I think my parents are getting more bitchy as they get older..

[TroubledRabbit]

I'll try not to drop feed. Speak to my mum every week, offer help practically - always refused. It's a bit frosty, my younger brother is the favourite to the point I am known as number 1daughter, my dad actually starts to say number 2 then 'amusingly' corrects.

DD (17) excitedly rang my mum (73) to talk about a University offer.

My mum, who didn't get the chance to go to uni, talked about how she'd dropped me off and then cried all the way home whilst I showed no emotion.

How it used to cost them a fortune visiting buying crates of beer and taking all my friends out for meals.

How her much loved brother had met his wife at Uni.

I remember my dad making a big fuss of leaving 12 cans of tartan bitter (which he was thanked for) but no group meals or even plus ones.

I can imagine an awkward, holding it together hug, when they left and I did phone or write (it was the 90s)

But the weirdest thing was when DD said her dad & I met at Uni and my mum said 'no, I think they met at a sports club'.
It was a Uni sports club and we were mates for a year before finally getting together around our finals.

Would you feel hurt if your parents did this? It's petty little details but I think my parents are getting more bitchy as they get older.

*sometimes

funnily enough mine also go on about how much money they sent me throughout university

My mother did this for 30 years and it was about £ 400 (early 1970s). Funnily enough no mention of the money I spent visiting her when she went to live on the other side of the world, that more than paid her back for the uni fees.

This is all trivial but it's part of the joy of AIBU.

I think having my own teens highlights the reliability of the family stories. looking at pictures of my early childhood, my parents memories fill the narrative.
As I look at my own teens, my own teen memories are independent of my parents and obviously in places subscribe different motivations.

The how we met narrative has inexplicably annoyed me. My kids think their parents met in a tv drama, walking around an ancient quad way. DH & I think we met in a student union, cheeky afternoon pint, cycling along the seafront kind of way. My mum thinks we met in a municipal sports centre.

Why do your kids think you met in a tv drama way? Are you as angry with them for being wrong as you are your mum?

Does it matter where you met?

I would reduce contact if they are making you feel bad. I don't suppose it is much fun getting old, but they could be less mean and difficult. I wouldn't give them the chance to start moaning just bright and breezy all the way, and ask dd to look to you for some support and cheer.

Everybody's narrative is different. Ask three different people what happened at an event and you'll get three different versions. People remember differently, that's all.

I'm going to DM you some forms to adopt me.
If I move on with @Snnowflake someone else can have my parents. I think they stick to social norms with their friends and wider community. So will sigh at injustice, express sadness at misfortune. Have grown more racist but less homophobic with age. Free to a good home, inheritance pending but vulnerable to golden child brother and care home fees.

Op mine is 80 negative negative. I do minimal visits. If you like that people dont want be around it. I think read your post they get set in their ways.

The how we met narrative has inexplicably annoyed me. My kids think their parents met in a tv drama, walking around an ancient quad way. DH & I think we met in a student union, cheeky afternoon pint, cycling along the seafront kind of way. My mum thinks we met in a municipal sports centre.

Feck sake accidently posted because the dogs are play fighting beside me. But it seems like you are angry that your mother isn't romanticising how you met? Do parents do that, make up romantic stories about how their kids met their partners? I mean she got the facts right. You did meet at a sports club. Dh and I met at a petrol station. I can give a romantic retelling of the story but I doubt my parents would(not that know where we met!).

Snnowflake is right, I think. In old age, many people (for better or ill) become more pronounced versions of their former selves.

When I read these threads I do worry that my DDs will think we didn't treat them fairly or equally when they get older. The idea of having a favourite is abhorrent to me, but I do think it's almost impossible to treat children completely equally.

Good point @MichelleScarn and no @Doidontimmm it doesn't. Not really but also it does.

I imagine the kids thinking about the ancient quad because films and tv dramas are more Trinity & Oxbridge then 90s grungy Brighton.
And mum has that stone building, grassy lawn, carrying bags of books narrative for everyone else who met at Uni.
DD got off the call and asked me directly if we'd met at Uni because Granny had spent ages talking about various relatives who'd met at Uni and when she prompted that us, her DPs, had also met at Uni, my mum said 'I think it was a sports club'

I wonder if your parents have spent years exaggerating their treats or trips to their peers. So now when the memory is triggered they automatically repeat 'the story' which puts them in the best light.

@Foolsandtheirmoney I don't know, I'd probably stretch your petrol station to 'that was the year you were working in Hobbiton and had just finished your training, was Mr Fools still working for xxx, it must have been hard living apart but you both made it work and here you are'

And even if I did keep it close to the petrol station, I'd probably flag up the cost difference between then and now. Our local station closed when petrol went over a £1 and there was no room on the sign for another digit.

But you did meet at a sports club? She was right! I’m totally lost with the issue!

@Doidontimmm the way DD described it my mum described the excitement of uni through friends and relatives who had a great time and met their partners there. When she spoke of me it was in terms of coldness, my mum was in tears, I was stoic. And uni had nothing to do with us her parents getting together.

So working through this my mum, excited about DDs uni application, took the opportunity to be bitchy in lots of small ways about my uni experience.

Useful! Must put down Mumsnet and go look for my grip and work on strategy's to prevent me going this way.

I get it, it’s not that you didn’t meet at a sports club, it’s making sure your meeting story is downgraded as much as possible whilst everyone else gets upgraded to the rosy romantic picture. If this extends to other things it really gets you down after years of it. It’s almost as if you aren’t allowed anything nice.

If this was a husband and wife we were talking about it would be seen as psychological games. But parents/kids nah, kid’s just insensitive.

*sensitive

Ok that makes a bit more sense, as in she dismissed you basically. Is she jealous of your life maybe?

This is the sort of thing that is unremarkable to most but cuts deeply to the person who has a history of hurt and dismissal.

Which is why I think you're upset by this, because it's triggering a life time of hurt at feeling 2nd best, misunderstood and dismissed.

I can’t see anything bitchy in any of that. You met at a uni sports club. The fact that you think that’s better than meeting at a ‘municipal’ sports club says more about you than your parents.

I remember my dad making a big fuss of leaving 12 cans of tartan bitter (which he was thanked for) but no group meals or even plus ones.

Why should your dad pay for your group meals or for your +1?

You sound insufferably entitled and arrogant.

Tbh, I can't see a lot wrong with what they said to DD. I think its a bit pedantic to care about the sports club/uni thing, and I've heard a lot of parents over emphasise how their children took off without a backward glance, and how much trouble they went to. It's almost the done thing to moan about the cost and inconvenience of your student children, but its typically light hearted.
Obviously there is a significant context to your feelings about them though, and its natural this heightens your sensitivity. But truly in this case, I see no more than a parent reminiscing about their own childs uni days in a similar way to how many other parents would.

OP I understand 100% .
I've similar parents. Golden children brothers, dismissive of me because I struck out in life and made my own way. Deluges of their memories, nó interest in reality or what is happening for me now. It's shit, negates your sense of self and is very wearing over time. I doubt it is just this example. Some of us get it. X