AIBU to snap after my mum kept calling a bike a trike?

[Crayo]

i am looking to get my daughter her first bike. She’s 5 and has had a balance bike before but never a real bike. Everytime I speak to my mum she asks me if I’ve found a “trike” yet. I keep telling her it’s a bike I’m getting, 2 wheels” and she always says “oh yes, you know what I mean”.

Well this has been going on weeks and literally everytime I speak to her she asks about the “trike” and I constantly correct her and say “bike”. She does have a habit of asking the same question for weeks at a time and she also has form for deliberately saying the wrong words for attention and it’s tiring.

this morning I was at my mums and my sister was there. I went to toilet and when I came back my sister said “not being funny but isn’t DD old enough for a proper bike now?” I asked what she was on about as I am getting her a proper bike and she said “mum! You said she was getting a trike!”

So I lost it, screamed and shouted “stop saying it’s a fucking trike!! You know it’s not so just fucking stop it”

my sister said “Jesus Christ is there any need for that?” So I told her she’s been saying trike for weeks and it’s winding me up so she said “she gets mixed up, there’s no need to scream like that” but the annoying part is she doesn’t get mixed up!!! She does it on purpose and has been doing this for years!

I don’t know if you’re right about this because you’re guessing at her reasoning but, if you are, the solution is to tell her less and detach from being concerned with what she thinks. You are doing a lot of mind reading though and making assumptions about her intent.

Some people enjoy pissing on other people's chips.
It's an ugly personality trait.

The person I know who does this made forty four derogatory remarks about football while the recent World Cup was on. I know because I started counting remarks and keeping a tally after I noticed the remarks were getting on my nerves. And we were really only interested in the whole thing from the round of sixteen.

Every single time the event or the matches themselves were mentioned, or the matches were on the TV, this person chimed in with, "I hate football. It's all just running up and down the pitch and passing to each other. I prefer rugby because (virtues of rugby expounded at length)..."

It was rude and irritating.

Yeah, she's doing it on purpose. Seen it lots of times. Good for you for not standing for it.

😓 my mum used to call me a slut after I was groomed by a pedo when I was 13, and said people were only looking at me because I was tall. Never called me pretty, not even when I was modelling and earned money with my looks.
Some mothers are just crap.
Calling a bike a ‘trike’ wouldn’t bother me at all. I know what she means so who cares if shears the wrong word. No harm done.

It's not that big a deal.

It is, but she doesn't need to know that it is - you ignoring the irritating habit that she's doing for attention means she isn't getting rewarded by seeing your frustrated reaction. And she can't then be a victim of a wicked, cruel daughter when she was just being cute and funny with words like a three year old.

By the way, if she's anything like my mother was, was it a Bondage Tree by any chance? My sister apparently bought one along with some meatballs and a bag of cankles when they went to Ikendo.

You said she does it for attention and you absolutely give it to her. Yes it’s massively annoying but just ignore her.

As you can see on here, some people get it, and some people don't.

Hard agree. There will always be those who bleat "But she's your MUM..." and don't have an iota of understanding of how it can be.

It may be an indication of early mental decline if it happens alot and with other people/interactions.

Look at your mums age, other areas of her life which might indicate everything isn't 100%. Sometimes this isnt always obvious. Does she live on her own?

It is easy to say it is attention seeking but mental decline can start years before someone gets a diagnosis.

Are you 14

Oh so cutting 🙄

It’s a form of belittling and attention seeking at the same time. Those who have not experienced it won’t have a clue, so I’m not surprised by the results of the poll.

I have gone very LC with a parent over this kind of behaviour. Like you say, OP, it completely grinds you down.

I’ll throw in my own ‘trivial’ example:

I studied Maths at university. Not Economics. Guess what this parent tells everyone under the sun whenever there is any mention of university/studying? That’s right. After years and years of correcting, I trialed grey rocking / staying silent. Naturally this was met with a faux-confused “It was Economics you studied, wasn’t it, have I got that right?”

I’ve started playing confused, not sure it would have worked with your sister. “A trike? Not sure what you are talking about because I’ve never mentioned one, maybe Carol has mentioned getting one for her grandchild because he’s a baby?” Then if she pushes I say “no you must be thinking of someone else because I’ve mentioned getting Thomas a bike several times but not a trike but you know that”

My mum used to do something similar - and yes, my first clear memory of her doing it was when I was a teenager, and she was (calculating from my age at the time) barely 40. She lived into her early 80s - it wasn't early onset dementia but it took me decades to recognise what she was doing.

Like you, I recognised it when she started doing it infront of my eldest and my eldest was old enough to notice and for the first time asked me why we were now now doing (thing grandma said) instead of the thing I'd been doing with my child up till then.

My mum said "oh silly me, you know I get confused, I can never get things right with you" - this was her usual response to being called out (or she'd say "a mother's place is in the wrong, I know, I know" and sigh).

But the fact was she always took whatever I said and changed it to belittle me and make herself look good, or simply to make something I'd told her about to let her feel involved all about her and claim it as her idea or claim that I had asked for her help and was unable to do said thing without her advice or help when I hadn't asked for anything, didn't want anything and had only shared to be nice.

The worst thing (as with your sister) was she'd then go and tell our extended family her version, which invariably made me sound like a helpless adult-child and her hero of the year.

Honestly I stopped telling her anything at all until after it was done and dusted years before she died. To be honest no matter how little I told her she'd still spin the tiniest thing.

What saved my sanity was my siblings finally realising she did it to all of us - getting to know your sister better out of your mum's shadow might be a revelation....

I think we may have the same mother 😂

Back in the day where I grew up, a small 2 wheeled bike that had 2 stabilisers on was called a Trike.
It was still called a Trike when the stabilisers were taken off.
it generally just meant very small Bike.

Does she do this to your sister?

if you’re right then dial back the contact.

YABU because if she's doing it deliberately she is doing it for attention and she is getting it from you. The best way to deal with thus kind of behaviour is to ignore it.

I completely get it OP. My mum does exactly the same sort of thing, and it’s so hard to explain to others how wearing it is.
She’s started doing it to my kids now too. My eldest has recently started a new school, and has made a really good friend. Every single time my daughter mentions this friend, my mum will say ‘who?’ Then if my mum mentions her, she’ll get her name wrong. It’s not a difficult or unusual name, so I can only surmise that she’s doing it on purpose.
My daughter has even said to me ‘why does granny keep pretending she doesn’t know who x is?’
It’s exhausting.

My mum said "oh silly me, you know I get confused, I can never get things right with you" - this was her usual response to being called out (or she'd say "a mother's place is in the wrong, I know, I know" and sigh).

Yes! Or, "That's right I was a terrible mother" or "Yes, it's ALWAYS the mother's fault isn't it?" with accompanying sad face. She used to do that when I was a teen to guilt me into saying "no you weren't" etc. If she ever does it again I'm going to say "Yes in many ways you were."

I hear you OP and the other posters who go through similar.

Mine likes to use either “I’m sorry that I’m only human/not perfect”.

doubt it, the OP says she has been doing it since the OP was a child.

I'm not convinced that people do instantly know. The vast, vast majority of people refer to a quadricycle as a 'quad bike' - even though it's clear as day that it doesn't have eight wheels. 'Quike', 'quad' or 'quaddie' would make much more sense for an informal short name, but nobody ever seems to use any of them.

To a lot of people, a 'trike' is just a generic term that means a young child's vehicle - even if it only has two wheels. They don't stop to think about how many wheels it has before using the term.

Back in the day (1960s) when I grew up a small bike with 2 stabilisers was called ‘a bike with stabilisers’. A small bike was a ‘kids bike’. Trikes were trikes with 3 wheels. I’ve never heard of anyone calling bikes trikes.

OP, sorry your mum is weird. Probably only thing you can do is ‘grey rock’ it as much as possible.

dont be silly. Trike is definitely a three wheeler to anyone who understands English