My mum's behaviour

[StrangerThings85]

Hello,

Probably an unusual question but my Mam is actually doing my head in with the way she's acting around my 17 month old son. Over the past couple of months he's started saying "No" and becoming very aware of the people around him. My Mam doesn't live close so I either have to drive to her or her husband drives her to me because she doesn't drive. Due to my son's nap times and work, etc it's probably once every couple of weeks and when we see her my son gets a bit clingy and says "No" but after 5 minutes he's fine. I 100% realise this is normal development but my Mam is really hurt. She'll tell me straight away "He said No! He doesn't want to be near me" etc. I found out off her husband that she was crying after her last visit because my son brought her her shoes and she interpretated that into him not wanting her around! I'm honestly fed up of her behaviour and if he doesn't give her a cuddle or a kiss she goes in a right strop with him and that's not the kind of attitude I want around him. She also keeps giving me advice on how I should raise my child "Ooh you'll have to stamp down on that behaviour", etc. Bit of a background story, my Mam is a bit of a narcissist, I'm an only child and the emotional guilt she tries to pin on me is unreal at times. Has anyone else experienced this from a parent? I want to deal with it in a way that doesn't have me stooping to her level otherwise I'll just end up blowing my top with her. x

Slightly different but my Dad has very similar tendancies. It's very difficult and it's definitely led to us seeing my parents less since my DD was born.

It's depends what you want your long term relationship with your Mum to be. I largely grit my teeth and ignore behaviour I don't like on the basis that my Dad's behaviour and comments are a tiny proportion of my DDs life and that the vastly greater amount of my DD's life is spent with us and our parenting will have the greatest impact on her as she grows.

I do sometimes snap though at the nonsense though.

I do really sympathise. My DM is a Narc as well. It's been a long journey but I've learned to keep contact to an absolute minimum.

We only visit her, she doesn't come her and this is so we can leave if she starts to misbehave. I also don't tell her anything about us, when we chat it's about things that have nothing to do with me really like a housing development in her town or I ask her about things she's done as she loves talking about herself.

Unfortunately I don't thing you're going to change her. My DM's emotional maturity seemed to have stopped at about 12.

It can be hard when you seen other Mums and Daughters being close but you just have to remind yourself that's not the path your Mum chose, nothing to do with how you behaved or the person you are.

It might be worth googling "fear, obligation and guilt" (fog).

Your DS sounds lovely BTW amd you know that he's probably bringing her the shoes so she will go, kids are clever like that