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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel a bit sad when my mum rewrites history? Anyone else have this?

135 replies

dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn · 18/11/2021 00:44

I'm feeling sad tonight, not sure why. I saw my family this weekend and we were swapping the old stories etc, then one of my sisters mentions my nephew lost his pe kit and she was annoyed by it, and my mum immediately jumps in with

'Oh yea we had that all of year 7 and onwards with dont, lost her pe kit regularly, lost £10 for the bus, got the wrong bus repeatedly, lost things constantly' everyone laughed at how forgetful I was etc

Yes I did all of those things and a lot more, I once forgot to get the bus home on parents evening and waited for my parents to finish but they left whilst I was wandering round the school and they had to come back to the school to get me. It's not neglectful because I didn't tell them I was still at school and my phone was dead.

However!! I wish she would remind my family of the context! I had undiagnosed adhd and dyspraxia, my dad was having chemo and we were driving 2 hours to see him every night in hospital I was doing my homework on the floor of the hospital room or in the back of the car, I was tired and my siblings were older, then he died and we were moving across the country but I only had 2 weeks between him passing away and starting year 8..

When we moved house I started in a smaller school and flourished, got my diagnoses and got the help I needed. I'm now an ODP and I can take patients myself in icu, I've have 2 masters. But yet when I'm with my family I'm relegated to that bumbling child when I was 11!

Grr!!!

OP posts:
FelicityBeedle · 18/11/2021 00:48

I think that’s just families! Partly just sympathising with your sister with memories of the things kids do. Partly rose tinted glasses, no one wants to recall they missed a child’s difficulties and relatives with camera. And partly just reminiscing with exaggeration like we all do!

I’m a reasonably competent human being, yet I still get reminded of the day I forgot to wear knickers in reception and the Guinea pig incident!

Original poster
dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn · 18/11/2021 00:49

@FelicityBeedle that's true! It just grates a bit! Maybe I should bring up the time she was sick on her boyfriend in my car..

OP posts:
CheeseMmmm · 18/11/2021 00:50

Yes but with my mum it includes things where she was awful to me.

If the that never happened always is always about you not others then that's shit.

FelicityBeedle · 18/11/2021 00:51

Oops *relatives with cancer

MarchXX · 18/11/2021 00:51

Yes, its bizarre. My example below is trivial compared to yours, OP, I'm so sorry you had such a bad time but glad you rose above it and flourished. What can you do? Rise above it again, I'm afraid. She won't change Sad.

When I was growing up in the 60s we had a dog. In those days we didn't walk the dog, we let it out to run about the streets and he came home when he'd finished his adventures, scratching on the front door to be let in. That was completely normal to me.

Today, mum (now well into her 80s) denies any such thing ever happened! But it bloody did!

InglouriousBasterd · 18/11/2021 01:01

My mum attributes all my successes to my brother - ‘remember when DB player county level hockey?’ - no, he never picked up a hockey stick in his life!

She also tells people I was too lazy to walk to school - it was an hour to walk it and she wouldn’t let me!!

ReggaetonLente · 18/11/2021 01:09

My mum always remembers my old favourites as my brother's. It makes me weirdly sad. Even if I pipe up and say oh no Mum, it was me that liked dinosaurs (or whatever) she'll swear it wasn't until my brother can verify!

She also rewrites history when it comes to parenting and discipline, she retrained in childcare when we were teenagers and loves to tell us all these methods and tricks she used on us when we were toddlers and she was soooooo ahead of her time... Except she didn't use them on us, she used them on other people's children, 15 years later. It sounds silly but it grates especially as I have toddlers now and any admission of struggling with their behaviour is met with a monologue of all the wonderful stuff she did THAT SHE DIDN'T ACTUALLY DO.

She also does this about books, once I was reading a book she had at her house to DD and she was saying how much I had loved that one, I said I don't think so, I never remember you reading it to me. Cue a long story about how oh yes, you loved the part and this character and we sat in this chair together etc etc. The book was published in 2012, I was in my 20s then!!!

Rant over!

Original poster
dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn · 18/11/2021 01:19

@ReggaetonLente the idea of your mum reading you a bedtime story in 2012 is something else. Im
Sorry other people have experienced this too but im glad it's not just me!

OP posts:
me4real · 18/11/2021 01:35

I find I feel better if I defend/assert myself if someone says something nasty @dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn , otherwise what was said replays and replays in my mind.

You could at least mention your diagnoses and how you've done since etc, and say that it was a very tiring and difficult time (without spelliing out what was happening unless that seems ok and not too much.)

Answer her back (well, say something factually) when she says these things, and they won't stick in your mind quite as much.

Or that's what I find. It's assertiveness really- defend yourself and you'll feel better for it.

My mum did something like this the other week and it was really annoying. I did answer back but not as well as I should've. She implied that I'm crap with money but I'm not really, and it was that it was in front of my sister made it unpleasant.

me4real · 18/11/2021 01:38

@ReggaetonLente That sounds an extreme case. Smile

BobbieT1999 · 18/11/2021 01:51

My mum always remembers my old favourites as my brother's

It's my df who does this with me. My sibling is his favourite and I'll be honest, it cuts deep when he ascribes my past to her. Especially as he then will ascribe failures I never made to me. Sad

But, such is life. Its not a battle I'd win.

Op - what you went through at such a young age was awful and I'm so sorry you lost your dad like that Flowers You deserve to have your achievements before diagnosis recognised and I hope you have someone who does Flowers

Letsallscreamatthesistene · 18/11/2021 02:02

My mum - "I remember when scream REFUSED to walk home from gymnastivs then REFUSED to go swimming the next day"

Subtext - id broken 3 of my fingers at gymnastics and was in pain.

RockinHorseShit · 18/11/2021 02:10

It grates for sure, but it could be worse. Mine are awful for this.

DD being good at maths took after my DB apparentlyHmm... they never remembered I was also good at it & I got the O -Level DB supposedly got it too... DB failed & was only good with basic maths anyway... DF didn't even know that at all.

I went to grammar school, DB didn't, DF thought we both went there until moving ... DM always going on about how clever DB was meant DF just presumed.

DM sending me to the shop in the snow with a note for milk & bread when I could read very young & couldn't read the note, so always puzzled about why I couldn't read the note. I asked about it when older & she insisted I was 6, got angry at my saying otherwise. I could have definitely read milk & bread on a bit of paper at 4, but she just insisted I couldn't read until older... definitely not true according to other family... lots more examples

It's galling, but not much can be done unfortunately

GlitterNails · 18/11/2021 03:01

I think when parents realise they have been a bit shit they like to rewrite history in their heads. My dad wasn’t the greatest when I was young, and I remember giving him a lift with my friend a few years ago and he started talking about how when I was a young I had desperately wanted platform shoes like the Spice Girls had, and I begged him for them and he got me some and I was so happy.

It never happened. The reason I know it didn’t is I’ve been very tall all my life, and have never wore any kind of heel/wedges. Yet he was insisting - out of no where, this was the case and adding little details that were just totally made up. It was like he entered this delusion and was totally convinced by it.

I know this is just one little snippet, but it stuck in my mind as it was just so odd the way he said it all.

Starfish1021 · 18/11/2021 03:26

What an awful time you must have experienced losing your dad and managing all of those things at such a young age. Memories of family life are often deeply inaccurate, but being berated for something that was entirely beyond your control must be so tough. Especially given that she is essentially bringing up your trauma and powerlessness as a joke. How is your relationship with her overall? Is there space to explain how hurtful this is? I’m not surprised it gets to you.

unicornpower · 18/11/2021 03:38

My mum does this, I’m not sure if she just forgets how something happened or if she knows she’s doing it. She said her mum did it and so did one of her sisters!

She told me that I didn’t tell her I was pregnant until I was 12 weeks (I didn’t, I was 6 weeks when I told her) but she was adamant and was pretty much arguing her point until I reminded her I was I hospital at 8 weeks and she knew about that.

She also tells this story about how she dropped me off at school and noticed I had foundation on and apparently told me I was too young for make up. This never happened as I had no access to foundation until I was about 15 and then she bought it for me….

LondonWolf · 18/11/2021 03:43

My Mum was pretty abusive to us growing up and barely parented us at all as teenagers apart from to berate us regularly for our laziness and uselessness during kangaroo courts with my Dad every time they both deemed we had “gone too far” on something or other. My sibling and I parent entirely differently and my Mum does like to entirely rewrite times in our childhood where she parents in similar ways with the implication being that we got our ideas from her. She’ll relate incidents and conversations that never happened or when they did involved abuse or impatience but with her as the patient, wise, loving parent. It’s hard to stomach and when she asks me if I remember I always say no I don’t quite firmly. She usually shuts up quite quickly but god knows what she’d come out with if I went along with it.

Silvershroud · 18/11/2021 04:05

My parents have re-written history. He was very violent when we were very little (whipping us with aerial flex when he lost his temper) now "it didn't happen". Going to school and being told we had to say we had fallen into bushes to explain the scars.
Looking back, the worst act was mother "covering up". When he said cruel things she would say "he doesn't mean it". "You're father doesn't mean it" became our childhood refrain. I'm sure it was damaging- we didn't trust ourselves or anyone else. Even our emotions of being afraid and unhappy were negated.
I leant a long time ago that to mention these things meant we were "living in the past" and we were blamed once again.

groovergirl · 18/11/2021 04:20

Yes, what is it with parents and their desire to amend the official record? What makes it worse is when other family members believe them and dismiss your side of the story or, indeed, the actual facts!

I learned early to keep my friends away from my DM, who would otherwise bitch to them about how awful I was and make them very uncomfortable. I never invited anyone home. My DB learned the hard way to do the same. At 15, he found home so unbearable he moved out for a month to stay with his best friend's family -- something DM later denied ever happened.

OP, that's good you got your ADHD dx fairly early in life. It has clearly made such a difference to your career.

SimpsonsXmasBoogie · 18/11/2021 04:40

My mum does this.

This drank an awful lot and I can't tell if she's forgotten or she's just making it up. Either way, it's hurtful.

HarlanPepper · 18/11/2021 05:18

I swear my dad only remembers about five things from my childhood, and they mostly reflect well on him. My mum has also blocked out several key events, or her memories of them are markedly different to mine. She had flashes of violent anger and of course she's forgotten all these. Or there's daft stuff like, I have a dog now, and when she talks about the dogs we had when I was a child, and how she trained them, I have to bite my tongue - she hated the dogs, she had as little as possible to do with them, and in fact at one stage she insisted my dad built a sort of makeshift kennel and dog run so they could live in the back garden full time. Luckily it was a terribly built kennel and they kept escaping all the time so they were allowed back inside.

I find it infuriating but I do think it happens to us all to an extent - my children are 10 and 14 and they remember things from their earlier childhood that I have completely forgotten, or they've forgotten things that I vividly remember. I do find it very troubling, in a sort of 'what's real?' sense, but I have to make peace with it because it's only going to get worse!

LeicesterIntheMorning · 18/11/2021 05:23

@Starfish1021

What an awful time you must have experienced losing your dad and managing all of those things at such a young age. Memories of family life are often deeply inaccurate, but being berated for something that was entirely beyond your control must be so tough. Especially given that she is essentially bringing up your trauma and powerlessness as a joke. How is your relationship with her overall? Is there space to explain how hurtful this is? I’m not surprised it gets to you.
What a beautifully empathic response Flowers
ThreeLocusts · 18/11/2021 05:41

Fascinating thread. The part about girls' achievements becoming boys' is particularly telling and sad.

My mum does loads of this, mostly as a way to cope with the fact that my dad was abusive, and that later in life she lived with another man who was, too. The abuse was mostly directed at her and her 'forgetting' all these things mostly makes me sad for her.

It's a dysfunctional coping mechanism, I think. With her it got a lot worse when the second man started showing his true colours. She just stopped processing the shitty stuff. Friendly wave to you all.

BobbieT1999 · 18/11/2021 05:50

@GlitterNails you're story reminded me that my dad once claimed he bought me my first car. He didn't, I bought it with money I'd earned. He had nothing to do with the search or the purchase Confused

barbrahunter · 18/11/2021 06:04

Although I am sorry that all of you have experienced parental truth - faking, it is strangely reassuring to me because I have endured a lot of this, too.
My mother only had 6 anecdotes about her children when they were young, most of them inaccurate and all of them about my brother (her obvious favourite). The irony is that my brother grew up to be selfish and unpleasant and has been happily ignoring her now for 20 years and counting.