Pressure from my Mum over housework....

[ShelleyI83]

I am quite close with my Mother. She is on her own (father passed away) so I do really appreciate it can be lonely especially during these Covid times but she lives 5 mins away and has a fantastic group of friends.

Problem is the pressure she piles on me. I work 3 days a week (doing 4 days worth of hours) and have 2 DC ages 4 and 3. She thinks the house should be immaculate, comments on how my walls need painted and how could I have let the children touch them, how my bathroom needs cleaned, why I have so much washing and is horrified that I don’t iron. I run 3 times a week for me time as my husband works long hours and she can’t understand why I’d do that over the housework. Today the children were playing up a bit, generally good kids just seemed exhausted today and was again putting the pressure on me to reprenand them and having comments like ‘oh well I just shouldn’t have come today’ 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️ give me strength!

Is it a generational thing? Do they just not get working Mums (all mums infact!) have a lot of their plate!

@curiouscat1987

Urgh, ironing. No thanks!

Actually it reminded me of a (kind of) funny story - when I was a toddler my parents had the health visitor/whoever come over to do the standard baby development checks. One of the checks was to show the toddler picture cards and ask them what they were. My parents say that I was whizzing through them like 'oh that's a cat, that's a fire engine..' etc, and when she showed me a picture of an iron I was completely stumped. The visitor was quite concerned and seemed to think I should know what it was at that age, and my parents response was 'well why should she, she's never seen one!'

There are MUCH more important things in life :)

We had that recently... My parents recently gave DS my old doll's House from when I was little and he enjoyed naming all the tiny furniture - 'dat a wardrobe, dat a table, dat a bed', etc. Until he got to the tiny ironing board and iron and looked at me with total confusion - 'what DAT, mummy?!'

My dad is in his 80’s and helped me with some money for a cleaner when he knew I was under the cosh with work and a very young child.
Perhaps the next time she comments on the sheets, hand her the ironing board and tell her to crack on :)

when she showed me a picture of an iron I was completely stumped. The visitor was quite concerned and seemed to think I should know what it was at that age, and my parents response was 'well why should she, she's never seen one!'

😂 I haven't ironed in 20 years so I can relate!

You know, I was tested at school to see how much I know, I never seen a saxophone so looking back, I don’t know why my intelligence is judged on objects I have never seen before. I would be in trouble if I never seen a dust feather (we use cloth) or iron