc1 as a baby and did so once - we left her for an hour and a half as a baby so DH could go out for a meal down the road for a special occasion. We came back to find her bright red, screaming and sweaty in her cot having clearly been screaming for a long time. My mother indignantly said they obviously had to put her in her cot so they could eat their takeaway together and hear the television. She added that she'd "had" to leave my sister in her pram in the garage at night because she's screamed so much they wouldn't have "had an evening". We never, ever left her to scream and passed her between us if she was upset at meals, and they knew I never had and never would leave her to cry day or night and sat up with her at night when necessary, but they left her to scream against my wishes and without telling me that they would so I could decline to leave her with them unsupervised.

14 years on they've never babysat again. You're right, it shouldn't be necessary to explain basics to people who've brought their own children up, but apparently some grandparents have irreconcilably different opinions and can't be trusted not to do things their adult children cannot accept. My parents are respected members of the community, not alcoholics or struggling, and these things happened when they were in their late 50s/ early 60s.

Original poster

RoseLillian · 23/10/2018 17:16

DNAwrangler, you really made me laugh your poor DH being told how to boil his own kettle.

It is a relief to know I am not the only one this happens to. I guess the issue is that it is never nice to be criticised, but when the criticism is unfounded it is even worse and then when you add to it the fact it is your own Mum doing it... To my Mum I am messy, useless with money and take forever to get ready so that everyone has to wait for me to leave the house. None of it is true, but if I were to defend myself I would suddenly be the bad person.

OP posts:

tillytrotter1 · 24/10/2018 08:46

Can I put the cat among the pigeons and say that reading on here how possessive and clingy many mothers are about their children, I feel this situation will not get better???

PaintingOwls · 24/10/2018 09:02

Bloody hell blueskiesandforests

Gottagetmoving · 24/10/2018 16:04

blueskiesandforests

I don't think your parents are typical. They sound bonkers. 😁

blueskiesandforests · 24/10/2018 16:11

Gittagetmoving the thing is they think they're highly responsible, always in the right, beyond reproach and I fuss too much ... People who dont know them intimately think so too - my mother's a school governor...

But yes, they are bonkers

blueskiesandforests · 24/10/2018 16:13

Gotta not Gitta

Gottagetmoving · 24/10/2018 16:24

blueskiesandforests

Well you are still here and survived them so no harm done!

lovetherisingsun · 24/10/2018 16:31

Mine is massively bossy. Tells me how to drive.when to get medicine. Teaches me to suck eggs, basically. She's also horribly passive aggressive sometimes and once caused another passenger of a car to stop in the middle of the road and come storming over to have a massive aggressive rage about my dm's behaviour. I now can't drive with her in the car, spend much time around her, etc, it's just so so stressful.

Original poster

RoseLillian · 24/10/2018 16:45

blueskiesandforests not sure I would ever leave a baby with your parents given their history. I guess it’s difficult when it’s your own parents. Good you are all here to tell the tale.

MIL is a lovely lady, but a little bit scatty at times. Back when BIL was a baby, (in the days when you used to leave the pram and baby outside of a shop while you went shopping), she forgot to pick him up again after and left him there. Got back home before she realised. Does make me a little worried about leaving Dd’s with the in-laws...

OP posts:

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