Finding Mum quite hard to manage when she visits

[feesh]

Mum is a very sprightly 71 years old, fit as a fiddle and very active. I live in a very civilised part of the Middle East.

She lives alone and comes out to see us every 3 or 4 months. The last couple of times she’s visited, it’s been because she’s asked me if she can do anything to help and so I’ve specifically asked her to come and help me (first time was with a newborn, second time was because I had a lot of work on and the kids were off school for a week). But both times she’s kind of let me down; with the newborn, I’d specifically asked her if she could come out and drive for me (post c-section), but when she got here she said she didn’t want to and I ended up (having not made alternative arrangements) having to do the school runs 3 days after my c section, which was hard but I survived. (For context, she is a brilliant driver - IAM trained, and the roads here are very easy and I had checked with her multiple times before she came out that she was up for it and had paid to add her to the insurance).

The most recent visit was because I’d asked her to help with the kids while I was working (I work from home), but unless I specifically set something up then she just sat at home with them on her iPad and didn’t engage with them or do anything with them.

As she was going to bed one night, she said “Do you want me to do something with the kids tomorrow?” and I said “Sure, what do you want to do?” to which she said “I have no idea, what can we do?”. I said, well we have a swimming pool, a playground, there is a beach 5 minutes walk down the road, you could ring the driver I set you up with yesterday and he could take you all anywhere, you could do baking with them in the kitchen....and she got really defensive and said “All right all right you’ve made your point, I’ll do something with them tomorrow!” (Which was a bit of an over-reaction, as I was only trying to suggest ideas, although I was admittedly a bit exasperated that she really couldn’t think of anything to do).

Anyway I had a chat with her yesterday and she said she feels really overwhelmed coming out here and really far out of her comfort zone and she doesn’t know what to do with herself and feels trapped inside the house. She said it’s because she’s getting old.

So I had a bit of a light bulb moment - it explains a lot about why I’ve been so exasperated with her before and found her quite draining on previous visits (she spends a lot of time just sitting on the sofa; won’t even go out for a walk around our compound in the evening or anything). But on the other hand, I don’t really understand it - she’s been coming here for 8 years and life to me at least really is pretty normal - it’s easy to get around using taxis, we have lovely western shops less than 2 minutes from our house that she is very familiar with, and lots of lovely places to walk right on our doorstep, everyone speaks English, in fact most people ARE English, customer service is excellent, people are very friendly and helpful, the hospitals are very clean and excellent.

So I want to help her not to feel like this. How do I do it?

It is hard having visitors (we have them almost continuously during cooler months), but it is sooooo much easier if they go out and do their own thing occasionally, even if it’s just the odd evening walk.

I don’t get on particularly well with her normally and am finding her visits quite hard now, especially as she spends most of them sat on the sofa with her iPad and if I ask her if she wants to come out with me I get the whole “Oh you don’t want me to come, you go and I’ll stay here” martyr act rather than a straight yes or no, so I’m constantly having to guess what she actually wants to do.

I actually think a lot of it stems from her being FIERCELY independent and she can’t handle being in a house share situation where she might have to ask someone how to work something or where something is - she literally chokes on her words when this situation arises and she hates being dependent on me as she is here.

So, that’s how she feels and that’s how I feel - so how do we make this work for future visits? Obviously from now on I will lower my expectations considerably as to how much help she can really offer with the kids. But I would also like to gently push her out of her comfort zone a little bit for both our sakes and sanity.

My mum has always been a bit pathetic (sorry mum!) when around me. It is exasperating. She is the complete opposite with my sister; really really helpful and (seemingly) proactive. So I watched how my sister is with my mum, and she barks orders at her. I couldn’t be so fucking rude, but it did teach me that perhaps my mum needed more direction. I think she has turned herself off to other people’s needs to some extent, (now she lives alone) so does not really know what to do, so maybe a bit of gentle direction helps. Maybe this could help you deal with your mum too? Sympathies though, it is fucking exhausting! 😂

myfoolishboat your post really resonated with me! Only I am the barking one 😁
My mum has form for bring a bit pathetic with my dad and sister. For example won’t order her own food in a restaurant, carry anything slightly heavy to the car.
However she knows I won’t toler that nonsense and as she hates any confrontation (or being challenged on anything) she just cracks on with things with me. (She is a very fit and active 60 year old ). But I do know that I am rather bossy to her and my sister wouldn’t be.
having said that mum is a brilliant mum and wonderful granny so I am v lucky.

Anyway so maybe set instructions around small tasks, building up to bigger stuff would help. I.e. ‘mum, please take DC for a walk to corner shop and buy tea bags’ .

She's 70+ and in her own home environment she manages perfectly well, which is great.
Take her out of that and into your home and another country she may feel a bit vulnerable. She probably won't say so or show it.
The way you run your home may be different for her and she's lost her independence by staying in your home.....whatever you may think.
It's not familiar territory there for her and possibly she feels a little lonely not being able to meet friends for a coffee or chat if she goes to the mall etc.
She obviously comes to stay with you because she loves you. So be kind. Share things with her. Cook together. Go to the pool together. Ask her to make a picnic for you all to have.
Do things with her and the children so that next time she goes without you she's familiar with how things are.
Your expectations may worry her a little. Maybe she has pain she hasn't told you about and silently struggles.
I say all this from experience.
Best of luck and it's kind of you to consider changing things a little to make her more comfortable.

You have lived in the ME for 8 years so for you it is all normal and fine and easy, but for your 71 year old mother it strikes me that she either does not like it there, or does not feel comfortable. She may feel intimidated by the different culture, and even if you are used to it, I understand exactly what she means about it very restrictive. I agree with her.

We visit the ME around three times a year, yes the roads are good but it is a strange and unfamiliar place for her. I think it is a huge ask to expect her to drive there after the birth of your baby, and I am amazed you expected that of her. I am a very confident driver, and drive overseas but would feel scared to drive in the ME. It is confusing, too many lanes and every single compound looks the same, all the roads are confusing with arabic signs, some in English. Nightmare! No way would I do it.

Walking around the compound may worry her, and she may feel she spends most of her time stuck inside because she is uncomfortable going out alone or taking the dc, and it seems to me she doesn't enjoy her visits as much as she should. She sounds lonely and bored.

Rather than seeing her visits as unpaid help, why not hire a nanny to entertain the children and take the time to take her out? Go out altogether to the beach with the dc, and show her the best sides of where you live. Are you spending time with her one to one? Taking her out for dinner and having fun, rather than just expecting her to entertain your dc all day every day.

The flight is not insignificant, it is a fairly long way, she is already making a massive effort by visiting you there at all. She loves you, and wants to see the children, but she does not necessarily feel able to keep the children entertained for hours on end whilst you work, and if I were her I would be pretty fed up being told to take the children to the beach whilst you worked and ignored me.

She is not the paid help, and I feel your expectations are way too high of her.

Make it fun for her after all she has travelled a long way to see you, you owe her that much, she may not be able to do the journey for much longer so I would make the most of your time with her.

Do you think she finds your competence intimidating? You've settled into a foreign country, have a career, are raising a family, running a home, sound very organised- that might make her feel uncomfortable when out of her comfort zone.

I don’t get on particularly well with her normally

Think that's your answer.

Is it always your elderly mum making the effort to travel or do you bother too?

Hi OP

I agree with you when you say to reduce your expectations.
I really would do that. Just let her be a guest.

Also, are you all maybe suffering from guest burnout? Sounds tiring having such a steady stream of them during the cooler months.

Why don't you take a year off having any guests and just enjoy the winter season just yourselves?

My mum is 76 and looks after my dbro's kids often. In her own environment, own home,own car etc.
If I asked her to come to SE Asia and help us she'd hate it. It would be a disaster.

I suggest you all take time out from having any guests. Even your mum.

Good luck.

My mother came over to help after I had dc2.

The help should have had bolded inverted commas around it.

She made my life more difficult, created more work and raised my blood pressure than both the 2 year old and newborn put together.

Our already mediocre relationship won't recover fully, it wasn't just that she didn't so much as put her own cup in the dishwasher, but she also took over my breastfeeding chair and hogged the newborn, returning him only to AVE his nappy changed (no, she didn't do that) or to be fed - and when it was to be fed she had to be forced, though she couldn't get rid of him fast enough if he smelled of shit.

She criticised everything, while sitting clutching my newborn baby and not giving him back. I honestly hated her after less than a week, and the icing on the cake was her telling everyone she met that she was helping me, and them gushing about how lucky I was.

I tried talking to her and she just cried and said she'd come to bond with the baby. She'd sold it as an offer of help. She ignored the toddler 90% of the time and the one time I explicitly requested that she look after her for an hour in the morning so I could nap while the baby did she had a lie down and let her trash the place, then made a massive deal of how she'd tidied up, which turned out to mean she'd literally shovelled everything randomly into any draw or box - meaning pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle in 3 different drawers and in the dressing up box, crayons in with the Lego, random drifts of Lego in puzzle boxes with a few of the pieces and a stray crayon. It'd have taken less time to sort out of she'd just left the chaos on the floor.

Another time she turned up knowing that I hadn't had two straight hours sleep in a year due to the baby and cried because she'd had to get up at her airport hotel at 6am and she was "shattered" - my sister had driven her to the airport, flown with her, rented a car this end and driven her to our door, and she was only 61...

Treating her as a guest and having her stay in a hotel is the only way to maintain a reasonable relationship. I don't let her "help" at all because she won't anyway. She still goes home and makes out to my sisters that she's helped me 24/7 and I have no idea how I'll manage without her...

Good luck!

Thank you so much for the replies, lots of food for thought. I was expecting a pasting, but this has been very helpful.

I’m becoming more sympathetic to her situation - she is ‘old’ now (compared to what she was when we left the UK) and you forget that when you’re away for so long. I suppose my expectations are way too high. I do get annoyed when she sits there basically ignoring the kids though, it makes me feel like she’s not actually that bothered about seeing them. But I suppose the visits are pretty intense for her.

I’ll admit that I haven’t spent much time with her my past two visits - I am absolutely knee deep in work and need to work every day from 9am to 2pm at the minimum (while the kids are at school and nursery, or with her if they’re off school). So it’s been hard on her.

And yes we are definitely suffering visitor burnout. We have some breathing space now though and we are back in the UK for the summer (as we are every year) so that will help a bit. We usually stay in a village near my Mum so she gets to see the kids a lot without having to be with them 24/7.

I fully admit expecting her to drive was a bit much by the way. But at the time I was pretty desperate as I couldn’t see any other way to get the kids to school after the baby came. In the end it was fine though - my csection recovery was super easy and I didn’t have any problems driving straight away.

I understand a little where you're coming from. My Mum is 70, and although she lives in a different country (i.e. not the UK), I also live in a different country again (but still in the EU). She often offers to come and "help" with the kids in the holidays, and it's not always that helpful. However, it's clear that she does really want to spend time with the kids, and she wants to feel helpful. So, I try a few things to make it work for everyone:

• I think of a few things she can do to help (she wants to feel helpful) and I tell her what they are i.e. I ask her to make dinner once or twice while she's here, or at least to start prepping dinner, or to put on a load of washing for me, or to pick up a few items from the shop
• I try and arrange a few activites for the older kids, so that she doesn't have to spend whole days with all 3 kids (as I think she finds that hard work). Last time she was here, I put the older 2 in holiday club in the mornings, and she picked them up at lunchtime. That also helped her with feeling helpful.
• I try and have a day or half day where we can spend time together with the kids while she's here, as that takes some of the pressure off both of us
• I try to give her a bit of freedom with how she deals with the kids i.e. I don't dictate too much what they should eat and when, and I let her discipline them if needed
• I make it clear to her that she should treat our place like her home. I don't wait on her - she makes her own cups of tea, etc.

In addition, she tends to bring things with her that will help with entertaining the kids i.e. for my youngest (3) she bought some sticker books for them to do together.

My Mum always seemed young for her age, but she's definitely started to show the signs of her age more in the last 5 years or so. She gets tired more easily, and finds it hard to deal with the kids and the noise for hours on end. For example, she used to happily drive when she visited, but now is much more nervous to do so (even though she drives where she lives, and where I live we drive on the same side of the road!). I've had to adjust my expectations accordingly.... FWIW, my sister still expects a lot from her and as a result they don't get on so well and my Mum finds visiting her and her kids very difficult.

Op you sound like a very balanced and thoughtful person, I am sure you will both work out a good routine for her next visit. I know what it is like when you have so much to juggle and think about, it is easy to overlook others sometimes. I have tried to rely on my mum in the past for emergencies only to realise she can't do it!! I was annoyed mainly because I was so stressed and worried at the time.

Not being with children for long stretches and then suddenly 247 must be quite a shock for her, but she could definitely try harder. Maybe there is something she enjoys (like knitting or sewing) that she can teach your dc? Or maybe painting or crafting of some kind. Sometimes though maybe after a long flight and getting older, she may not have the same enthusiasm anymore, but she must love you all very much to do the journey so often. You are lucky, my mother lives a few hours away and hasn't even tried to visit for the last three years (and she is just 67!)

Good luck op

We are English & live in the U.K. as do my parents (late 60s) & MIL so I am only posting as DH and I have noticed in the past couple of years how old our parents have become and how things which they used to take in their stride have become a real challenge. Both my parents and MIL live 4hrs away so come for a few days at a time every few months. On her most recent visit, MIL said she didn't want to walk the children to school (10 mins - the children would have had breakfast, be in uniform etc and are 9 & 6) as it was "too much that early in the day", asked me if I could arrange for a friend to drop them back at the house rather than expect her to do pick up and then just gave them biscuits & toast rather than re-heat the casserole I had left as she wasn't sure what to give the children with it (although I had left peeled potatoes in water for her to cook & mash and mentioned there was broccoli in the freezer).
Similarly, my parents who used to take them off to the park, give them tea, do bathtime & bedtime and then cook for us and quite possibly do some ironing of an evening now play board games with them at home, are delighted if I get home to do tea or give them sandwiches, decide the children don't really need a bath, love doing stories and then collapse on the sofa as they're exhausted. They won't admit anything has changed but it clearly has.
MIL lives by herself and finds our house to be very noisy & hectic. My father probably would if it weren't for the fact that he removes his hearing aids within seconds of the children racing out of the front door to greet him. My mum is one of 6 and generally good at blocking out background noise!

I'm struggling with this atm. Parents similar ages. I've never asked or expected them to help whatsoever, but they expect to be the centre of attention and to be entertained every day. I have to book holiday, and although the kids start off looking forward to seeing them they're begging to be allowed to stay home alone by mid stay (teen and pre teen).

My mother especially expects an itinerary of things to do and the children present. It's hard because there is very little overlap in term of what they and the children enjoy and can do, especially as parents can't walk far (mother thinks she can but is complaining after about 500 meters, father would probably qualify for a blue badge). When they're at home they "keep busy" and have their routines and roles in clubs/ organisations but within a very limited sphere, which can't be replicated here!

I have no idea what the solution is really - visiting them isn't easy either but I think we might have to move to just visiting them for shorter periods not vice versa as it's becoming impossible, and they stay longer than my patience and good intentions last!

I think the key is a few things:

1. lower expectations. any childcare needed ie between 9am-2pm book childcare. If she wants to do something with them before or after then bonus

2. if she wants to have the children a while, basically fix an activity rather than ask. Ie child A wants to bake today after school, would you like to help her or should I. Have all the ingredients ready to go. Or to swimming, just say they are going to swim at 4pm, would she like to also.

3. is there any way to adapt your guest accomadation so there is a bit more opportunity for them and you to get an hour alone when they want

Like many others on here, I can really relate. I noticed both my mum and MIL getting much "older" around the 70 year mark. I found the way to handle it was to ask them to do specific things, and to think a bit about how to make that easier on them. It might seem like you're then doing all the work, but I think you have to accept that they're not babysitters or true helpers like they might have been before (at 68 my mum was brilliant when I had DS. But by the time DD was born, 4 years later, that had largely disappeared. It's hard to see, but it's real).

So with my mum, I'd suggest a specific, relatively short activity such as a trip to the park and I'd usually offer solutions to make it more manageable for her - in your case, perhaps a taxi/driver to take her there and/or not all the kids at once. Also, with MIL, who is quite frail, we tend to always be with her. But if she's not expected to do actual child care, she's brilliant with the kids in terms of chatting and playing with them. While if I say I need to pop out or disappear into another room to work for a while she almost freezes up and becomes useless. So I try to enjoy little outings with her and the DC knowing that at least I'm not the only one who has to entertain the kids. And there's no doubt that a trip to the beach or to get ice-cream is easier for me if she's there in that she'll happily entertain them at the table, loves them clustering around her while she buys them the biggest ice-cream they can imagine etc....

I think my issue is that I don't want or need any help, and my kids are pretty independent and speak the local language as natives. My mother talks over the children in public, in English, because she can't accept that they're more competent than her at speaking to shop assistants or ordering in restaurants or asking what the best deal with reductions is on admission etc and wants to speak for them! This rubs everyone up the wrong way! Strangely my father has no problems leaving the kids to take charge - possibly because he's used to having people do things for him

My kids are also used to spending time without adult supervision and just don't need looking after except in actual high risk situations where tbh my parents are not really trustworthy due to some slightly odd attitudes (my father told me while my youngest was canoing on a small lake and I was watching like a hawk while giving him the chance to do it by himself as he wished to, that children and dogs never drown and adults shouldn't try to rescue them. That's just dogs father, not children ). Plus due to their physical limitations my teen is more capable anyway.

My mother does also spend all of every outing comparing whatever we're doing negatively to the nearest equivalent where she lives, or talking about my siblings children when my children are right there...

I don't think I'm a nice enough person ...

I have recently had a family visit that went very well, I booked a holiday house a days drive from where we live and we all went on holiday there. I think this worked well because it was a neutral space, there was no normal routine and everyone was on holiday. I am dong this again next time MIL, BIL visit. I have no issues with hosting them but DH and I both thought it was smoother.

dreichuplands that does sound like a good solution. Nobody on home ground. Kids not longing to go off with their friends or up to their rooms, me (and in the evening DH) not thinking of all the other things we should / would like to be doing. Negative comparisons of location not so pointed/ personal!

No wise words I’m afraid but lots of sympathy.
We’re also in the ME and my mum came out to ‘help’ when DC2 was a few weeks old.

I picked her up in the morning from the airport, brought her to our house and she promptly went to bed for an epic six hour nap. Bearing in mind I had a newborn and a toddler and the idea was that she was there to give me an opportunity to rest...

do you think your mum feels obliged to come and visit?

or would she prefer to visit and relax, and how would you feel about that?

it sounds as if she asks about helping through politeness and doesn't really want to/feel able to. Honest conversation time I think.

No advice from me, but lots of sympathy as I'm struggling with something very similar.

My parents - both of whom travel regularly and who have both lived overseas as adults come and visit me and can't/won't do ANYTHING. It's exasperating, and I'm struggling to be understanding. I'm having a baby in mid-June, and they're coming over a few weeks later and I'm dreading it.

That also hate everything about where I live, and never tire of letting me know how awful and terrible it is, and how I should just move home, they don't know how I live in this hell hole etc.

It's exhausting.

Hi OP. I think we may possibly live in the same place! I also find it tricky. My parents are fab but in the uk we'd see them little and often. Here, if they come for 2 weeks it's really too much for everyone. House guests and fish etc.....! The irritations are definitely amplified after 3 or 4 days.