I've been having problems with Mum for quite some time now and am at a complete loss as to how to handle it and mend bridges so to speak. To tell the whole story would take a long long time so I'll try very hard to summarise. Basically I returned to work after the birth of my dd1 with severe pnd which remained undiagnosed for almost 2 years. I've since recovered and found an extremely helpful councellor who helped me through the whole thing. On returning to work my mum looked after dd1 "for me". However despite sitting down with her and discussing how I wanted dd1 looked after/raised i.e. food, discipline, etc etc she ignored everything and did whatever she wanted anyway. Sometimes this put dd1's life at risk (sorry to sound meladramatic but its a little hard to be told by your mother that your dd1 (aged 2.5) has run off and that she simply sitting in the middle of a busy shopping centre waiting for her to come back because she's not got the energy to chase her (despite me buying her a wrist strap)). I have a nut allergy and my mother doesn't bother checking foods for nuts - I could go on but I hope you get the picture. Another bone of contention is that my mother would never take her out to groups always stating that she could entertain dd1 perfectly well herself. Indeed she goes out of her way to stimulate her (often over) but she also needed interaction with other children so eventually I booked a nursery. It was a whole term before I finally persauded my mother to take her. Then it was only 6 sessions out of a whole term. We rowed and rowed with her calling me a bad mother and that I was treating my dd1 as a doorstop key child (i.e. one that is not cared for by its parents but left to fend for itself). In the end I started taking her before I went to work and eventually my mother begrudgingly agreed that dd1 did actually adore it.
The current trouble started when I left work to go onto maternity leave. Naturally I don't want to go round to my mother's every day and simply sit on her sofa. She's furious with me and has come up with various ways of trying to make me feel guilty. She's not very well, she has rheumatoid arthritus, but at the same time she's not doing anything to help herself i.e. she's seriously overwieght (by about 10 stone) and wont stop eating). Eventually before dd2 was born she managed to make me book a very expensive holiday this christmas to Florida with her and my stepfather ("because this might be the last one she can ever take" blah blah blah.) Its rubbish of course and now I'm going to have to cut short my maternity leave because of it. I was stupid to be bullied in this way and am seriously regretting it. Because of this I'm starting to stand my ground and have filled mine and my daughter's lives with going out, going to clubs and generally having a good time being a SAHM. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a full time mum and am trying to find a means of earning money in a different way so that I don't have to return to work. (my current job is in the city and often I leave home at 6.30 and don't get back in until 7.00 which doesn't leave my time to see my children). We've looked at surving on just my dh's salary but we can't do it so that's not an option. My mother's reaction to all of this is that I must be punishing her by keeping dd1 purposely away from her. I'm not doing that at all, but at the same time I'm not really catering for her.
One solution would be to set time aside each week for dd1 to go over to see her Nana. I have a number of concerns about this. 1. My mother's lack of desire to see dd2 really upsets me. 2. I don't want to be beholden to certain times iyswim. I have a free timetable to fill at my leisure etc and I really enjoy that. 3. I find it difficult to deal with the fact I'm expected to turn up, deliver one of my children, and then go away.
She's just been on the phone in floods of tears. This used to make me jump and do whatever she wanted but now it just fills me with disgust. I'm not used to feeling like this about my mother, we used to be so close. I've mentioned that I want to find alternative means of earning money and her reaction is always to put me down. If I try to parent dd1 my mother always criticises how I do it. If either dh or I say we're going to do/get something, she goes out of her way to do it first. Its distnctly like being in competion and I hate it. This is someone I love very very much and I really don't understand her behaviour and feel really hurt. I've tried and tried to talk to her and she sits there in tears promising it will get better but she never changes.
I'm going away with her for a fortnight in 7 weeks time and am really really dreading. What the heck can I do?