Does anyone else's mother or MIL take constant trips down memory lane? At any opportunity remembering what their kids did / ate, how they mothered them etc ?
My mother rarely does this. She mainly does it in private and not in front of others. MIL just cannot help herself and has to refer everything back to how she did it and tells tales of the olden days a lot. It's so boring. She makes it all about her. Even my DH finds it so annoying.
Also, constantly pushing her traditions on us and our kids. It's just all about her and what she did and how great it all was.
Examples include :
I buy my DS a special coat and she goes on about how she still has her children's coat and must give it to us.
Her wanting to carry on traditions she had with her kids, like a special broach they all have. My kids have to have one too now. A special prayer she used to say to them, she now wants to teach to my kids.
Just small examples. But they add up. I know that it's not mean of her, but it excludes me, doesn't it. It's all about their thing and what they did. My mum might tell me things in private - like, ' oh it would be fun if you send DD to ballet, like you used to, maybe she'll enjoy it'. But she won't make a whole saga out of it. Whereas MIL will give me a huge trip down memory Lane about how she took her DD to ballet and if I take my DD, she'll say ' aw look, DD is doing ballet, just like her aunt did '.. I know it sound silly and miserable, but it adds up and makes me feel alienated from my kids and like I never had a childhood to share with my own kids. Like I'm just an irrelevant third party anyway and my kids are basically an extension of her own children.
Annoying. Rant over !