Mother buying everything for my baby

[SaveMeNow2024]

This actually happened many years ago but I still think about it.
I had just told my parents I was pregnant, I hadn't yet had the 12 week scan so it was very early. First pregnancy.
We travelled down to where they live to tell them in person. Everything was great, everyone was very happy.
Next time we visited, a couple of weeks later (still hadn't had scan), my mum presented me with a huge bag of clothes, blankets etc, and proudly said "there, that's everything you need, so you won't need to buy anything at all".
I found it bizarre that she would assume I/we wouldn't want to buy anything for our own child. I can understand she was excited (although she already had 3 other grandkids), but it did feel as though she'd stolen my thunder, and taken away the special feeling of buying our baby's first outfit, blanket, etc.
We were not at all short of money so it wasn't as though she thought she was doing us a favour; it was purely for her own excitement and pleasure.
Add to this all the items were hideous, mostly beige, not my taste at all (as a child she dressed me in awful clothes), and my DH said he felt as though it was jinxing the pregnancy to be buying everything so early. (Luckily our baby was born healthy, but I had a very difficult pregnancy with a few scares along the way).
In the end I thanked her, but said we would prefer to choose things ourselves, and asked if she would like to buy baby's first soft toy to put in the cot when he was born (she did this, and he actually still has the teddy she bought, 14 years later).

Was I being unreasonable to refuse the bag of beige?

There's obviously way more to this relationship if you have been NC for years as you say. That's a hard step to take.

Are you that bored with your life?

I actually don't have the best relationship with my mum, she's very fake in the presence of other people, can't do enough for her friends. But when it comes to her daughters she's very short fused, everything is too much trouble, e.g I once called her and asked for a lift to work because I was running really late and I was pregnant so I was waddling anyway. She said no. She actually said "I've got no fuel Tessa, you're gonna have to make your own way, tell your boss you're gonna be late" later on on Facebook I see the following post, with a picture of her and her friends daughter hugging. "When you're mate calls in a SOS and you drive an hour in your pjs to rescue her stranded daughter LOL." Her daughter wasn't stranded, she just needed a lift home. Just like I'd asked for, she could have got the bus. But no hero mum to the rescue, as long as it's not her own kids who need rescuing

Wow all you had to do was take them and never use them. Dump them, sell them, or donate them. People really do go looking for issues in life. So what if she said you didn't need to buy anything. If she told you don't buy a new car, don't take a new job then you wouldn't do that too?
Your entire point of view over this comes across as you being a very difficult person in general.

Clearly you’re referring to my post.

My point is perspective! From what the OP posted, it doesn’t seem her mum is a shit mum in general. If she was then that’s a different story.

If someone came on here and complained that her DH always put a biscuit on the side of her plate when he made her a cup of tea14 years ago and it still gets her back up all these years later, you’d be a bigger person than me to be understanding!

YABU give your head a wobble

YABU and ridiculous . You must lead a very boring life if buying baby vests is exciting and if you are still thinking about this complete non event 14 yrs later .

Putting a biscuit on a plate? How very controlling!! The assumption that she wants a biscuit! Or maybe he is subtly commenting the she is too thin. Or too fat and can't last a minute without a biscuit. LTB immediately!
I agree, some people are just looking for something to be offended about. I don't envy that kind of life.

I'd have said thanks very much and if I wanted to buy my baby's first things, I'd have bought them all myself anyway.

Is your mum like this a lot?

Had she got form for this?

Are you really still going on about something so trivial 14 years later. My mum showed zero interest in my pregnancy or child. Perhaps you would have preferred this.

Far too harsh. Can people not just be polite anymore 🤦‍♀️ take it in the spirit it’s meant instead of twisting it into some kind of warped competition to buy a first blanket.

There's usually a back story........

I get it OP, I LOVED buying things for my DD1 - we didn’t find out the sex either until she was born but even buying beige and white and yellow was so much fun and a bit of a reprieve of joy from the chronic heartburn and reflux, waddling, back ache and other pregnancy symptoms. However I’d have taken them, picked out a few nice things I wouldn’t get elsewhere and taken the rest to the charity shop (and I’d have been honest too).

My mum behaved inexplicably like a weirdo when I was pregnant. It wasn’t even her first GC! I remember her sending me picture of a lovely blanket that had Simba on it that she’d bought and I replied something along the lines of “Thank you, we’ve got loads of blankets now” in a “isn’t that good I won’t have to worry about buying any more”. She misinterpreted what I said, took a huff and returned it!! I think as her only DD she was trying to make a mark on my first baby in a profound way and was very sensitive over it all

I didn’t read this as you went NC with your mum because she bought some baby clothes OP, if that’s what people are thinking?
I get it actually. And I’ve never heard that German expression about controlling but it fits my own mother to a T!
My mum was similar, always rushing to get all my first child’s first whatever, all through their childhoods. Lots of stories there, and the individual incidents don’t sound bad but accumulated it added up to perpetually undermining me. I’m not remotely NC with mine, but I do get it I think.

OK so for some reason I thought she gave you a bag of your old clothes - so I wouldn’t charity shop them but I would tell her to return them but pick a few out

This is where you say, thanks, we've got some stuff/we want to choose our own things. Can we keep it here for when we visit - then we don't have to bring anything

“Buying babies first outfit” with husband ?? Is that thing? I don’t even remember what the first thing I bought for my daughter was. As it was she was underweight, and my sister very kindly went out and bought some “tiny baby” baby-grows, for which I was very grateful.

You also can’t “jinx” a pregnancy.. “jinxing” doesn’t exist.

There’s no need for that.

People with controlling/narcissist parents don’t realise the sneaky little ways they intercept control into your lives, and often you don’t realise until the penny drops about the control and you look back. There’s OBVIOUSLY so much more to this back story and sneery little remarks aren’t helpful. Why did you make that comment? Did it make you feel better to stick the boot into an OP who’s obviously going through it at the moment?

If you’ve never experienced controlling parenting who does exactly that under the guise of generosity then count yourself lucky

I'd ask if she wants them back after they've been worn. I've read too many stories here of people asking for clothes back 2 million years later

Yes rude and ungrateful to actually refuse a gift.

She did what her generation expected- young couples were fairly poor and so gender neutral clothes were bought by well meaning grandparents.

She didn't sit there and plot how horrible she could be!

If this is the worst trauma in your life you should be thanking your very very lucky stars.

There needs to be a single word that reflects “no good deed goes unpunished”. I can understand pregnancy hormones skewing your thinking, however as a rule if people do something nice for me or my children - even if it’s not the thing I particularly want - I accept it with good grace. I dont fall out with people, and I don’t dwell on issues from 14 years ago (barely remember them) and have a happy warm family life.

People who aren’t physiotherapists using terms around narcissism, control and gaslighting tend to be unhappy and dwell on things.

This
I didn't have much money when I was pregnant with fist born
I went to every single charity shop and bought the bits I liked/could afford
My mother went out and bought me a pram and cot (I had no say in this)
Then she went out and bought a shit ton of tatty crap (clothes,snowsuits,booties etc)
I would have been ashamed to put it in the bin,it was so bad-torn,stained,tatty tat
She then binned all the stuff I'd bought and when I hit the roof,she acted all hurt and claimed she was only trying to help (utter bollocks)
It was her way of claiming my baby for herself-but only in front of others
The bits where I needed support,she was nowhere to be seen/screaming down the phone at me that I was such a shitty parent for not knowing what was wrong with my 'easy' screaming baby
I wasnt-i was just new to it and needed a bit of a helping hand

I'm now nc and she can't see why

TBH I would have taken it and then kept the bits I wanted and given away the rest.
But if you have been NC with your mother for a long time I suspect there were strains in your relationship even then and likely this wasn't the first time she had overstepped.