The ridiculous "rules" my parents set

[P1tching]

In the early days of Coronavirus my mum took the decision that she was a "shielder" not an official letter through the post and food parcel one - a self declared one. She has had a serious illness in the past but she has been recovered for a long time, the only risk factor is her age - 70. My DH thinks it was for attention as she has certainly form for making up illnesses/ food allergies etc - mainly since she recovered and did not have all of her friends running round her and constantly checking in with her.

Previously, she was very active, helped pick up my DC from school, same for my nieces and nephews, took all the grandchildren out that kind of thing. We were (are?) a very close knit family.

At first we had to convince her that coronavirus was a thing she should be more concerned about. She was actually on a mini break when lockdown was announced. However, she then made a rapid U turn.

None of us really saw her for 12 weeks. She holed up at home with my step dad and we dropped shopping off etc (again, running round her, messaging constantly). She told her friends she was shielding.

As the restrictions were loosened she started doing more - she would only go to one of my sister's gardens, the rest of us deemed to have too small a space and not enough loos to dedicate one for her visit (that's right, no one could use the same loo as her). It was all taken very seriously and we all respected that at the time. She has barely seen her 6 GC as they are all under 10 and cannot be trusted not to cuddle her (she was very hands on before). Mine are the youngest at 3&5 and have only been allowed to wave through the patio doors.

However, in August she made full use of the eat out to help out scheme - sometimes having lunch and dinner out and next week she is going to a spa hotel a two night "treat" for her birthday.

We are still not allowed in her house and she has not been to mine since early March.

I challenged her about it and she said that all the places she has been to are "safe" and so clean and they all wear masks

AIBU here?

I have seen her in a garden maybe 5 times since March. I suggested we (me and my 3 siblings) went for dinner this weekend for her birthday and she accepted!! She would not dare enter my house though.

I am sure she must be telling her friends how awful it is that she cannot see her GC.... all the while she is happy rubbing alongside strangers. I completely respect her decision to stay home but I don't think she sees the double standard.

Am I missing something? Has she been brainwashed by Boris?
My DH thinks she has enjoyed the break from being the linchpin of the family and doesn't want to go back to being chief babysitter which I can understand but for the most part she offered to have them and really seemed to enjoy being a Grandma.

Anyone else have friends/ family with their own rules?

Can you really not see how going to
Your house with young nursery children, is different from her going for a meal at a pub.
The staff will be cleaning constantly, wearing masks in most places and wont be climbing all over her or hugging her.

Everything you have said is all about you. She probably is missing it all just as much as you but trying to cope and get by just doing the things she feels safe doing.

Constantly asking to do other things is just wierd, let her go at her own pace. Its not her thats acting strange.

Maybe at 70 she wants to retire from looking after 6 GC and just wants to enjoy seeing them for visits from now on (eventually? Being a grandma is more that babysitting on your terms.

We are on local lockdown and visiting houses or gardens isn't allowed. The rules make no sense so people just have to decide how to fumble through as best they can.

Don't let it stop you doing whatever socially distanced visits you want within local guidelines. Invite her and if she doesn't want to come still meet with your siblings.

You don't have to get the logic. You don't have to decide how rational her decisions are. This is what she feels comfortable with and that's enough.

Her mental and emotional health matters too and being pushed to do things she feels uncomfortable with and that are not strictly necessary, out of familial guilt, will not be good for her or your relationship with her.

I don't think you are being unreasonable OP. All sounds very odd to me.

I reckon she is fed up with the babysitting OP and is using this opportunity to tell you so.

I don't think her rules are ridiculous. I can see why you all miss her but you do seem to have relied on her a lot and she seems to be welcoming the opportunity that Covid has given her to step back from babysitting duties.
Plus your belief that her rules are 'ridiculous' would make me concerned that you're not following the official guidance, understanding the rules, adhering to them or correctly assessing the risk of family gatherings.
it's hard being kept at a distance but you need to accept your DM is making the best decisions for her.

@LangClegsInSpace

I expect the average restaurant customer is a lot less likely than her GC to jump into her lap, throw their arms round her neck and plant a big slobbery wet kiss on her cheek.

I also expect it will be less painful for her being prohibited from hugging a random restaurant customer than her own grandchild.

Just because things are 'permitted' doesn't mean you have to do them.

Totally agree. Shoe was on the other foot with me as it was my elderly mum who wouldn’t accept it when we visited and I asked could we stay in the garden. She kept banging on it wasn’t against the rules and sulked so we all went it. It would be ok, she said, we’d be in the conservatory with the windows open and we’d all keep our distance. (Never mind that she had already been too close to DD whilst outside)

I wasn’t too bothered about us but DD had been back at school for a week so was a risk to my elderly parents. We’re it not for the fact, it was a 6 hour round trip in one day, I’d have turned and gone home, but we went it. As it was, we all caught the cold DD had picked up at school. Just as well she didn’t have Covid too. I’ve told mum I won’t be back in the house until it is safe.

She's doing what she's comfortable with. Let her be. Very mean and unfair to suggest she's attention seeking.

Honestly I think some people are just a bit stupid and they don't understanding the reasons behind certain rules, only that they are the rules...so they think that must mean that that is the safest thing to do.

There is a ban on mixing households because that is something that the government feel that can control, which lessens the amount of opportunities for the virus to spread, while keeping the economy going.
Many people that mix households would and could minimise the risk as much as possible so that the risk would be the same or less than the risk in restaurants though.

Early on in lockdown there was a town council who had to tell people not to step off the path and onto a busy road as their risk of getting knocked down by a car and dying that way was greater than their risk of having to pass someone with a gap of less than 2 meters and catching covid.
All common sense and logic seems to have gone of the window for some people.

She’s a nutter

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all @P1tching I would be very hurt if my mum was happily swanning off for a spa weekend break or pub lunches/meals out but refused to visit me for a cup of tea!
Turn it back around and cancel plans to see her because you are worried for your own family and kids - since she has become more active in the community and the community transmission rate is rising daily! It may be a shock tactic to make her see that she is actually putting herself more at risk than she realises! Either way, I see where you are coming from x

@Serin

I reckon she is fed up with the babysitting OP and is using this opportunity to tell you so.

“My DH thinks she has enjoyed the break from being the linchpin of the family and doesn't want to go back to being chief babysitter which I can understand but for the most part she offered to have them and really seemed to enjoy being a Grandma.”

This really jumped out. She’s probably got used to a far more relaxed time during lockdown and realises she rather likes this more relaxed time with adults and doing things she’s not had time to do before. She might have got stuck in the Grandma groove, constantly looking after the grandkids and maybe doesn’t want to return to all that, much as she loves them. Maybe this has given her the opportunity to re-evaluate.

She is also probably genuinely worried about them being back at school / nursery and the risks of transmission and is being choosy about where she socialises

I don't think any of us should be judging other people, even our closest loved ones, for how they want to cope with this year.

@zoemum2006

You sound quite disrespectful of your mum when she has a history of being quite supportive of you.

This.

Let her deal with this however she feels comfortable.

I don't think it's really a double standard. Seeing GC from multiple households for extended amount of time, who are mixing at school and might want to hug or at least get close to her will more likely pass the virus on than being socially distanced from strangers at a restaurant.

I may have got the wrong end of the stick but it kind of comes across like your primary grievance is that she is no longer willing to provide free childcare. Maybe she has discovered how freeing it is not being tied down to regular childcare and Covid is a convenient excuse.

@TomBradysLeftKneecap

I don't think any of us should be judging other people, even our closest loved ones, for how they want to cope with this year.

Yes. Especially our closest loved ones.

Sounds like she's enjoying the break.

omg this. My parents have been completely inconsistent. She had her cleaner back in the house before she had me, would chat to us outside her house from 2m away then cover her mouth with her hand if someone walked past the other side of the street and would sit on benches in the park but not let me sit on the bench in her garden when I went over. It has driven me crazy!

My exh was a bit like this. Obsessive about some aspects of the 'rules' i.e. wouldn't go within 2 m of his own children or be in a house with them which was always allowed and then suddenly decided it was ok to take them down and see his parents. I think people balance their own sense of risk according to their own priorities in ways which are not always logical (at all).

Personally I completely agree that she is being ridiculous and hypocritical by going off for spa weekends - last time I went to a spa it involved a lot of very close contact with others -eg facial/ body treatments, swimming (try wearing a mask in a pool!), sauna - sharing a heated box full of germs with others who are also half naked etc so she’s not being completely genuine to me.

That said, it is her life and her choice and honestly I’d stop bothering initiating. Why chase her? She’s made it abundantly clear she isn’t going to meet up and no matter how ridiculous you or anyone feels it is, you have no choice but to abide by it.

Let it go! Get on with doing your own nice family things and leave her out. Don’t bother asking, let her get on with her life in her way. It doesn’t stop you and other family members from meeting up and having a great time.

It really will be her loss in the end because she is the one missing out. Something tells me that the moment you start making fun plans without her you’ll find she suddenly relaxes her rules.....

I find it pretty incredulous that the OP has managed to make this all about her.
If the OP is at a loss as to how to full her weekends, then the OP needs to stop being so dependent on her family for her social interactions or arrange to meet siblings without her mother being present.

It sounds like the OP's mother has a social life outside of her family and it would be far healthier if the OP took a leaf out of her book.

Is it really that difficult to accept that the mother prefers being a hands off grandmother for now at least? What would you have done if your family had decided to move abroad or if she decided to live abroad?

There is a subset of people who seem to have regarded shielding as a very take-it or leave-it thing. Someone I work with occasionally accounted she was shielding, which came as a bit of a surprise as we were all aware that she had been out and about, and it became particularly ridiculous when she couldn't do something because she was off to Zurich. She has in the past had some sort of neurological condition, but I'm guessing she was never actually told to shield or to isolate and has just been enjoying mopping up the sympathy whilst not having to comply with the vast majority of the precautionary rules.

But won’t see her GC?

To be fair, the gc will probably crawl all over her and not distance at all.
In a large room with a few strangers you can keep as much distance as you like. You don't know them so you don't have to engage. I can completely understand this.