Are other mums like this?!

[PumpkinKlNG]

Are all mums like this or is it just mine, no matter what happens or what I tell my mum she will always twist it on me to blame me, or she will always say what she would have don’t better than me and how whatever I did was wrong. Another example is that she buys my kids clothes sometimes and she has moaned in the past that she’s never seen them in them after, yet the other day she came and my daughter was wearing one of her dresses that she bought her, she said “You would think she has no other dresses, do you ever put her in anything else?” It was only the 2nd time she wore it basically I can’t do anything right, just wondering if other mums are like this?!

I know it’s not always this simple when it’s family, but honestly why would you entertain this? If a friend treated you this way would you continue to be friends with them? So why on earth tolerate it from the person who should love you more than anyone in the world? Have you ever stopped to consider that you’re not obliged to just meekly accept someone treating you so nastily, and in front of your child??? Tell her to get out of your house next time she’s so unpleasant!

I have no other family and I’m a single parent so she helps me out in an emergency, tbh if I didn’t speak to her I would have no other help.

It is small things that just keep adding up, once when my son was a baby he was crying on the bus and a man started verbally abusing me and calling me a bad mum for my son crying, he pointed at the woman next to me with a baby and said look she manages not to have a crying baby, I was so upset I ended up in tears I called my mum and she said “well tbh was you playing around on your phone” implying that I was ignoring him, that absolutely wasn’t the case I was standing up and had nowhere to sit so couldn’t pick him up, she then said well If I was you I would have got off the bus, crying babies annoy me too. I feel like she’s rubbing off on them too as she can be quite critical of them as well.

My mum is exactly like this. I don't see much of her.

It’s my dad for me ☹️ I don’t understand the behaviour, especially now I’ve had DC I don’t understand it at all. It’s crap and does nothing but make us feel crap, not that I show it. Maybe that’s the problem, what do we say though?!

Most recent example was when DS who’d just turned 1 learnt to walk, I sent him a video of DS walking holding hands with DP saying that he’d just learnt to walk on his own but I only managed to capture this because my phone isn’t glued to my hand and he text back.. he’ll be waking on his own soon like name of other grandchild who was walking from 8m

I just replied.. he is.

Then when they visited as soon as they walked in they started dragging him across the floor ‘let’s see him walking then’, I told them to chill out he’s not a performing monkey he needs to feel comfortable to try out this new thing he’s learnt.

It won't be just you she is negative about, when people are negative like this, it permeates their whole lives. Not a happy way to live.

This is my mother
Too many to list but I was once sexually assaulted and the first words out of her mouth was ‘what the hell did you do to lead him on?’
She’d buy crap clothing from car boots (stuff I’d be ashamed to put in the bin) and forget she’d bought it
I’d either be in trouble as they didn’t wear it or because it looked shabby
If I got rid of anything she’d bought I was in for a 20 minute yelling even though I didn’t have the space for all her crap

I went nc with the lot of them

@queenMab99

It won't be just you she is negative about, when people are negative like this, it permeates their whole lives. Not a happy way to live.

100% this. My parents are total fun sponges. They suck the joy out of everything and have nothing nice to say about anyone or anything.

No she’s definitely not negative about my brothers, it’s just me and my sister. Brothers are the golden children but then she admitted she likes boys better and wish she only had boys my dad isn’t like it thankfully!

very familiar.
sadly

Mumvschildren

That’s awful, she would say the same as well, my ex kept me in his house for a week and wouldn’t let me leave and when I told her she said well you could have just climbed out the window it was only when I showed her the massive bruise on my arm that she backed down with “well you could have just left, no one can stop you”

You are a mum....are you like this?

Mine are little, I wonder if it something that comes with adult children, although I can’t imagine treating mine like this 😔

I can’t imagine my mother saying anything positive about anything I’d done. She didn’t the day I graduated from Oxford, she didn’t say anything nice the day my children were born so not sure what I’d have to do. I genuinely don’t care any more.

My late DM went through a phase of this when I was newly married. On one occasion I'd had enough and said "Do make sure to tell me if I ever do anything right, won't you?". Her face was a picture. Things did improve for a while.

Yes very draining op. My mother same. My visits are short. What age is she. I hate negative people

If there's two ways of doing something mine would moan at me for having done something the wrong way, despite not having asked how I'd done it. Imagine something like (OTT made up example):
Me: I drove from London to Edinburgh yesterday.
Her: Why did you drive via Cornwall? That was stupid! Think how much time, petrol and money you wasted! Why did you do that?????
Me: I didn't.

Never an apology.

This is so familiar, timeihadanamechange, my dad would even then continue the conversation.
Dad: Oh so you didn't go via Cornwall? How stupid was that! What's wrong with Cornwall then?
Me:

Sorry that shouldn’t make me laugh but it did just because it does sound so similar, my mum once accused me of taking her camera charger because “no one else had been in her house” why on Earth I would want her camera charger I don’t know, she went on for ages telling me I must have taken it, only to one day say oh your brother took it so don’t worry, no apology for accusing me, nothing.

She is bitter negatively smothering you.
By this thread it appears many DM's are similar, mine was lovely.
Don't let her grind you down, if she is mean walk away, she'll change her behaviour when you change your reaction to it.
Life is short make new worthy connections, her treatment is probably holding you back in other areas.

My sister.

Looks to criticise for ANY reason however minor, actively tries her hardest, and is visibly irked when there's nothing.
She will then resort to deliberate rudeness.

I absolutely despise her and have barely any contact.

@GiantToadstool

Im having a sad evening. Mine is the same. Or if I ring her she wants to talk about herself or tell me about my brother's kids. If I share somebing about my kids she replies about his in an "all you care about is yourself way." If I ever say Im strugglong she criticises.

Im feeling really sad about lack of people to talk to who care 😓

My MIL is like this to my wife. I find it baffling. Why are people like this to their children?

Ugh my mum is like this.

She also plays the one upmanship parenting game - I'm one of 4, and I myself have 2 kids. Whenever I've gone to her for advice - such as "DC2 isn't sleeping at al? I'm getting 2 hours a night and I'm back at work soon, how did you cope?" the answer was ALWAYS "Ha! You think that's bad! Try having 4 under 5 and getting some sleep" thanks mum really helpful.

And she wonders why I don't ask for her advice anymore!

Also I'm a single mum, and so was she but only for about a year until she met her nee husband (who she's still married to). She has extremely unsympathetic views about single mums. Very much "well you CHOSE to get a divorce" (yes mother because he had an affair) and "Think how hard I had it, I was a single mum of 4" - yeah but YOUR parents lived next door, you didn't work and while you were single we used to stay at our grandparents all weekend so she could have a break. Meanwhile, I literally have no one to help me out and juggle a teaching job while I'm at it 😡

@InpatientGardener

Yes mine is a bit like this, once someone drove into me side on whilst I was pootling along minding my own business and my mums response was that I should have been driving slower (was doing 30 in a 30). If anything shit happens to me I rarely get any sympathy, she just focuses on what I could/should have done to avoid whatever has happened!

Oh my god, my mum would do this!!

I was once in a nightclub and, in a case of mistaken identity, I got approached by a woman and punched in the face.
Turns out she was meant to punch the blonde lady next to me (a lady who'd been shagging her boyfriend apparently).

My mum had NO sympathy and was very "this is what happens when you go out to nightclubs. You MUST have given her a dirty look. She wouldn't punch you for no reason".

There's a book called The Mom Factor by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend, which I haven't read, but it has 4.01 stars on Goodreads and 4.6 on Amazon (out of 5) and might suit you @PumpkinKlNG

www.amazon.co.uk/Mom-Factor-Dealing-Mother-Contend/dp/0310200369/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&s=books&crid=1TS88UC9YUY5M&keywords=mom+factor&sprefix=The+Mom+Factor%2Caps%2C158&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1626916164&sr=1-1

@EmeraldShamrock

Play her at her own game, it won't take long until she is wondering why you've changed. Every time she is critical turn it around and be critical of her, if she said "that is awful, i'd say do you think so? You've really bad taste" or the dress on DD "I'd say yes she loves the cheap rag".

Problem is, this can get very draining and unpleasant.

I'm a big believer in taking the higher ground and being the better person.

Ignoring them completely and changing the subject as if they've said nothing at all is, IME, far more effective.

So she says "Does she never wear anything else" and reply is something like "Do you like my wallpaper? Pretty isn't it". Repeat