Page 13 | Irritated by parents already😩

Bellyblueboy · 2025-12-24T00:11:21+00:00

I am an awful person. My parents are staying for Christmas - only arrived today - and I am already irritated. The constant passive aggressive questions - the long, boring stories about people I don’t know - the complete lack of interest in my life All my Electrical appliances have been unplugged so the remote controls no longer work. I will have to crawl under the Christmas trees now to turn them back on (don’t know how my dad managed to get under there, he is 80!). the TV is up so loud I can’t think. They brought the contents of their fridge with them - I had to put most of it in the bin! my mum keeps asking me are we having (fill in some obscure food item she never mentioned before) then looking disappointed when I say I didn’t know she wanted it. I went to Tesco to try and find Turkish delight with no chocolate because apparently it just isn’t Christmas without it. i am already so irritated I could scream. They are elderly. They can’t help it. But in fairness they have always been a bit annoying, they have just lost their filter. I am trying to find it funny. But failing. Every time I move my dad asks me what I am doing. Where I am going. Aggghhhh

ilovesushi · 24/12/2025 11:47

I feel for you op. I am already feeling irritated and my FIL and DM are not even here yet. It's the predicability. "Did anyone every see that programme Doc Martin?" Yes YES YES YES YES. Yes we did. Why? Is there an anecdote you want to share? An opinion? No just that? Arrrrgggghhhh!

Sexentric · 24/12/2025 11:51

Bellyblueboy · 24/12/2025 11:43

on the electrical stuff, I have lots of stuff on timers - and the sky box set to record certain things (although in fairness most is available to download now).

my dad has unplugged lamps, Christmas tree lights, the microwave etc. he even went into some cupboards and switched off the oven, the washing machine etc. I think it might be anxiety. And he doesn’t believe me that I control them from my phone (which Ben though he has the same Amazon plugs on his lamps!).

And he doesn’t just flick off the switch, he pulls out the plug. But I am trying to see the funny side of my new morning routine

Edited

This would drive me nuts. Cabt yoj ask him not to? Its your house. I'm sure ut IS just anxiety but doesn't give tmhim the right to do this!

ThankYouVeryMuchJerry · 24/12/2025 11:51

SpinningaCompass · 24/12/2025 11:34

Oh just stop it. Not everyone was a saint when they were alive, and many certainly aren't while they're still here. People are allowed to love their parents and still find them infuriating and difficult at times.

Show quote history

Thank goodness 100% the voice of reason!

I’ve lost both parents in last 2 years. My father only in October. Yes I loved them, but there was a big back history where we often saw things rather differently from one another. Quite often 😬

Kibble19 · 24/12/2025 11:54

The bit about them bringing half their fridge made me laugh, reminded me of Motherland.

Actually, go watch the Christmas episode I’m talking about as a form of therapy.

The main character’s PIL do this, and it includes a quarter of an onion. She ends up fucking off out to escape them.

Renamed · 24/12/2025 11:57

I’ve just googled “lockable socket cover” and they seem to exist… if that wouldn’t be too cruel

Giddykiddy · 24/12/2025 12:03

I hear you OP - hilarious. MIL and FIL arrive today - cue issues with the shower, temperature, number of pillows, coverings on the bed, kitchen tap, disbelief that we leave appliances on at night ( stories of TVs going on fire - in the 70s). They also bring the contents of their fridge. Chief irritation is that though they will be picked up mid afternoon they will demand food as soon as they come through the door shortly before I make dinner. We do love them though and accept a lot of it is just anxiety
Happy Christmas one and all ( wish my own parents were still here to annoy me!)

Newsenmum · 24/12/2025 12:06

If it help, they do sound excruciatingly difficult so well done you!

DeftGoldHedgehog · 24/12/2025 12:09

TurkeyQueen · 24/12/2025 00:24

Have some alcohol first thing in the morning 😊

That was my DM, having a Whisky Mac at 8am. 🙂

Newsenmum · 24/12/2025 12:09

Darrell67 · 24/12/2025 11:34

I think you have just written your synopsis for a BBC christmas comedy drama. See it as a gift. You can thank them when you pick up your BAFTA!

Show quote history

It does sound like one! Thanks for the chuckle op.

usedtobeaylis · 24/12/2025 12:12

Grumble away OP and ignore the pious dickheads.

Christmastimes · 24/12/2025 12:21

SomewhereInMyHeart · 24/12/2025 00:45

Watch one of the Motherland Christmas specials for solidarity!

I was going to say the same!

I remember one year when we had a house full and every guest over 60 seemed to appear every 15 mins to ask something obscure/request something and it was infuriating.

‘Do you not have any dates then ?’ We did which I pointed it and they said ‘dates WITHOUT stones’

‘such a shame you didn’t buy premium Christmas crackers like <name of previous years host>’

One aunty who thought she was a one woman anti salmonella/e coli/campylobacter decontamination service. Every time I turned around she was there gloved up frantically wiping things and referring to some 90s advert with ‘pink chicken vision specialist cameras’

NewPersonHere · 24/12/2025 12:22

DorotheaXYZ · 24/12/2025 00:39

All my Electrical appliances have been unplugged so the remote controls no longer work. I will have to crawl under the Christmas trees now to turn them back on (don’t know how my dad managed to get under there, he is 80!)

Sorry, OP, that made me laugh. Reminded me of my late father. And I'm not going to tell you to make the most of them blah blah. We can be fond of them and irritated at the same time.

Mine fills the kettle past max, and boils the entire thing for a cup of tea, then refills and reboils it again just in case we need boiling hot water again! I stopped asking him not to, after repeating myself hundreds of times with zero effect.

CautiousLurker2 · 24/12/2025 12:24

Bellyblueboy · 24/12/2025 07:30

Thank you - I popped back on!

of course I love them very much, I will host them for a week. I have lots planned that they will enjoy and have invited their closest couple friend round on Boxing Day because I know they will love that.

I feel horrendously guilty that I get irritated. My parents weren’t great when I was growing up and both put me down quite a lot, Christmas brings it all flooding back. My mum had made it clear I am a disappointment and always comments about my job, which isn’t senior enough for her liking - so I do find that hard. That will be at its worst on Boxing Day when she hears all about her friends kids. Ironically I am doing really well, but my mum just can’t acknowledge it.

I had an eating disorder for most of my childhood which my parents never acknowledged. I am finding the comments about food, what I am eating hardest. They are going to have to do lots of exercise on the new year apparently after all this food (one chocolate orange between three of us last night😊). They don’t know how I can eat like this🥰.

my sister struggles more with them, so I always host them for Christmas and she drops in for shorter bursts.

Family is hard - and being irritated by them doesn’t mean I don’t value and love them.

there have been some lovely, kind, funny comments on this thread so thank you for that.

The TV is back on and blasting😊🥰. But it’s Christmas and I do love them very much. So trying to see the funny side.

Show quote history

Glad you popped back - we have my wonderful inlaws here. 85 yo both of them and similar issues - everything switched off at the socket and you don’t realise until you’ve been waiting for the kettle to boil (for their 97th cup of tea and it’s only 11am). Managed to persuade them to let us put the subtitles on and lower the volume (neither thought to bring batteries for their hearing aids), but the subtitles take up 1/3 of the screen so you missed a lot of the important action and then they talk over it anyway… and yes, the stories about people back home. Only here for 4 days, though, and we have a LOT of wine on the rack!! Love them to bits, but discovered that I definitely don’t have the skills and patience to work in a gerontology adjacent profession.

Fimofriend · 24/12/2025 12:26

BauhausOfEliott · 24/12/2025 01:20

OP, ignore the usual nobheads who seem to think that people aren’t allowed to be annoyed by their parents and love them at the same time, or who think that just leaving your elderly parents alone at Christmas is a proportionate/normal response to finding them a bit irritating. In the real world, thousands of us will be doing exactly what you’re doing, which is spending Christmas with octogenarian parents because you love them and want to be kind to them, while at the same time quietly going insane at their infuriating behaviour.

My mum is lovely and I particularly want to make a fuss of her this year because my dad died less than three months ago. Despite that, I guarantee you that while she’s staying with us she will:

— put her coat around her shoulders indoors to indicate that she is cold, despite the heating being cranked up way higher than usual, rather than just asking if she can have the fire on. We will put the fire on for her while we sweat in t-shirts and she will still shiver performatively every time the living room door is opened.

— bring with her a ton of bits of old fruit which ‘will only go to waste’ at her house. They will also go to waste at my house, as I already have plenty of fruit and don’t need a black banana, a pear at the point of fermentation and some wizened satsumas. When I point this out she will say ‘You never used to eat fruit’ despite the fact that I have eaten fruit regularly and happily since the day I was weaned. She will also probably bring a couple of Activia yogurts which she will also not eat.

regale us at length and in detail about her constipation and all the fibre she has to eat and the laxatives she takes

sit there on her phone all the time, loudly tutting and sighing every time she clicks the wrong thing, muttering ‘Eh? What’s this rubbish?’, scrolling through Reels on Facebook with the sound on and reading out banal posts and updates from acquaintances I don’t know. She will do this regardless of whether we’re trying to watch television at the time

complain that my mugs aren’t bone china

tell me I’m obsessed with shoes despite the fairly clear evidence to the contrary

tell me off every time I eat something when she isn’t hungry

graze constantly on nibbles etc all day and then complain she’s too full after a mouthful of her dinner

leave a trail of reading glasses, satsuma peel, newspapers and cups/glasses with half finished drinks in them all over my house

My dad used to be constipated all of the time. I gave him linseeds. He puts a spoonful on his yoghurt every other day, and the problem has all but disappeared.

Fimofriend · 24/12/2025 12:30

bleakmidwintering · 24/12/2025 01:52

Op was being quite nasty about her aged parents ( whom she invited) and when one person points out that they won’t be there forever she flounces. Perhaps it’s you and not your parents that have the issue?

I think that your comment about the OP is quite nasty, and unlike OP's parents, she will see what you have written here, which you know very well.

Fimofriend · 24/12/2025 12:33

Daygloboo · 24/12/2025 02:26

I get sad about the attitude of ppl on MN to old people. You cant know until you are old yourself how very difficult it is.

Show quote history

Don't turn this into a discussion about ageism. Plenty of people on here complaining about people their own age.

Kibble19 · 24/12/2025 12:35

NewPersonHere · 24/12/2025 12:22

Mine fills the kettle past max, and boils the entire thing for a cup of tea, then refills and reboils it again just in case we need boiling hot water again! I stopped asking him not to, after repeating myself hundreds of times with zero effect.

Show quote history

Oh that would do my head in.

When it boils, does the water do that spitting thing where it comes out of the spout and all over your worktop (at a scalding temperature)?

You need a one-cup kettle that you can whip out when he comes. 😅

Kingsleadhat · 24/12/2025 12:37

Bellyblueboy · 24/12/2025 10:14

After this post I will ignore this kind of post. I am sorry for your loss - but it is okay to have a grumble about people - we can’t pretend everyone is a saint. Some people have been lovely.

Show quote history

Honestly, my darling dad has died and my mum no longer knows me as she has dementia but I still don't long for the days when they were annoying the shit out of me so don't feel guilty. I miss them but don't miss wearing my nerves inside out 🤣. Good luck

Fimofriend · 24/12/2025 12:38

WiddlinDiddlin · 24/12/2025 04:17

I think everyone needs a space to have a bit of a grump - I do love my family, as dysfunctional, demented, occasionally actually horrible, as they are, they are still my flesh and blood and as there's only two of 'em (and the older one keeps forgetting I am housebound currently and threatening to cut me out of his will for not visiting...) they are all I have, flaws, foibles and all..

But ooh I could actually drop my sister off a very high cliff today - she's confessed that:

despite insisting we did presents
insisting they be a surprise
insisting they be swapped face to face, christmas day 'or it's not magical' (we're 44 and 45, it's NOT fucking magical!)

And knowing I have found her an absolute fucking cracker of a present that is right up her alley.. which I took time over and sourced 6 weeks ago...

She's not actually got me anything. Because various spurious reasons like she ran out of time and last week it was 'oh but I'd need to go to a shop, I can't shop online...'

Today she's revealed she's spent the money she had for my Xmas present on her friends kid because, on hearing she wasn't (WTAF? YES SHE IS!) opening any presents this year, he ran off and got his savings and gave her a card with some cash in it... So she HAD to go online and buy him something on a friends amazon account quickly, and therefore had no time to go into town to buy anything for me...

Riiiiiiiight.

At some point in the last few weeks she had a huge rant at me that I am 'too autistic and specific to buy for'... my list was (to select from!) 'waterproof drawing inks suitable for fountain pens or dip pens, paper, watercolour paints, doesn't matter if you get duplicates as if i already have it I love it and want more - you can get these things from the following list of stores'...

She doesn't get to do total surprises for me after I recieved:

Box of posh smellies for baths - the year I had no accessible bathroom.
Plastic Pigeon (practically life sized) that shits cheap nasty hand wash.
Fuck all.

I think next year im just refusing to play the bloody game. I feel like a total mug for putting in the effort and finding her a lovely bracelet that is her to a T and way out of the usual budget (no expectation to reciprocate that overspend either).

She's meant to show up here between 12 and 1 (she lives 2 minutes away) Christmas day... I will eat my hat on video for all of Mumsnet to see if she turns up in that time frame (or frankly, at all!).

That aside I shall enjoy Xmas day as for the first time in four years I am not working and it is me, DP, a pile of dogs and crap tv and snacks all day until we pass out. I've had a lovely hamper from work, DP and I have got each other some lovely bits and bobs, and relaxing shall happen. I may or may not start a painting ive been meaning to do for ages that ive put off in order to do work related stuff instead. Who knows!

just return her present and get the money back.

Kibble19 · 24/12/2025 12:39

This thread has made me think - is there a marketable idea where the people who are upset at someone being irritated by elderly folk could have them round at their house for Christmas, and the irritated person would pay?

Could do online profiles of the elderly person and match them to a local who doesn’t mind the TV blaring or someone’s detailed constipation chat.

Shell18celhave · 24/12/2025 12:41

Omg thank you, I've not got my parents any more but your post has just brought back so many lovely memories. They annoy an irritate so much but it's brilliant. One day you will look back an smile at their antics

Original poster

Bellyblueboy · 24/12/2025 12:41

It is hard having someone in your space who doesn’t have boundaries. My mum is currently rearranging my kitchen while loudly tutting. I can only assume I have broken some unwritten rules of what should go where🤣🤣.

I will just put it back after they leave.

OP posts:

TheNoisyGreyLion · 24/12/2025 12:41

Could have written your post myself OP. Dad asked me when I switch the Christmas tree lights off and I said, “January”. Chaos ensued. At least I’m up to date on DM’s nail technician’s son’s driving lesson progress and the next door neighbour’s bowel problems.

Original poster

Bellyblueboy · 24/12/2025 12:46

TheNoisyGreyLion · 24/12/2025 12:41

Could have written your post myself OP. Dad asked me when I switch the Christmas tree lights off and I said, “January”. Chaos ensued. At least I’m up to date on DM’s nail technician’s son’s driving lesson progress and the next door neighbour’s bowel problems.

🤣 I know more about my mum’s hairdresser’s receptionist’s daughter than I do about most of my friends.

It’s amazing how my mum can be dazzled by stranger’s successes yet totally ignore or minimize any of my achievements.

She was once describing in great detail the shift pattern of someone’s son and I asked her what company I worked for. She didn’t know 🥲.

OP posts:

Soleena · 24/12/2025 12:49

@Bellyblueboy my goodness, I’m so sad for you reading this, I’m not convinced that hosting them for as long as you are is a good idea? One day of putting up with it maybe, but several?!

I empathise because I have a complicated mum.. I know just how to be what she wants me to be when she’s there, but it means denying huge parts of myself, and prioritising her.

The day after I always get angry/sad at my DH and kids, and it’s taken me years to join the dots that actually it’s recovering from seeing her!

Make sure you make lots of time for yourself after this week, and treat yourself. You sound like a wonderful person.

You’re being heroic and honestly I’m sure they can do just Christmas Day only next year…