My mother drives me mad

[Bearcrumble]

My mum came round yesterday. She really wants to buy DS (13m) his first pair of walking shoes. DH and I have decided to say 'yes' to avoid a row but go and buy them ourselves and then let her get a pair in a different colour. I know this is a bit sneaky but it is a rite of passage we feel and he's probably going to be our only child (would like more but have lots of problems and he was an IVF baby).

When I was out of the room I heard her say to DS "I'm sure you'd be walking now if you had a proper pair of shoes" (he wears those moccasin socks now - with the leather stitched to the bottom). I called out and said that I'd been to the shop and the saleslady had said not to get walkers until they were taking more than just a couple of steps unaided. Then she said "I'm just talking nonsense to the baby, why do you have to answer me?"

The other day she said something like "you're greedy aren't you?" and I asked her if she'd be able to say something more like "you're enjoying that!" - she always says "oh ignore me, I'm talking nonsense" - but he is going to understand her at some point, may as well start as you mean to go on.

I prefer to not be all 'in his face' when he's playing - I make the odd comment and sometimes show him things, but I think he needs to work stuff out for himself and discover different ways of playing with something but she's all "no do it like this" and very grabby and interrupts a lot.

I don't have any other family nearby and she's retired and I could do with a morning or afternoon to myself a week. She really wants to have him but I can't stand her style. I have been getting ill a lot (partly because of catching lots of things from DS - since Jan I've had 2 D+V bugs, lots of coughs and colds and I'm just getting over oral thrush) so I'm run down. I suppose I'm being a bit precious about him and one morning a week of a different caring style won't make a huge difference.

ZuzuandZara,

re yoru comment:-

"My mother will for example, if I'm holding one of the babies and they reach their arms out for her, she will take them and give me a little 'hah', like 'they want me not you'! Also when A learnt to crawl my mum said, 'oh, I was hoping she'd do that for me first', which I thought was a really selfish comment, she's had 3 kids, these are my PFB!

But I know she doesn't mean anything by it, she really is a lovely person, just a bit silly/thoughtless on occasion"

Hmmm. I personally would not be thinking that she is just being a bit silly or thoughtless on occasion particularly if she is saying the same type of stuff repeatedly. She seems to be treating your children as a sort of competitive thang which is going on within her head. A one off comment made could be construed as silly but if this keeps happening I would be asking myself why she is exactly doing this. It says more about her than you, you did not make her this way. Do pick her up on each and every snide comment or remark and tell her that you notice and such will not be tolerated. Such undermining by mothers (there is a competitive element attached to all this) to their own adult children is wrong on every level. Again I would establish clear boundaries what is and is not acceptable to you with regards to your mother.

I fully realise however, that many grandmothers are fab and do not try to undermine their adult childrens choices re childrearing and childcare. They also do not push boundaries of what is/is not acceptable. However, some grandparents will try and push as far as they can. If you don't come across it yourself then wonderful but it does not mean to say that such problems do not exist in other families because they most certainly do. I get the impression here that the OPs mother is trying to impose her choices with resultant bad feeling on the part of the OP.

AttilaTheMeerkat

Yeah, I take your point. With my mum luckily it's only very rare comments, mostly she's lovely. I think it's so she can boast to her friends. A lot of her life is a bit crap at the moment, so I let her!

ZuzuandZara

I have both crap inlaws and parents so my radar is perhaps more attuned to this sort of nonsense. Setting my own boundaries and being firm with them has been the way forward in my case.

I am sorry to read that your Mum's life is crap but you are not responsible for this nor actually for her. She like all of us has made choices.

Continue to be kind to yourself.

ZuzuandZara I think you sound like a wonderful daughter. :) I don't get along with my mum, we clash big-time and she didn't bring me up, my grandmother did. Long story. I know she deeply regrets her choices and she said she wanted to make it up to me by bringing up my DSs (how? when we live 12 hours flight away?!!!!). I told her that's not her job, she had a chance and this is mine. But I do let her spoil my DSs and I try not to let the past cloud the way I treat her (how does a mother let someone else raise her children?!!!) but it's hard. She does enjoy being a grandmother when she can and I think kindness to your own family is a good lesson to teach your DCs.

Attila Is it wrong for ZuzuandZara to be kind to her own mother? That's what she is doing and everyone benefits from it. It never kills anyone to bite their tongue a bit etc. Maybe I am lucky to have lovely parents and ILs thought not necessarily 100% of the time and I recognise that, no one's perfect. Including me.

You are being precious, maybe because DS was an IVF baby?

Every generation has different opinions on childrearing. You'll be the 'interfering' GP in 30 years, remember.

"Attila Is it wrong for ZuzuandZara to be kind to her own mother? That's what she is doing and everyone benefits from it. It never kills anyone to bite their tongue a bit etc. Maybe I am lucky to have lovely parents and ILs thought not necessarily 100% of the time and I recognise that, no one's perfect".

Hi angel,

Of course it is not wrong for ZandZ to be kind to her mother. Her mother though needs to show the same consideration towards her and the comments her mother has made are selfish ones. This whole process has to be two way and respect has to be given as well as received. Her mother should bite her tongue.

We've never had a comfortable relationship. I wanted this thread to be about handling her now but if it's relevant she actually put me off the idea of having children for years because she only told me about the negatives - said I didn't sleep until I was two and told me I made her life hell for 18 years.

After she divorced my dad she had a lot of boyfriends and casual flings staying over in our house and I always felt I was secondary to her need to be in a relationship. She is single now and has been for about the last 15 years.

I try to relate to her as one adult to another but she is so slippery when challenged she makes me feel like I'm an idiot for pulling her up on things. I find she manages to change the subject or turn it round on me - claiming to be "just being silly" or taking me over-literally if you know what I mean.

DH sees her the same way I do I guess. She CAN be great, but she often says very weird things and needs to be watched. He says to be realistic about her - that it is possible to ignore her, she's not some kind of monster so not to let her get to me so much and I can always say 'no'.

I think it's hard for people to understand this sort of relationship unless they've experienced it.

OK I'm making assumptions from what you have and haven't said... but your mum sounds manuipulative / passive-aggressive / possibly narcissistic. Does she respect you as an adult or does she often undermine you? Is she sometimes loving, sometimes a pain? Or always difficult, and has been throughout your childhood? If so, you may be able to reset the boundaries to some extent, but this takes a lot of work and a consistent message. Ignoring her and biting your tongue is not the answer. Setting an example for the next generation may be more important to you than placating a mother who will never truly be happy with anything you do.

Wishing you well.

Oh and the BF thing should of course be ignored. Your decision of course.

sounds a bit like my mum, just very self centered and can't take a step back

try to create boundaries by telling her straight or you'll end up like us....just not talking

Lionrock She tends to undermine me, she won't be a passenger in the car with me because she's 'nervous' of my driving even though I passed a couple of years ago, she usually expects the worst of me, when I had a pregnancy that didn't go to plan she said "I wanted that baby more than you did" but she is sometimes lovely and wise so it seems like it always catches me out when she's a bitch. If she was consitently horrid I could walk away but sometimes she is great.

Attila, I've made it sound worse than it it by the sounds of things, my mum is great, very supportive and I'm lucky to have her and my children have really bought us together, we spend a lot more pleasant time together now than we did pre kids. The occasional annoying comment, I was just trying to empathise with the OP, although now reading further posts its obvious that her mother is more 'difficult' than first thought. Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Angel, thanks very much good luck with your mum, you sound like you've come a long way.

Sorry to hijack OP. Sounds like your op was just the tip of the iceberg.

Attila Yes, respect is two ways but we cannot dictate how other people behave, we can only dictate the way we behave towards them. Yes, my mum is naive and her intentions can be good but completely misguided (for example, if you ask her to do something, she will go and do the opposite and she is not nuts, it's just her way of controlling a situation and I've challenged her about it before but at the end of the day, I cannot change her. I can make her more aware of herself and hope she changes that way.). And she made the huge mistake of 'abandoning' me as a child and I suffered some abuse as a result. I was very angry for a long time and spent my 20s being very self-destructive but thanks to an excellent psychotherapist I've come to peace with it all and I will not blame my parents for that. We have a lovely relationship now, DH thinks the way I 'bicker' with my mum pretty much all day long when we are together rather funny. But I've never know otherwise. And I love her despite of it all.

Bearcrumble It does sound like there is more going on with your relationship with your mum than you first let on. And having your DS has obviously brought out a lot of the issues to the surface. It's hard but you need to separate the two - how much of how you feel she treats your DS is linked with how you feel she treated you? There are 'surface' stuff like buying shoes, which in the bigger scheme of things, isn't really a biggie but because of your underlying issues, there seems a resentment for you to let her play a bigger part in your DS's life or to allow her to feel important. BUT the snide remarks and undermining might become a bigger issue but you need to deal with her in terms of mum-daughter relationship and try not to let it affect the grandmother-grandson relationship too much. Take care.

Zuzuandzara Crazy mothers, hey? Who would have 'em?