My mum keeps calling my DD 'hers'...

[October13]

I know I am probably completely overreacting and being overly sensitive but I can't help that it annoys me! Every time my mum asks about her she always says "How's my baby?" "How's my girl?" or even "Our girl". I just wanna snap at her and tell her that she's mine and not hers (again I know this is silly). Has anyone else felt like this?

Not an issue. Try to appreciate their close relationship.

This would annoy me too op. I get where you're coming from and I would have to say something about it. Just because it's a term used doesn't mean it doesn't annoy you. And if it annoys you, she shouldn't do it

@Timpani

Nope. Because my mum died before I had kids.

Perspective.

My father died before I was an adult let alone ready to settle down and have a child. It isn’t just about perspective though. Op is allowed to be irked.

@Mummyoflittledragon

But when you put things in to perspective, it can help you realise that life isn’t that bad!

It's lovely. Your mum loves your baby and considers baby and obviously you close. It's not a competition.

@TableFlowerss
Yes, I get that. However there is always someone, who comes onto threads and says the same thing. It invalidates people’s feelings as though they’re wrong. I’m disabled. I don’t go around passing comment about able bodied people’s complaints about things I couldn’t do for love nor money. This would be the same thing. Had the comment been made differently, I would have let it pass but it was rather abrupt.

Of course I very much would have liked my father to meet my dd. But I don’t get pangs of jealousy or feel the need to play what is basically a trump card when someone is pissed off with their living parent simply because mine isn’t.

I’m sorry but you are being petty and ridiculous. Just be glad you have a mother that can so easily offend you.

Look at it this way, the way you adore your DD, love her completely with ferocity and instinct, that's how your Mum feels about you and she's watched her baby produce her own baby. That baby is hers. It is part of her family.

Aw - that’s so beautifully put

My mum does this too, the card she bought was had "thank you for my granddaughter"

It is very typical of my mum, everything is how it effects her. I had depression as a teenager and she still goes on about how difficult it was for her to have a daughter with depression. I had the same when I wrote up my PhD - she was glad it was over because it was so difficult that I was working 70h weeks so didn't have time to see her. It is just her I'm used to it but it is still hard sometimes but I've come to expect it. She has many positive traits, this is just one negative.

In some ways, biologically speaking, she is your mother’s. Whilst you developed in her womb, all the eggs you will have in your lifetime also developed, so the egg that fertilised to become your daughter, was made in your mother’s womb.

It’s bloody amazing really.

We call them Niblings and Siblings or our gorgeous boy/girl. How lucky to have family you love and adore and they reciprocate. Be thankful and smile x

[quote Mummyoflittledragon]@TableFlowerss
Yes, I get that. However there is always someone, who comes onto threads and says the same thing. It invalidates people’s feelings as though they’re wrong. I’m disabled. I don’t go around passing comment about able bodied people’s complaints about things I couldn’t do for love nor money. This would be the same thing. Had the comment been made differently, I would have let it pass but it was rather abrupt.

Of course I very much would have liked my father to meet my dd. But I don’t get pangs of jealousy or feel the need to play what is basically a trump card when someone is pissed off with their living parent simply because mine isn’t.[/quote]
I agree with what you’re saying in general and you’re right, this situation can arise about anything.

What I find helpful in a situation that may annoy me etc or wind me up, is to remember it could be worse. My DH often uses that technique on me and it more often than not, snaps me out of it.

We all get that wrapped up in our own worlds and problems that we lose sight of the bigger picture and sometimes need reminded that things could be worse.

OP can still be irked, but as someone that would love nothing more than to have my mam meet my DC just the once even, I find that ‘irk’ sad

Going against the grain here I do get where you are coming from. I don’t mind it much now mine are older but I think when they’re tiny you can get that instinctive possessiveness, it felt quite primal for me.

I remember when Ds1 was first born. It was a horrific birth and it the first thing my mil screamed down the phone is ‘where’s my baby??!!!’ And I just thought hang on. I’ve just gone through all that, he is no one else’s baby! I know she didn’t think he was hers but it riled me so much so I know where you are coming from!

My grandson is quite often described by me as “my boy” or “my baby” and I Know fine well I didn’t give birth to him. 🙄

YABVU. My lovely, darling MIL calls DD ‘my girl’.
I remember lying in bed on the maternity ward and MIL came to visit, 8 hours after DD was born. She was asleep in the little bedside cot.

She came in, came over to me and hugged me whispering ‘you clever, clever girl, thank you for my Grandaughter, I’ll cherish her for ever’.
She then looked at DD, looked at me and I said ‘of course you can Granny’. She gently lifted DD said ‘oh my precious, precious girl’.
I have never felt so proud.

Oh Maddie, that's a lovely memory. It's actually made me teary!

I actually understand where you're coming from OP but unless there's more to this than you've said, I think some of the excellent posts by PP might help you to see this in a more positive light. When I had my DS, I remember my mum being totally taken aback by how strongly she felt towards him. She knew she would love him, but she said there was something about the way his little body felt to hold and the smell of him that reminded her of us as babies, and that made her feel like he belonged to our family, or was hers, if you like. She described it like a grandmotherly version of instinctive motherly love. I'm sure she's probably called him 'my boy' at some point, I don't mind. She knows he's mine as in I'm his mother. But I think that kind of love can only be a good thing for a child.

@maddiemookins16mum as lovely as that sounds, not everyone has that sort of relationship with their DM or MIL.

When my MIL came to meet my DD, she arrived in, didnt even look at me or speak to me, sat on the couch for 20 minutes holding DD, and then said to me 'well, am I getting a cup of tea?'.

My MIL sayjnf 'my baby's was her way of trying to establish control over me and my DD. Relationships will change the meaning behind words. My MIL would never thank me, or praise me, or say 'my girl's as a show of how much she loves my DD. She says it while pretending my baby is hers, and doing something with my baby that I dont want, like a child playing a game.

my mother does this with mine. More than happy about it as they are all incredibly close.

other people, not so much. Not close, not theirs and not a phrase i like unless its family close

It's a turn of phrase, I do it with my gc, I think the difference can be in the behaviour.
I'm very much in the background, never push myself forward, but there if they need us.
I think if there's some sort of backstory then it's different.

Are you ok @October13? You sound anxious. No PND or anything going on?

Just checking that’s all - please don’t be offended x

Oh, and nothing is as bad as someone calling them princess.

My best friend calls my dd 'our baby my because she is ours. I'm a believer in it takes a village to raise a child. I love that people love my dd to see her as family.

2 months? I'm convinced in the first few months you feel this massive hormonal surge and want to protect them and keep them all to yourself.

I WAS JUST LIKE THIS! Way more chilled out now he's 10 months

You're probably exhausted too. she knows she's yours really. Can you gently say please don't say that mum?

Oops, I’ve been calling my new grandson “my” little sweetheart/chunk/darling/insert cringe inducing phrase of choice here.

Is that bad? Damn this grandma lark is hard!

My mum calls my DD "my girl" and my ds "my boy". My dad calls them his " golden boy and girl" never bothered me at all