Regular poster but NCd for this.
My mum and I have something of a strained relationship. She’s very passive aggressive and not especially supportive, so I never go to her for support. The last time I did was
10 years ago when I was pregnant with DD after having 2 miscarriages. I said I was worried about losing this baby too. Her reply was “Well as long as you don’t go out in heels or do something silly like go dancing in clubs you’ll be fine”. For the record - I didn’t wear heels or go dancing in any of my pregnancies. This is just an example of her personality. And if you do something once - like sleep in and miss work (which I did aged 17) she will remind you of that forever and say things 20+ years later like “Oh you’re at work, I hope you made it on time and didn’t sleep in”.
I had a mostly good childhood but my 2 brothers and I had a typical 80s/90s upbringing - we got smacked when we misbehaved, grounded for weeks on end, random rules like no going into the kitchen after 7pm etc. The only punishment I consider unduly harsh is that if we swore (which I rarely did but my brothers did often) they would put hot sauce on our lips, like lip balm. And we weren’t allowed to wash it off. It didn’t work - as adults we all have potty mouths!
Anyway, on to my AIBU.
She lives abroad now so my kids, 9&6, rarely see her. Even though my kids barely know her she can be quite overbearing and I’ve often had to tell her to tone it down with them.
There’s a persistent theme when we are with her that she makes shitty comments about my parenting. She thinks I’m ‘mean’ to my children - which is rich considering our childhood! For the record, I am not mean - however if DD has a shit tip of a bedroom that she isn’t cleaning up despite me telling her 5 times I will raise my voice (I don’t shout) and say please tidy your room now or I will be taking your iPad off you for the week. And I follow through on what I say. Or if DS is being unkind to his sister I will make him go and sit in his room to decompress and he can’t come out and play until he apologises.
Mum will sit there going “Oh my poor babies” or “isn’t mummy mean”. Again I do call her out on it and say stop undermining me in front of my kids. I also remind her of what she did to us and she will say “well you shouldn’t have been swearing then” 🙄. She says “I never spoke to you the way you speak to your kids”. Which is total bollocks.
Last time we were all together with my brothers, she made a really shitty remark about my son and how I’ve raised him that I won’t repeat, and my eldest brother actually had a go at her in front of extended family telling her to leave me alone and that I’m a great mum unlike she was.
You get the picture!
My DD (9 nearly 10) told me yesterday that my mum had said to her during the last visit “If mummy is ever unkind to you, call me on your iPad and tell me what she’s said and I’ll be there for you.” She also told my DD not to tell me about this ‘plan’. It made DD feel really uncomfortable, and guilty, and it had been playing on her mind all week. I told her I’m so so proud of her for telling me - she knows she must always tell me if anyone has instructed her to keep secrets from me. She was upset at being asked to go behind my back, we are very close and she’s an open book so this was an alien concept to her. She has said now that she doesn’t like my mum.
my AIBU is - what the hell do I do? How do I approach this? My instincts tell me to lose my shit at my mum but that isn’t helpful obviously. But this level of sneaking around to get one up on me has made me seethe and I can’t see logic right now, only emotions and I need to act reasonably.
Apologies for the long OP - I didn’t want to drip feed so thought context is important!