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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be upset by my mum?

2 replies

SlipperyNipple123 · 02/11/2025 09:01

I’m 37, I know I’m a big girl and they are my children etc. I live 5 minutes from my Mum and although she loves my kids, she very rarely helps me out with them.
She’s only in her 50s, my Dad is in his 70s and will go above and beyond for the kids and his family, my mum won’t do a thing.
An example is that we have hired a skip the company want back soon, so this weekend we have to sort out the attic. It’s pretty much like a hoarders attic, so you can imagine the chaos in our house. DD and DS were at mum and dads while we did this so they didn’t get bored. My dad’s poorly with flu. At this point DH has gone out to get some shopping as he’s doing Sunday lunch for us all today. Mum rings and says the kids want to go to a Halloween party at the local sports club, 5 minutes from us.

She brings the kids and can see I’m absolutely up to my knees in stuff I’m trying to sort out, I haven’t showered, covered in fibreglass etc. she was doing nothing yesterday, rather than offering to take them - she says nothing.

she’s also drinking more and more heavily most evenings, we went to a friends bonfire last night and before we even got there when we picked her up, she was hammered. She was embarrassing telling everyone (bar me) she loved them, introducing my kids as “her kids”, and shouting out to the crowd every few minutes is everyone ok for a drink etc. I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

do I sound unreasonable? When she’s sober she can be like my old mum from my teens and 20s, but when it comes to doing anything for me and the kids that would put her out slightly and when she’s drunk (which she can be quite nasty to me when she is) it’s like I don’t know her anymore.

OP posts:
SalmonOnFinnCrisp · 02/11/2025 09:07

So is she an alcoholic?

Honestly its shit but you cant make her do anything.

as a stsrter for 10, i'd stop investing excess energy in the relationship (match her energy) or hoping for something different. Wasy to say... harder to do.

Endofyear · 02/11/2025 10:13

Your mum has a drink problem. She's probably feeling hungover in the day, or is secretly topping up if she's appearing to get drunk very quickly. If I were you, I'd be unlikely to leave my kids in her care anyway. She needs help but first needs to accept that she has a problem. Sorry OP but she is not going to be helping with your kids while her priority is drinking.

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