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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have got snappy with mum and the camera?

25 replies

CardoMondo · 22/12/2020 14:51

I have a 6 month old grandchild who I babysit once a week. My mum wanted to come and see her and brought along her dreaded fucking camera that she has pretended she can’t use for years. This has been the source of many a frustrated conversation, it’s a simply point and click.
Anyway she said she wanted a pic of baby smiling so pointed the camera at baby and started randomly pressing the button. She wasn’t smiling yet mother acted surprised and disappointed that she wasn’t smiling in the photos either. Not wanting this carry on to last god hours I said “I’ll sing the song that she likes, you take the photo when she smiles.” Mother gets ready with her camera. I sing the song. Baby is in hysterics, camera is pointing right at her yet no photos are getting taken all the while my mum is ooing and arring about “oh that would be a good pic!” “Oh that’s lovely!” Etc etc. The song finishes. Baby stops smiling. My mum finally presses the button and then says “oh no! She’s not smiling!” For fucks SAKE!
So I say “give me the camera, I’ll take the bastard”. She gives me the camera, I make baby laugh and take a pic. There, job done. Give camera back to my mum to hear the words:
“Oh what a lovely pic!! How do you ... oh ... oh no! I think I’ve deleted it!”

So I say “oh well! Always next year!” And pick baby up and get her ready for lunch. Mum calls me an impatient bitch. I agree with her.

I got a message off aunti last night saying “couldn’t you have just helped your mum get a photo? She’s a bit upset”. IMO I did this very thing several times.

She’s only in her 60s with learned helplessness.

OP posts:

Somethingkindaoooo · 22/12/2020 14:55

You know she doesn't get in with the camera. Why on earth didn't you just take the pictures?

Sounds like you were unnecessarily impatient.

Also, tis Christmas, so get her a selection of smiley pics in frames.
Done

Gardeniaofdelights · 22/12/2020 14:56

Sounds infuriating! I’d have been impatient too 😬

I am intrigued as to how your mum has a great grandchild at the age of 60 though - did you all have your kids incredibly young?! (Sorry if that’s rude, I’m just very curious!)

JayoftheRed · 22/12/2020 15:29

@Somethingkindaoooo

You know she doesn't get in with the camera. Why on earth didn't you just take the pictures?

Sounds like you were unnecessarily impatient.

Also, tis Christmas, so get her a selection of smiley pics in frames.
Done

She did. She took the picture, her mum then deleted it, by "accident."

She was enjoying being the centre of attention. My MIL can be a bit like this, negative attention is better than no attention.

Your mum can then bitch about you to her sister, who will go all flying monkey on you, as seen, and then the issue hasn't easily gone away, as it would have if she'd taken the picture when the baby was smiling, or if she'd kept the picture you'd taken.

You may have been a bit rude, but if you've been dealing with this for years then I can imagine your patience is very thin with it!

As a PP says, give her some framed pictures of baby smiling for Christmas and next time tell her that if she can't take the picture, then not to bother.

Moooooooooooooooooo · 22/12/2020 15:47

I’m only horrified that you and your mother speak like that to each other, or is it that you’ve just that language for effect here?

Subeccoo · 22/12/2020 15:51

@Gardeniaofdelights

Sounds infuriating! I’d have been impatient too 😬

I am intrigued as to how your mum has a great grandchild at the age of 60 though - did you all have your kids incredibly young?! (Sorry if that’s rude, I’m just very curious!)

My mum was 67, I was 39 and my dd was 21 when her dd was born so it's very possible!

NotOfThisWorld · 22/12/2020 15:53

My Mil is a nightmare about wanting me to take a photo of her with DC/her partner/local attraction but then being really fussy about how the photo looks. I now go for a paparazzi affect. Once the shot is set up I'll take about a hundred photos. One of which is bound to be decent and in any case Mil is so preocuppied with looking through them all she doesn't have a chance to get me to retake it!

ProfessionalWeirdo · 22/12/2020 16:11

OP, there is a program called FreeUndelete which can retrieve deleted files. If you can link your camera to your computer (either directly or by reading the SD card), you should be able to get the photo back.

Original poster

CardoMondo · 22/12/2020 16:19

The thing is we have millions of photos of baby smiling, I take them every week and send her them via email but she’s obsessed with bringing that bloody camera to take her own pictures. I’ve actually had her a framed photo done for Christmas, she doesn’t know yet but I was tempted to tell her yesterday just so she’d give it up for a bit!

OP posts:

caperplips · 22/12/2020 16:21

OP I feel your pain. My dc is a teen now & my mother who was in her late 50s when dgc was born has never managed to take a single photo of dgc in her life - she will not use her phone camera or the idiot proof digital camera we bought her for that exact use.
She will plague us for photos endlessly and even when you send a nice one. Her immediate response is oh that's nice. Do you have more? I'd like that one as a 'real photo'
I can't explain why it so bloody irritating. I think it's the learned helplessness- my mother is a grand master at it across the board & it truly makes me want to scream a lot of the time.
She 'can't ' use Google & refuses to be shown
She 'can't ' read a 24 hour timetable for trains
She 'can't' do any online shopping
She 'can't' use an ATM & will queue in the bank for cash
She can't drive '
Etc etc - she's now 72 & has been like this her whole life

cologne4711 · 22/12/2020 16:23

My DH is like this. Every camera he has, he says it doesn't work, doesn't focus, doesn't do this, that or the other. Whereas I just point the camera and press the button. Done.

I can imagine your frustration OP. And 60s isn't remotely old and it is acquired helplessness, I had a bit of this from my mum until she realised it wasn't getting her anywhere with me.

Not sure about the swearing though, I presume this was embellished for effect and isn't really what you said to her?

A friend of mine has just become a grandfather at 44. We expect people to have their kids quite late now (a schoolfriend of mine has just had a baby at 48) but years ago having kids at 22 would have been normal.

Laiste · 22/12/2020 16:23

OP - you have my sympathies.

If i listed all the things my mother does which drives me up the wall everyone here would call me a bitch daughter from hell because they sound so innocent ... but you have to know the person and how they are masters of winding up and manipulation.

Laiste · 22/12/2020 16:24

Or - maybe i AM the bitch daughter from hell

InkieNecro · 22/12/2020 16:26

Yanbu, she's in her 60's, she is perfectly capable of learning how to press a button.

Aquamarine1029 · 22/12/2020 16:26

learned helplessness

And there it is. I have absolutely no tolerance for this.

Laiste · 22/12/2020 16:27

One last thing: I scan read ProfessionalWeirdo's suggestion of FreeUndelete as some weird french word.

Freundulette?

sunshineandshowers21 · 22/12/2020 16:29

@Gardeniaofdelights it’s possible if there’s a few generations of young mothers. my family are such an example. i had my youngest at 15, so my mum became a grandma at 31, and my nanna became a great grandma at 46. my great grandma was a great great grandma at 66! (sorry to derail, op!)

Djouce · 22/12/2020 16:32

I feel your pain -- both my parents and my MIL are specialists in

(a) wanting to take photos at completely unhelpful times, like when everyone has a mouthful of food (MIL must have literally hundreds of absolutely awful photos of her extended family chewing with closed eyes and hamster cheeks, and the people involved having no idea MIL is clicking away randomly) and

(b) wanting to get people to stand up and go and line up in a row against a wall/hedge or something like those stilted Victorian Special Occasions studio portraits, which they then proceed to take about twenty identical photographs of, and complain retrospectively that everyone looks bored or has their eyes shut or an 'unnatural grin', when it's because this has taken about fifteen minutes.

I think they think that these are the two ways of taking a photo, even though the results are always awful, and often headless. There's also the 'photographing babies' technique MIL specialises in -- which involves clicking and waving her fingers in front of a baby's face and wondering why this doesn't magically translate into adorable dimply smiles.

Like the OP, everyone involved has decent cameraphones and will post good photos to a family WhatsApp, so there's no need for sneak attack eating photos or lining up ten people and photographing them starting to wilt.

christinarossetti19 · 22/12/2020 16:33

It's performative learned helplessness.

My mother does this. If she genuinely couldn't use or didn't want to use a camera, she could just ask you to take some photos and send them/print them for her.

It's the need to involve you against your will in a way that will enable her to construct herself as the victim of some injustice that is so infuriating.

Ffsffsffsffsffs · 22/12/2020 16:34

my mother is a grand master at it across the board & it truly makes me want to scream a lot of the time.
She 'can't ' use Google & refuses to be shown
She 'can't ' read a 24 hour timetable for trains
She 'can't' do any online shopping
She 'can't' use an ATM & will queue in the bank for cash
Etc etc - she's now 72 & has been like this her whole life

This is my mum to a 'T'. Drives me absolutely insane.

Ifyoulikepinacoladaa · 22/12/2020 16:36

My mil does this. Drives me insane. Yanbu.

Sindragosan · 22/12/2020 16:41

My mum is into her 70s and perfectly capable of using zoom/smart phone/Google because she's had to as no one plays along with any helplessness. We're possibly a bit harsh, but when she's had no other option but to do it herself it gets done.

butterpuffed · 22/12/2020 16:43

It's understandable that you were annoyed but to be so angry..

1Morewineplease · 22/12/2020 16:49

Ohdoleavemealone · 22/12/2020 16:56

@Gardeniaofdelights

Sounds infuriating! I’d have been impatient too 😬

I am intrigued as to how your mum has a great grandchild at the age of 60 though - did you all have your kids incredibly young?! (Sorry if that’s rude, I’m just very curious!)

A lady I work with was a Gran at 36, her mum could easily be 60 or younger.

TealAndTurquoise · 22/12/2020 17:15

@caperplips @Ffsffsffsffsffs - my DM does all of this! I thought she was the only person still getting money out over the counter at the bank. My DSis had to drive her to the post office today to pay her council tax as she refuses to set up a direct debit.

@CardoMondo - I share your pain. My DM gets annoyed when DSis sends me photos of my niece on WhatsApp even though she doesn't have a smartphone (she can't even send a text on a non-smart Nokia but that's a whole other story!) so you can't send her photos and she gets to see her in person twice a week. It's infuriating!

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