Not sure that I like my own mother

[Diamondtortoise]

She is 65 years old now. As she gets older she’s becoming more opinionated and those opinions are becoming more extreme.

She religiously watches Jeremy Vine on channel 5 every weekday and the news on repeat.

Just a few things:

• She doesn’t believe in feminism
• She thinks this country should be white Christian
• She doesn’t think gay men or women should get married
• She thinks people claiming pip are lazy and ‘everyone has something these days’

If I try to challenge her on any of these things she gets immediately so defensive and nasty.

I have to walk away every time she says anything like this now. It’s really tainting my view of her though and makes me sad. I understand everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs but it’s quite upsetting when your own mother seems so angry when you even try and look at things from a different perspective.

"(although we will say something if her views are offensive)."

Again with this "I have the right to not be offended" crap.

As Stephen Fry said in reply to "I am offended by that" ........ "so fucking what?"

Feeling you have the right to police someone else's thoughts and feelings because you deem yours to be better is offensive. Leave the woman be, her life, her choices, nothing to do with you.

The opinions of the OP’s mother are everything to do with her if it causes them to be estranged and means she’s not comfortable with her DC being around her DM. It is not just some opinions she overheard in the street.

OP sorry this is tricky - is she isolated or does she have a group of friends that think the same way? So she’s found an echo chamber?

I’d keep reminding her that lots of people don’t think that way and some of her views lack empathy. How old are your DC? Will their opinions and experiences be influencing her world soon?

I couldn't agree more.

Tell her she is lucky to have these opinions freely, thanks to the suffragettes..then walk away

"Feeling you have the right to police someone else's thoughts and feelings because you deem yours to be better is offensive"

To quote your own point.... so fucking what?

her life, her choices, nothing to do with you.

This is so weirdly naive. We all live in the same country. The views OP’s mum is expressing are political views that will affect who she votes for and who wins and that will affect OP and you too. You can like OP’s mum’s views or not, but it’s total nonsense to say ‘nothing to do with you’ (not to mention the fact that she’s, you know, her mum).

I agree with this. My Mum lives on Twitter. She has 15,000 followers and gone from being a fairly moderate socialist to a raging, radical far-left conspiracy theorist over the past few years. She’s 75, and I wonder if she’s got dementia. I do love her, but she’s a nasty old woman who doesn’t care who she hurts with her soap-box political rantings. As an example, we had a Ukrainian family staying with us and she told the 8 year old little girl (who is extremely traumatised after their home was bombed by rockets) that Putin isn’t that bad, and it’s all the western leaders who are really the “bad men”.

Even as I child, if my DM got a bee in her bonnet, we'd all know about it. She's 83 now. Over the years she's lost all her friends due to the fact if they don't see if her way, they're wrong, neighbours shy away. She's fallen out with us, her sister numerous times. We can't get a word in edge ways, it's all about what she thinks and if very hard to discuss rights and wrong. To be honest if it wasn't for the fact she is my DM and family, I'd avoid her.

That would be all well and good, if the opinions didn't belong to the OP's mother, she isn't some stranger ranting in a cafe. It's sad when people change, and relationships breakdown. The OP isn't unreasonable to not want to spend time with her DM if she's turned nasty, and she's allowed to not be indifferent to that.

Thanks for all the replies. She’s never really had any friends and still doesn’t now. She spends all her time with my DF who has similar views but not quite as extreme.
She hasn’t worked since she had us as babies, so 35 years ago. She’s always been a stay at home mum.

She’s already said she’s voting reform in the election.

My main concern is her talking like this in front of my DC. She makes racist remarks - I can’t put them on here but uses the racist word for Chinese people and those from Pakistan too (so you can work out out). When we were young she always called it the ‘P* shop’ so I thought that was normal. But as she’s got older she’s got in increasingly more politically incorrect and bitter.

They have recently moved into a new build since my dad retired and she’s constantly complaining about the other new builds being built nearby! It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like pull the ladder up Jack mentality.

Well she is entitled to her opinions, and to be fair, I know people 20-30 years younger than her with similar views. Not liking non-white people and gay people is not an 'age' thing.

My DF is an abhorrent racist with a filter that has reduced with time.

I simply ignore him or change the topic as required. However when DS was young I made it clear I wouldn't tolerate the use of any non acceptable words around him and I think he abided by that.

My mums started to say some odd things lately after a life of working closely with families in need etc and seeing poverty up close and always being incredibly curious and respectful of other cultures. She has always been very logic and fact driven but she has no backup for these new things she says which is why I'm a bit concerned there's something wrong. It's not what she thinks, it's the fact she seems to no longer be able to fact check from different sources, no longer checks the data herself, is slowly losing her staunch compassion to those birthed into different circumstances - it's worrying me a lot, to be honest, im worried is there a neuro issue going on. She's early sixties too.

You are right to be concerned, we do not want to raise our children with those values, all humans are equal.
what would happen if you tell her to keep her opinions to herself and not air it in front of your kids because you do not want to raise children who will become bigots and racists?
if she gets offended, you can remind her that she’s offensive to others so if you want to dish it out you can be corrected and get offended yourself too.
she clearly won’t change now but it doesn’t mean that you expose your children to that. Maybe clear consequences of you not allowing much access or publicly correcting her in front of your own child might be enough to deter her or keep her opinions to herself.

My mother has always been like this. She's obsessed with what people think and what they're doing. When we were young she was obsessed with what we looked like. Everything was 'naughty' it made me cringe. She hated being a mum but think she was marvellous. Now we're older she wants to be all matey but the conversation is stilted and awkward.

Sorry I've killed the thread

I’ve been retired 5 years. My political opinions and world views are much the same - left of centre - as they’ve always been.