My mum keeps accidentally calling herself mum

[twinmum2022]

Right, I do have a weird history with my mum so don't know if I'm being over sensitive.

But... when she's talking to my babies she quite often accidentally refers to herself as "mum".

For example, "aah come and see mummy" when she picks them up or "ohh shall mummy do it" when they drop their dummy ect.

She does correct herself but it really annoys me. Throw in a bunch of comments about what she'd rather they wear and constantly taking the pram away and I'm getting a bit fed up...

Am I being sensitive, are these just normal grandparent things we all suck up?

I don’t buy it as a slip up. My mum and MIL never did this.

Its not normal. She is likely not doing it on purpose, its probably some kind of readjusting to her being a grandmother and dealing with issues she might have about being a mother.

not sure why some posters are basically telling you off for not telling her off, you have the right to ask on here. also talking to your mum might not make that much of a difference if its something she doesnt have that much control of.

I’m shocked by how spiteful some of these responses are. So sad for the grandmas loving their grandchildren and making a little linguistic slip and being told they have dementia, reprimanded and having contact cut down. Heartbreaking. Is there no forgiveness in this world.

OP I’m sorry your relationship with your mum hasn’t been great, but I doubt she’s doing it to hurt or undermine you. Though when you’ve just had a baby everything is so heightened and the difficulties in the mother daughter relationship can be wounds opened up again. Enjoy your lovely baby 💐

My MIL does this too, as well as my FIL calling my MIL mum to my daughter! although not as often.

BUT I really don’t get how they can do this accidentally on numerous occasions.

1. their children are 55, 52, 49 and 35 (my DH). So obviously it’s been a good few years since they’ve had to refer themselves as Mum or Dad to a young child in a child-like manner.
2. My daughter is they’re 9th Grandchild so it’s not something new to have a grandchild and make this mistake. They even have great-grandchildren!

I don’t know why it annoys me so much, well I do actually because they would really mollycoddle my daughter when she was a baby, still do, and they act like she’s her own child and that they’ve never had their own children (they obviously have!), like wanting to buy gifts from Santa but at their house, wanting to do easter egg hunts etc. When they know I’m doing these things in my own house! And they always say how lucky we are when it’s Christmas, with it being magical with a child, but they’ve got to do it 4 times over so it’s not like it’s something they’ve missed out on!

Anyway, they also laugh it off rather than correcting themselves which bugs me!

It’s too late to start correcting them with my daughter since she’s 6, but I’m expecting another baby very shortly so I will be correcting them if the same happens with this one.

I could've written this post myself! My mum does this and also answers over me when one of my DC asks for me....I have a weird dynamic with my mum also, love her but she is a complete narcissist and loves to feel loved and wanted so I put her calling herself mummy and answering to mummy down to that. I can't broach this directly with my mum as she isn't good at taking any form of criticism so I just correct her gently in the moment and move on. You are definitely not being unreasonable or insensitive to feel like it is inappropriate.

My MIL did this so I started implying she was losing her marbles (and someone who is losing their marbles isn't safe to look after small children alone). Soon stopped her.

Oh I have the loveliest mum ever and she does this! Doesn't annoy me at all, it's just new to her to be referring to herself as "nanny" after being mum for 35 years.

They probably just remind her of you. The last baby she looked after was you after all and especially with family resemblance it's easy to have a slip of the tongue. I sometimes accidentally refer to myself as auntie to a friends baby because my DNs live with me so come to auntie is the default iyswim.

It's quiite bizarre (and really depressing) that there's a whole bunch of MNers who think that it's much more likely that their DMs or MILS are deliberately calling themselves mum in order to undermine them, than that they're just having the occasional subconscious blip.

I don't know if it's paranoia or just that these mothers so insecure in their own parenting, or so hooked on the power of motherhood that they can't conceive of a GP perfectly aware and happy in their own role and not wanting to take over.

It depends how she does it.

My dad occasionally says "can daddy help?" Or "hold daddy's hand" then corrects himself, but he's been a father 34 years and a grandparent for two. It's rare and completely unintentional so not an issue.

If she's doing it to undermine you, that's very different

I often look after my baby niece. I make a massive effort to avoid a slip up like this and always refer to myself as 'Auntie'.

When me and baby are out and about, I always reference that she is my sister's baby and she very kindly lends her to me.

I do, however, constantly tell her she is 'a good boy' because I have three sons

Eh? What do you want her to refer to your dad as, his Christian name?

This is the weirdest thread I've read in a long time and that's saying something as there's bay shit crazy stuff on here 99% of the time!

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor ‘your dad was saying..’ not ‘dad was saying..’ as if it’s her dad the way you’d speak to a toddler

Nope,still don't understand the issue. Either is perfectly fine surely?

My mum did this over the past few months, but I think she legitimately didn’t realise and she was so used to being mum for 40 years that she didn’t notice.

I let it slide thinking I’ll wait and see and within a couple of months she was very much granny.

But my mum is innocent and kind and doesn’t have a bad bone, so I knew it wasn’t deliberate. If you have a questionable relationship with your mum, then I would address it and stamp it out now so she knows your mum in every sense of the word.

First few months, not past!

This is so so nasty. Nothing to be proud of, and nothing to attract you to being a “really good friend” of this nasty person. Awful

My mum did the same thing… quickly fixed with “accidental” comments like “Silly Nanna’s clearly confused. Time for a dementia assessment, I think.” Or… “Time to pack Nanna off to a home for the bewildered. She keeps forgetting that I’m your mum, and she’s your Nanna.”

The number of people on this thread choosing to weaponise an older person's greatest fear is absolutely sickening. And all in revenge for their DM's subconscious demonstrating that their love for their grandchild mirrors the love they showed the DGC's parent at that age.

Seriously, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Ask her what she’d like to be called by her grandchildren and then start to refer to herself using this name. She could say Nan or Gran for example and then repeat it like mums and dads do. When the child says an n sound she could say nana. That could help her remember to not say mum - although she must be thinking of when she was a mother and feeling maternal looking after her grandkids.

I agree, that passive agressive comment about a dementia check is below the belt.

However remember that not all grandmothers are rosy cheeked sweet cheerful people.
Some are narcissistic, controlling or just plain nasty.
I heard my mother tell my daughter to call her mummy, because " your own mummy isn't as nice as me"

I'm only too aware that some mothers aren't rosy cheeked saints. Mine was abusive and continues to be an issue in my life.

Which is one of the reasons that I see people over reactibg spitefully to GPs with no back story, but who, like me, have a love driven brain blip when caring for their DGD, and think WTF?
They honestly should be glad that they have DMs/MILs who love their GCs to that extent. Mine could barely pick hers out of a lineup. I still wouldn't pull the dementia card on her though.

When my son was four he began having nightmares after a visit from my DM. He was shaking in fear and was clammed up and clingy. When we finally got him to talk about what was worrying him, it turned out that she had told him that she was the boss of our family and was going to have me thrown out and was going to move in instead.
Not that he knew this part, but she had never had unsupervised contact with any of my kids because she had tortured me physically, psychologically and emotionally when I was growing up. Eleven broken arms before my tenth birthday amongst other things, including telling teachers, etc, that I had brain damage from being a premature baby when I tried asking for help. She must have gotten in his ear when I was in the toilet.

saraclara by the same token some grandparents are lucky to have their grandchildren near and involved.

We have had opportunities for jobs, some abroad, but have chosen to stay close to my mother.