To be appalled at the behaviour of my mother?

[Mysteriousgirl2]

My grandmother (in her 90s) has had a fall today. She’s on her way to hospital. We don’t yet know what’s happened but it might be a broken hip. My granny has two children, my own mother who is in her 60s and doesn’t work, and my aunt who is 2 years younger and working.

Both my mum and my aunt live similar distances to my grandmother. (Roughly 15 mins drive). When I heard she’d had a fall, I called my mum. I actually thought that she might be waiting for an ambulance and, anticipating a long wait, thought that they both might need some food and drink/support, etc while waiting. It turns out she wasn’t there at all.

So basically my aunt has had to leave her workplace and take time off work to look after her. My mum, who doesn’t work, has decided to stay at home today and, in her own words, is ‘sitting on a bench at home in the sunshine with her dog’. I am quite annoyed that mum doesn’t want to go and help. I can see that she knows her sister is already with her, but I’m sure she would have been grateful for the extra support. I just know that mum won’t offer to sit with her tonight when she’s at hospital, so she’s not even anticipating a shift type situation at all. It will all fall on my aunt.

Thing is, my aunt is due to go on holiday tomorrow (she rarely goes away, whereas my mum has holidays roughly once a month). I suggested to mum that my aunt will still be able to go on holiday and that mum could help look after her. Obvs this depends on how granny is, but from what I’ve heard it doesn’t seem serious. Mum has said that she can’t help as she’s too ‘busy’. She really isn’t busy.

I’m happy to help if I can and have already called my aunt to say that I can help whilst she’s away, but I do work P/T and have small kids, so my time is limited.

I’m just SO livid at my mum who never ever seems to help and just isn’t bothered about her own mother. Granny is a lovely, caring supportive person - a former nurse - who helped my own mother with her children etc loads and now mum just doesn’t care. I’m tempted to get angry with her and tell her some home truths.

If you call anyone, call your aunt and grandmother to offer support. Whatever your mother's reasons, she won't respond well to you telling her off for it and you'll likely only escalate drama. Truth is, her relationship with her mother isn't anything to do with you so there's really no good reason to insert yourself. The only constructive thing you can do is offer support yourself.

I do think, OP, that you should also help, not just criticise your mum.

I would read very lightly.It really isn't any of your business and I think there ae dynamics at play you are not aware of

For all those posting about some ominous reason for OP's mother failing to assist, who cares? What matters here is lightening her sisters load. It's just crap of her not to help her sister.

But we don't know why she doesn't feel caring towards her sister either.

It might well be that she's just a self centred cow. Some people are. Or there might be a more nuanced back story.

At any rate, none of it is really OP's business. If she wants to help, best thing she can do is be supportive herself, whatever her feelings about the whole thing.

At face value, I agree that your mother's behaviour is pretty shocking. But you may not have the full picture.

My own mother is a doting grandmother and was heavily involved in their lives when the kids were younger. To the outside world she is a sweet natured, capable and independent older lady. And in many respects she is.

But. Towards her own children, she is also an emotionally immature woman capable of extreme bitterness and anger. We had a pretty toxic childhood spent walking on eggshells. She isn't a bad person, just very damaged by her own awful childhood. We (me and my siblings) have difficult relationships with her. She behaves absolutely awfully to us at times, but no one would know outside her children and their partners.

My DC and my siblings' children have absolutely NO idea about ANY of this. There is no reason for them to know. To them she is just a very loving if occasionally slightly odd grandmother.

I do worry about what will happen if my mother needs more support as she gets older. In all honestly I don't want to have to have more involvement with her than I already do, but I worry that my children will think I'm a monster if I don't step up.

All I'm saying is don't assume you know everything about their relationship.

She sounds childish and selfish.

My Mum is like this. When Nan was ill, my sister and I cared for her/arranged everything she needed because Mum just couldn't cope with any of it. She left all the funeral arrangements to her brother who then in turn ripped her off to the tune of several thousand pounds but Mum paid it rather than confront the issue.

I don't think it's selfishness though, it's a coping mechanism because Mum just can't deal with anything like death/illness.

@Mysteriousgirl2 Whilst it is selfish, you don't know what their relationship was like before you. My nan had a strained relationship with my aunt, she allocated my Nan a certain amount of hours and when time was up then that was it, even though she worked part time, no kids, young and physically fit to care for her. My nan had definitely become hard work and moaned about everything but I didn't understand the dynamic. It turned out it was because my nan had forced her to have an abortion as a teen. My aunt was protecting her peace a bit and no doubt found it a strained relationship.

People ask me why my mum and I were frosty at times and we also have a heavy history of serious issues. To an outsider she was a saint and people can't understand it. I'd have gone to the hospital still, try to ignore the constant elephant in the room but some people can't. If their relationship is strained, your DM might be protecting her own MH.

Some family secrets remain just that.

It could be there's a massive backstory, it could be that OP's Mum is a selfish bitch, who was quite happy to use her Mum up, and then spit her out when she was no longer useful, and became seen as a liability.

I think there's no point in confronting your mother, because she will be able to justify her in/action, either way. I would be talking with your Gran, your Aunt, and figuring out what is needed, who can do what, and sorting out who does what, and when on that basis.

As for this being transactional, impacting on what you're prepared to do for your mother when her time of need comes up - what goes around, comes around. This will be a big part of your backstory with your mother, which means you are far more less willing to step up with what she wants and needs.

Sorry, but I don't quite understand. If your granny is in hospital what do your mother or aunt actually have to do, other than visit her? Surely the hospital staff are taking care of her? Both of my elderly parents have been in hospital in recent years and I visited them during visiting hours, if they went to the nearest city for treatment, which my mother did when she broke her hip, I didn't see them at all (they were only there for a short time) and I certainly never needed to sit with them at night. I wish your granny all the best, but this all seems a bit dramatic.

She could easily have missed a back story. The grandchildren in our family don’t understand the dynamics between the rest of the family. Grandparents are often lovely to their grandchildren even if they’re quite abusive with their children. I certainly wouldn’t trust my children or nieces to understand why everyone isn’t lovely to Granny.

You know what I would do. Text her and ask why she isnt helping your aunt with their Mum keep it breezy. When she replies with whatever bullshit reason she thinks is good enough. So sitting in her garden walking the dog ect
Reply that when she is old and goes to hospital you will remember that she doesnt need any visitors or help and that she will be on her own as you will be in the garden. What's goes around come around.

Definitely true.

I have, factually, 7 brothers and sisters. I have decent relationships with two of them.

Wow, judgy much?!

One day I imagine I'll be in a similar situation to your mum. My daughter doesn't know most of the reasons why I have no contact with my mother. Is your mum genuinely being selfish or May there be something you don't know about?

I have family members that seemed very very different when I grew up and I wasn’t the only one who had the wool pulled over my eyes. It seems like your mum has form for this so I’m surprised you are surprised. It’s between your mum and hers. It’s sad it has to be this way but I’ve found sometimes each person in the scenario is a bit wrong and a bit right.

All those saying that there might be more to the relationship than OP is aware of:

My elderly and now disabled mum is a horrible person. Which is why there is no way I would condemn my brother (who lives locally to her, while I'm 80 miles away) to have to manage her needs alone. I hold my nose and do what I need to do for her that helps to support him. I don't do it for her, I do it for him.

It doesn't matter how OP's mum feels about her mum, it's awful of her to let her sister miss her holiday.
If there was a history of ill will or unfair treatment between the siblings, I'm fairly sure OP would know that and have mentioned it in the OP.

I was going to post something similar about the relationship with my mother but you have articulated this so well.

I'd be letting my Mother know she is demonstrating the sort of care she herself will be expecting in a daughter mother relationship when she is elderly and frail. We reap what we sow and all that. ;)

Your mother is incredibly selfish but she won't change. My own grandmother fell and broke her hip and had dementia. My mother is one of 7 seven siblings. Every one of her siblings had younger children, working full time, living in a different area, different country. My mother didn't work and had three grown up children that had left home. Just herself to look after in a very beautiful, expensive home. Plenty of money and not a worry in the world. She wouldn't go be with my grandmother as " she had to wait in for the plumber"... bullshit.

One of the many reasons I'm NC with her now..

As though OP hasn't spent her ENTIRE LIFE around these people and has somehow missed a 'massive back story .

She's spent her entire life around them...not their entire lives. They were around for quite a while before she was.

Do your kids know everything about you?

DaysAtTheBeach · Today 17:55
Relationships are complicated. It is very, very unlikely that there’s been a fantastic, loving relationship between OPs grandma and mother over the years and then OPs mum doesn’t care when she’s ill. It is very, very likely there’s a lot more to it.

Very much agree with this.

Agree.

How I view my grandparents and how their children (my parents, aunts, and uncles) view them are entirely different views and the same would be for me and my children.

My own mum admits her father mellowed out tremendously by time I was born and the same goes for my own mum so my children aren’t getting the same person that I did growing up and that’s a good thing. It’s the same with siblings. Parents will swear up and down that they raised their children the same way when more often than not they didn’t and their children will say so.

Parents will swear up and down that they raised their children the same way when more often than not they didn’t and their children will say so.

Too true. Have you ever met a parent who admits they favoured one child? And yet how many adult children say there was a favourite child?