I'm not being unreasonable, am I? I
I'm 7 months pregnant, single mum by choice. I do not have an enormous support network but I do have multiple friends/family members who've offered help in the immediate period after the baby is born. My mum, who is 70, keeps steamrollering me with insistance she will come up to 'look after' me. I have repeatedly said while I understand she'd love to come and see the baby, I do not need or want her to come to look after me. I think we have hit crunch time.
I have a difficult relationship with my mum, who is pretty awful to me; it is (very, very partially) redeemed by the fact that when my ex (female) was pregnant with DD (9) and when DD was tiny, she was surprisingly thoughtful and good. A year ago, we arranged to go on holiday together. We've just got back, and woah, was it a mistake. I was apprenehsive because both my brothers had had incidents of our parents badly overstepping with their children this past year. This holiday made me feel I really don't want either parent (but it'd be my mum) around immediately after the baby is born, because if this holiday is anything to go by, she thinks 'looking after me' would be carte blanche to be an absolute controlling nightmare. Reasons (minor and grating to more major):
There is a constant, low-level undermining. Some of this is framed as jokes and some of it as flares of temper, but it's never excused. Examples of jokes would be, I mentioned in passing that my NCT group had been talking about our different careers and someone commented on an aspect of mine, and my mum instantly giggled and said 'be careful - they might believe you really do that job!' They've started doing it with my daughter too - big grins while they tell her how naughty she is or what a pain she is, and while it sounds as if it could be family banter, it's done in a way that isn't funny, and when I tell them so (repeatedly), they take no notice.
There are moments when they are disproportionately angry to be contradicted. Eg., we went round a museum with my DD. She was excited by part of it and wanted to dash and look, and my dad wanted to read and explain every display to her (she can read). I said, thinking it was no big deal, 'it doesn't matter if she doesn't understand everything'. My mum snapped, furiously, 'yes, it does matter!' They really wanted to explain everything to her in detail and were genuinely offended that she was interested in working things out for herself. I have memories of them doing this when I was a child and it was deadly dull - we'd spend hours while they tediously extracted every grain of what they considered to be educational content from an experience, with no interest in seeing what I thought of it. I let DD do her own thing and they were manifestly seething about it - it wasn't just a minor annoyance to be brushed off. This sort of thing happened repeatedly, whenever DD or I wanted to do something slightly different from what they imagined was 'right,' even if it was getting a drink for a tired child or me saying I didn't want to walk further.
During the holiday, my lovely neighbour rang to say our cat had been hit by a car; she was taking it to the emergency vets. DD was understandably upset (so was I!), and we got an awkward 'sorry' from my parents who then began discussing the way rabbits zig-zagged over the road in front of their car (?!). Neighbour subsequently rang to say the cat had died at the vet's; my parents saw me take this call and didn't react. A couple of days later I commented to my mum that DD was finding it hard, and my mum said in surprise 'oh, did the cat die?' and then moved on. In the car, they nearly hit a pheasant and started a conversation about they're silly birds and I wonder why they get hit so often? I had to tell them to stop, and again, they were totally surprised it might be upsetting or inappropriate.
The last straw was my mum suddenly asked if she was insured to drive my car (I'm insured on theirs, for various reasons). I said no. She said 'it might be useful'. Not wanting to be rude (her driving is awful and there's absolutely no need for her to drive my car), I said I thought she might find it tricky to drive (she hates swapping cars and finds it extremely difficult). She shouted, angrily, 'well you will find I HAVE to be!' It is clear this is part of her thinking she will come up to 'look after' me and a baby. I repeated that there was absolutely no need; I don't plan to need someone driving my car and I have plans for when the baby is born.
I really think their behaviour is batshit. But it's so hard to know because you could 'explain away' so much of it if you saw just that little bit in isolation. My mum clearly imagines I'm going to call her in labour and she'll drive up; I've said repeatedly I don't intend to do this. But would I be unreasonable to get the birth out of the way and then tell her a time she can visit, afterwards, making clear it's a visit not 'coming to help'.