To be upset by DM’s behaviour today?

[Sdux39]

Long ramble here so as not to drip feed…

I am close to my mum; we text most days and she is part of my childcare doing 2 days a week for us. She does this by choice and volunteered when I was pregnant with DS back in early 2020. They have a great relationship and DS loves his time with her. Occasionally, she has booked a holiday during term time (I’m a headteacher) and so I’ve had to sort other childcare. I find this quite stressful but I haven’t said anything as it’s her life and she deserves to go on holiday when she wants to. I grew up in a very intense and emotional household and so I feel like I’m
perhaps too passive and people please to keep the peace. This is the same at work and I’ve really had to work on being assertive and then not getting emotionally low when people don’t like decisions I’m making etc.

Today was my DF’s birthday. I believed that we were supposed to be going over to their house between 11:30-12 to open presents before going out for a Sunday roast. Just before leaving my DS did the classic thing of needing a big poo (tmi, sorry!) and he likes to take his time doing this. My parents live a 6 minute drive from us. By the time he had finished and we left the house all cleaned up, we arrived at their house at 12, to an awful atmosphere. My DM was clearly angry and started shouting at me and DH, using awful language and saying we should “fucking engage” with plans etc. To my knowledge we haven’t had any previous issues with them believing we have been late? My DF seemed absolutely fine with us but kept quiet and out of her way. She believed we were late, which I did not believe, as I thought the plan was a bit more laid back. I think this is a case of miscommunication but either way I’m really upset and angry at being spoken to in this way. This is not the first time she has done this. As I said, I grew up in a very intense and emotionally charged household.

AIBU to say something to her about speaking to me in this way or should I just ignore it and carry on as normal for the sake of peace. I don’t mind if she was upset with me for believing I was late but surely just a conversation would’ve been fine without shouting and swearing?

YABU - you were clearly late and deserved to be “told off”

YANBU - no one should speak to you in this way, late or not

Was she stressed about the day, was there a table booked! This is not to excuse her swearing but if she miscommunicated the time was she getting more and more stressed about a table booking and then exploded at you

I can just imagine that sort of thing happening

Think about this for a minute more. You are a headteacher. My Dad was too. Would you allow a parent at your school to speak to you or your staff like that? I'm sure you wouldn't and my Dad certainly didn't either. So don't allow your own parent to do it.

If that means you need alternative childcare then so be it. Assert yourself and stop being beholden to her.

Its almost like your DM took on care of your DS so as to retain control of you.

Don’t overlook the fact that she won’t want to lose her time with your child. Neither will your DF who quite likely will blame her. Trust me - I’m a grandparent.
Stand up to her and make it clear the way she spoke to you was completely unacceptable. Apologise for not messaging her while your little one was taking his time on the loo then obviously wait for her apology. If she doesn’t give it, from an alternative plan.

I’d speak to her and tell her that you will not be spoken to like that. People like her don’t like to be stood up to so be prepared for a fall out. I wouldn’t be happy leaving my child with someone that loses it so easily so I’d look for alternative childcare. She’ll keep treating you badly if you let her.

She was shouting "fucking..." and you think your son didn't hear it from another room? You're minimising her behaviour and it's impact on your son.

No, she behaves like that for her own reasons. OP needs to make some boundaries and not accept it, but isn't the cause of the behaviour.

This is quite telling. You shouldn’t have to tiptoe around anyone for fear of disturbing the peace. You say yourself above that you are emotionally withdrawn so this has obviously been your method of dealing with things in the past. It may not be abusive, but this is definitely not a healthy dynamic and not good for your DC to be witnessing either.

I say this as I see a lot of similarities in the way you describe your upbringing and relationships with your DM and my own experiences. I became a complete people pleaser and struggled to ever voice my own opinion about anything for fear or repercussions. This spilled over into other areas of life until I addressed the above.

YANBU but I think you need to spend some time thinking about this whole dynamic.

*form

I think I'd have to send her a message addressing the issue as I couldn't just forget it and move on.
Hi DM, I wanted to address what happened earlier today. While I understand you were annoyed that we were late, I want to make it clear that I will not be spoken to like that. I apologise for the misunderstanding around the arrival time and hope we can move on past this.
I'd expect a big tantrum, but let her get on with it. I would seriously look at childcare options as she is either going to refuse to help you or make it as awkward as possible. It's something she can easily control and manipulate you with. Don't feed the drama.

Your emotional compass is busted. Your mother’s “intense emotional style” or whatever you were taught to call it was absolutely abusive and has left you frightened , silenced, and bewildered.

Dramatic and emotional=you mean abusive. I would have turned round and messaged later to say you won’t be shouted at like that. Seriously, find alternative childcare, god knows what she’s like with your child if she was a screaming harridan with you.

So, in other words, you were brought up in stressful environment where you learnt to bend over backwards to keep the peace, rather than ever speaking up.

However, your parents had the monopoly on "having feelings" - you were not allowed to show emotions and hence learnt to suppress your own (probably to the point that you don't even know what you feel about anything any more).

I would be very concerned about your own DS spending so much time with them unsupervised. Are you happy for him to be brought up in the same environment that you were?

With regards to the current situation - it sounds like you upset your mother because you didn't do what she wanted. The fact that she'd not clearly comunicated what she wanted is no excuse for you not doing it. You were doing your "job" which is to bend over backwards to make sure your mother doesn't get upset.

As per my PP - so you are already working out what you need to change to prevent your mother losing her temper next time.
Look at this objectively. Say, you were meant to be there dead on 11.30am but didn't turn up until 12pm. What problem has this caused? So you might have to open presents after lunch, rather than before? Was this such a dreadful thing to happen that it was worth all the upset?

In "normal" households, your mother would say "oh, I thought we'd agree you would be here at 11.30am" and you would reply - "oh, I thought we'd said between 11.30 and 12; we did mean to be earlier but DS took ages on the loo".

And that would be that and everyone would wish your father happy birthday and move on.

You arrived bang on 12 so the limit of the "window". A text saying "hi, be there soon" type thing would have been polite

But still doesn't excuse her behaviour. It was OTT.

And you clearly resent her taking holidays because that was irrelevant to the story but you mentioned it anyway. She's free childcare and can go away when she wants, you don't need to confront her over that

Your son must be soon be old enough to be going to school and hopefully you won’t have to rely on your mother for childcare. Maybe then you won’t feel so obliged to keep the peace in situations like this.

Surely as a headteacher you have a responsibility to protect children in your care but yet you're allowing your mother continue to be abusive to you and your child. Your child will have heard her swearing and shouting at you despite you trying to minimise it. She's probably doing the same to your child when she's "minding" him, leopards don't change their spots.

You need to stop walking on eggshells around your mother, organise different childcare and stop tolerating her abusive behaviour. I'm shocked your DH just stood by without intervening when she was swearing and shouting at you.

i’ve put yabu because you could have take 1 minute to drop her a message as soon as you knew you were going to be late. even if you didn’t do that you could have apologised for being late when you arrived and explained why. you don’t even seem to accept you were late even though you knew the pre arranged timings. she had the right to be angry but she didn’t need to shout and swear at you.

Were you late for the roast dinner?

Why did she “have a right to be angry?” What an overreaction to a daughter with a four year old grandchild being late. It really doesn’t merit anger. Was she making souffle and had overbaked them?

I really hope that you can realise this isn’t a normal way for a mother to speak to their daughter. Not normal at all.
The fact you just carried on the visit and have thought about how to prevent it again is even more worrying. I’m sorry she has presumably always acted like this and led you to believe it’s acceptable in some way. What was your father doing when she was shouting? Is he scared of her?

I would look for new childcare.

Sorry OP but I agree with this.
Was there any room for you to have emotions while you were tiptoeing around everyone else's 'big feelings'?

You're now a grown woman & a mother yourself. Under no circumstances should anyone be talking to you like that, especially over something as trivial as being later than planned to watch your dad open presents.

Life gets better when you stop worrying & start calling this aggressive bullshit out for what it is, instead of tiptoeing about & playing emotion roulette every time you see your Mum.

I think she must have meant for you to arrive at 11.30am, spend half an hour watching DF open presents, then set off at 12 for restaurant.

So she spent 30 mins getting revved up to fever pitch.
However swearing and shouting at you like that, especially with her young grandchild in the house, isn't acceptable behaviour.

I'm shocked your DH just stood by without intervening when she was swearing and shouting at you.DF didn't intervene either. It sounds like they are both used to this behaviour. Which is not a good thing.

You weren't late though?
She sounds unhinged. How can you go for Sunday lunch any earlier than 12 anyway? The pubs probably wouldn't even be open.
I'd tell her she needs to apologise.