She wants to come for Christmas but I'm due to give birth....

[icantstandhorridhenry]

Hi all!

I'm pregnant and due on 16th December, my mum has just asked me if she can come for Christmas dinner or if I can go to hers for Christmas dinner.... yes it's September!

I am well aware babies are known for not appearing when they're due, he could be early, he could be late. I could have a lovely labour, I could have a terrible labour. I could be out the hospital same day, I could be in for days.
Giving birth is so unpredictable that my partner and I are just taking Christmas as it comes this year and making different plans for different outcomes.

I don't want to spend Christmas with my mum, she's aware of that.
I would like to spend christmas with my newborn son, my DP and DSC if our son arrives in good timing and all goes well.

I've told her all of this, she knows I don't do Christmas well anyway. (Being dragged around every year to see family all day when I was a kid rather than just being with my mum and dad didn't help) but her reply was that I'm only having a baby I'm not disabled and if he comes on Christmas Day she would understand.
May I add, she lives on her own through fault of her own.

AIBU for telling her to back off and to respect that because this year is so unpredictable and I'd rather just have as chill of a Christmas as possible.

Your thoughts are appreciated!

I couldn’t leave my Mum alone in Christmas Day!

You could if she was a spiteful old bitch like mine. Her friends and siblings and other children could enjoy her company at Christmas instead. But, oh wait, she's alienated herself from them too.

Don't feel guilty, OP. Be proud of yourself for standing up for yourself that early in life. Some people (me) took longer to be that assertive with a manipulative mother.
You are pregnant with your first child. If your mother is trying to guilt trip you over Christmas even though you shouldn't be stressed right now she is not worth feeling guilty over..

Can those of you posting how awful it will be for the OP's mom to not be at Christmas with the OP and newborn baby stretch your minds and realize that not everyone has a loving and kind mother? READ THE THREAD

@GameSetMatch

I couldn’t leave my Mum alone in Christmas Day!

And what was your childhood like, what is your adult relationship like @GameSetMatch

Be proud of yourself for standing up for yourself that early in life
I agree, I wish I had when I was younger, it's taken me decades to see through all the layers

Oh no! Please say no this year, I can't tell you how much it affects kids!

Oh ffs, how dramatic do you sound!

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

As dramatic as you read it I suppose

Pretty dramatic then.
How traumatised are you from being forced to visit family on Christmas day?

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Well from being rushed to open presents to going to Atleast 3 different houses in one day within a 20 mile radius of eachother to having to sit with an alcoholic grandmother who my own mother couldn't stand.

One year I was dragged to the hospital to sit next to my cousin (whom no one in the family particularly liked) because on Christmas Eve he decided to get absolutely rat arsed and tripped and hit his head off a curb... pretty fab Christmas Day that was.

So rather traumatised by what my mother thought was a 'lovely' Christmas Day as a child.

I don't want that for my kids, I don't want that for my SC if I can help it with their dad.

Christmas Day for some people is so obsessively about family they forget that their family is right their in front of them in the house they're in which is what happened to me and my mum and dad.

Just say, no in don't want you here, be alone because of your own fault!
Alternatively, have consideration for the woman that brought you into the world....

@icantstandhorridhenry I always find it sad when people don't want to spend celebratory days with their single parents. Imagine yourself in her situation.......

My DIL was due the same day as you, she went in on boxing day to be induced and her baby was born the next day.

@icantstandhorridhenry

Honestly none of that sounds traumatic. You are just dramatising it with words like "dragged". Most people go visit family on Christmas day, and no, they don't like them all.

OP, you will find people here who understand about toxic/dysfuntional parents
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3902065-But-we-took-you-to-Stately-Homes-May-2020-onwards-thread
many people who had decent parents just dont/cant/wont get it, they can only respond with 'but it's your muuuuuum how could you'
I dont subscribe to that doctrine of absolute and unconditional loyalty.
You need to look after number one so you can be a good parent, that's the priority

Oh the "but you've only got one mum" argument. 🙄
I also only had one appendix, but I got rid of that when it caused me ongoing pain.

@Heffalooomia

Thank you!
I think some people assume parents are automatically entitled to respect and everything else in their child's life. You earn it with your attitude and the way you actually contribute to your child's life rather than constantly running them into the ground because theyre not the human you wanted them to be.

If she had upped and left when I was a kid would these comments to support her? It makes no difference if she was physically there or not, she was a shit mum and some humans don't deserve other humans love and respect regardless or title or who they are.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

What were your Christmases like?
What was your mother like?

@chopc

It is sad and I appreciate it would be difficult for her.
But I'd also sit and ask what I did wrong to be put in that situation, or Atleast listen when I'm being told where I went wrong.

@icantstandhorridhenry

I didn't start a thread. My mother wasn't the abusive one. My father however had us cut off from family so I always wished for a Christmas where we could see family. Even the shitty ones would have done. As an adult now we "drag" our kids round to visit family. Obviously they will be traumatised by it.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Not necessarily, it depends on how you go about it and how you are as a parent.

Some parents don't realise Christmas isn't just about cramming as many family members in one day as possible, which it was for my mum.

Is it so hard for someone to accept that all their child wanted was one Christmas at home with their mum and dad? Just one?

I think the main point of my original question has been completely missed anyway.
I'm due to give birth and don't fancy entertaining a woman who drives me crazy the best of days, should I feel bad because she's my mum?
I'm soon to be a mum, should that mean I should sacrifice what I think is right for him to make sure his grandmother still gets what she wants?

The magic of Christmas lies in kids not in 60 year old grouchy women.

This is such an emotive subject OP 🤦🏼‍♀️ very difficult for people with different views to find common ground, you will find support and understanding on the thread that I mentioned or even just reading through some of the back threads might help you to feel validated.
I wish you a calm peaceful Christmas 🙏

I cut my Mother out of my life years ago, completely, no.contact at all. People who have "normal" parents just can not understand. I actually don't think your shitty christmas experiences with your Mum are the main issue you have with her, they are just 1 in a long list of things that she did to you. So never getting a christmas the way you would have liked is made worse by the other shitty behaviour.
If your Mum had been a lovely Mum the rest of the year I am pretty sure being taken to other relatives houses on christmas day would have probably not been such a big deal. However added in to a long line of other shitty stuff, christmas just becomes another crap memory.

Not all parents are good and just because someone else has a different view to you, does not make your experiences less valid. I often think people who get defensive about certain things like visitors family on special occasions do so because on some level they feel some guilt for doing it to their children.

Ultimately visiting or staying at home on special occasions is an individual choice. Neither is right or wrong. We can not however judge people for having feelings that differ to yours. It is not dramatic ect, it is just different to your feelings.

Do as you feel is right for you OP, knobody has the right to make you feel guilty for the feelings and experiences you had.

[quote icantstandhorridhenry]@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Well from being rushed to open presents to going to Atleast 3 different houses in one day within a 20 mile radius of eachother to having to sit with an alcoholic grandmother who my own mother couldn't stand.

One year I was dragged to the hospital to sit next to my cousin (whom no one in the family particularly liked) because on Christmas Eve he decided to get absolutely rat arsed and tripped and hit his head off a curb... pretty fab Christmas Day that was.

So rather traumatised by what my mother thought was a 'lovely' Christmas Day as a child.

I don't want that for my kids, I don't want that for my SC if I can help it with their dad.

Christmas Day for some people is so obsessively about family they forget that their family is right their in front of them in the house they're in which is what happened to me and my mum and dad. [/quote]
Sounds exactly like someone I know who will put her kids through misery as long as she looks like she cares. She basically makes absolutely everything about her, including when her ex husbands father died......suddenly a man she had barely given the time of day to, meant the whole world to her.

Her kids will eventually go NC and she will be just like your mother, as she is with her ex. With people like that its not about love but about control. Stand firm with your boundaries.

[quote Sarahpaula]@babdoc. I don't know. I think that abuse does cause more abuse. I will be really honest here.Any time that I am around children, I have to be really honest and say, I do have a thought that I could be emotionally cruel to them. That now I am an adult, and I have the power. It feels like there is this energy in me, that my energy is so fucked up, that I need to lash out at another child. I always have the thought - that I could be cruel to a child, and then I always control it, and I never have been. It is why I make sure that I am barely around any children, and why I will not have children of my own, because I do not want to be abusive to a child.[/quote]
@Sarahpaula
That impulse doesn’t mean you’ll act on it. One ‘reading’ of intrusive thoughts is that they’re bringing impulses from the unconscious mind to the conscious where we can deal with them rationally. An example- even as a child myself I would see younger children and think I could hurt you! I went on to have children myself and was never randomly cruel! I snapped and even whacked them very very occasionally (literally once or twice in extremis or panic). As a teacher I remember helping a little girl tidy her hair in an empty classroom and thinking I could pull your hair really hard and nobody would believe you. I’d no sooner have acted on that thought than stood up in a crowded theatre and shouted fire. We all have those thoughts but don’t act on them.
I don’t know your situation but if you’re really avoiding having children because you think you’d be cruel to them, then do find a good therapist to talk that though with.