Irritated by parents already😩

[Bellyblueboy]

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

So much for Christmas being a time of love, I would give anything for this Christmas to be the same as my last but it won't since he passed in march. I love my family to much to moan about them I'm sure they have plenty they may wish to moan about me

Mine are also awfully hard work. I tell them nothing about my life - it’s really really hard work. I think Covid robbed them of their social skills- does not make it easier to spend time with them though.

I absolutely get it!!! I cannot abide people telling me they won’t be here forever! We’re all getting older! All of us! Grit your teeth op or zone out - it’s hard!

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

I feel quite sad when I read posts like this as I always wonder if my children will think about me like this when they are adults and I’m elderly. I really hope not.

Don’t feel sad - just feel glad your relationship with your parents are less hard work… I’d love mine to be an enjoyable afternoon. They just aren’t- no need for sympathy- we’ve probably lived with this for years…

I would give anything to have my dad, who died in October, back again. I adored him. He was the perfect dad. But there are still loads of things he did that were incredibly annoying.

Yes this made me giggle too. Very relatable waiting ages at the coffee machine or kettle without realising it's been turned off at the mains!

There’s having a bit of a moan and there’s being mean about your harmless but slightly irritating 80 year old parents on a website with a big readership, and this one crossed the line.

Oh dear, everyone's on a short fuse today.

Just bring out the Bolly darling!

Wtf is wrong with people on here today.. your post is disgusting.
I’ve lost both parents, loved them so much and still I can sympathise with OP, she is allowed to find them irritating. Just because they’ll die one day doesn’t mean she can’t moan. Not being interested in their childs life but really interested in random peoples is really shitty.

And then the next thing.
And then a little while later.
And then a bit after that.
And then take a nip.
And then it’s Bloody Marys at 11AM YAY!!!

Then repeat in the afternoon.
My favorite is margaritas, or actually just tequila.
Feel free to sub in your favorites.

By dinner you won’t give a shit who’s in your house - or even what their names are.
Or even what your name is.

Cool cool.

Merry Christmas whoever you are sitting across from me! 🌲❤️

Are you always this sanctimonious or are you just cranking it up for Christmas?

YOU ARE RIDICULOUS

@BauhausOfEliott You could make a compote with the bits of fruit.

Are they called Geoff and Elizabeth?

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?

Goodness me

Maybe one of the posters that think the OP (and those of us moaning about our parents) would like to take them on for a few hours on the day.
And not rise to their misogynistic comments. Or their passive aggressive digs. Or their talking over the thing that everyone else was waiting to see on the TV, with how stupid it is. Or their derailing the conversation back to them at all times....

Yes, as it will be for all of us. Just because we find relatives annoying doesn’t mean we don’t love them. It’s perfectly normal to find relatives wholly & bone crunchingly annoying (like my mother’s “what’s for supper” at 7am) & to be aware that when they leave us, we will be forever changed.

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.

@TomBaileysFlyingGoggles your mother needs a hearing test.

PIL came round yesterday for present exchange. They live locally so see them regualrly but I have my mental bingo card in my head. Inappropraite/racist polictical comment ✅, random unwanted gift when asked not to do this due to autistic kids not liking it ✅, mentioning plan taking up exercise and getting fit ✅, the annual Christmas offer to invite us round for a meal one day ✅, meal invite never coming ✅, long stories about people DH can’t remember ✅.

You've just reminded me op that I need to take cotton wool for my ears when I go to my parents as the telly is so loud.

im going to try and roll with the memory loss, the dithering and the things like the stair lift chair that gets in the way of the toilet door when it’s not parked out of the way (and nobody except my dad is allowed to touch the chair lift in any shape or form, but he forgets to park it often).

it’s only for a few days of gin swigging and false smiling.

Happy Christmas 🎄🎄🎉

Aaaaand unclench! Honestly that was a bit of an overreaction, wasn't it?

Let it ferment. Make some booze. 🍹