Should I ignore my mum's comments to my DS when they make my blood run cold? (long, sorry)

[NoNoNoMYDoIt]

Background - I have 2 DCs (DS 5 and DD 2). I am separated from their father but the children have shared residence with both their father and me.

My parents live 150 miles away so when they come to visit, they always stay.

My relationship with my parents is strained at best. My mother is very controlling and disapproves of me in just about every way imaginable.

This is about the way she is with the kids, tho. She can't cope with their behaviour at all (and their behaviour is far from awful). She rises to every single situation and gets very stressed by them. My father is also very short with them and calls DD 'child', rather than her proper name.

When they come to stay, I find it very stressful, not least because I hear my mum talking to the children, mainly DS at the moment but I can see it starting with DD also, in the same tone that she used with me. When I was growing up, I was always a 'horrid child', 'stupid', 'retarded, 'the worst thing that happened' to her. She 'rued the day I was born', wished she had never had me etc etc. And of course this has left me with woeful self esteem and an inability to form a real bond with another adult.

I am desperate to protect my children from this and go over the top (probably) to make sure they never have anything negative said about them. I still discipline their behaviour, with time-out / warnings and withdrawal of privileges etc. But it is their behaviour which is horrid or naughty, not them, and I am very clear about that.

So when my mum comes and starts saying to my son 'you are a nasty horrid little boy', I want to scream at her. But I don't.

I can't tackle her about this as she has only just started talking to me again after I went to court in the summer over residence of the kids - it didn't go the way she thought was best and she withdrew all contact with me for 4 months after the court ruling. If I try to say anything to her, she will just stop talking to me again, which is fine but then the kids miss out on seeing them altogether. The kids still ask to see their GPs so I know the relationship is important to my kids.

So am I right to just ignore what she says? I end up so stressed when she is here, because every time the kids get over-excited and start to play up, I worry she is going to start saying hateful things to them. As a result, I can't leave them on their own with her and my dad. I have tried to go for a run (for 40 minutes) while they are staying, but when I get home, usually one, and sometimes both, of the children is upstairs in its bedroom screaming because it is in trouble for something and has been sent to bed. My mother has a tendency to scream like a banshee and I cannot bear the thought that she might do this to my kids.

I totally identify with how you are feeling unable to express your anger to your parents, OP. However the police coming round is pretty serious, I, like many others have said, think you need to cut contact once and for all with your parents. They sound awful. Just the fact alone that they put your kids to bed whenever they're left alone with them for supposed "bad behaviour" is bad enough, without all the hitting and verbal abuse that has clearly come with the latest episode.

Did you tell the police it was your parents? Did they say they were going to speak to your parents, as they ought to, really.

This is so freaking sad.

Honey, your parents are awful. I know you must long for some love from them and would probably lie down on a rail track if it meant they would say something kind, but the truth is they are toxic beyond repair and you need to steer clear of them.

Your kids need to be kept safe from them.

I think you are clutching at straws in saying you think the children look forward to seeing them and I promise you they will forget about them. Possibly they pick up on your longing for positive attention from your parents and play along with it. Children are incredibly clever at picking up on parents' leads.

Please seek some professional help. It's not an easy thing to do to detach from family, but in a family like yours, it is essential for your wellbeing. You could do with a lot of handholding while you go through this.. and continue to go through this.

I suspect you have been so damaged by your upbringing (how could you not be?!) that you need an impartial advocate/counsellor-type person to guide you through this.

A lot of people in here will want to help but many simply won't understand why you find it difficult to do what so clearly needs to be done. That's why you need the right people to help.

This can be the start of a much better life for you and your children. xx

Try doing the "plus/minus" list, on one side the plusses you get from having your parents to stay (DCs seem to love them) and on the other the minuses (potential for damaging the DCs self esteem like yours was). And remember it isn't just a case of the number of plusses vs the number of minuses, they need to be weighted.

Oops hit return too early!
What I intended to go on to say was that it will be incredibly hard for you to cut off your parents, your whole life has been spent trying to gain their approval. But with reflection you may realise that whatever you did, it wasn't going to be good enough for them. Do you really want your DCs to grow up with that same underlying sense of failure?

I hope you've read everything and come back to the thread NoNoNo.

You really need to stand firm on this for your kids sake.

I really hope you find the strength to stop contact with your parents, they have you very well trained into accepting their abusive ways

Hi Nono, I hope you are all OK. Some of the advice on this thread (including mine) must have been hard to hear but I hope it helped to give you some perspective - it's tough for someone who has been brought up by such poisonous parents to stop being shaped by their demands, I'm sure.

"i got a visit from the police. a member of the public had called the police about the way my mum and then my dad had treated my DD. they had smacked her and used abusive language when she cried and then wet herself."

Ok think about it. How bad do you think your 2yo was treated for someone to think the situation warranted calling THE POLICE.

My love, your parents are abusers. They abused you and they ARE terrorising your DD. For the love of God and all things holy, this is your last straw. Keep your DD away from them, keep away from them yourself. Please?

((((((((HUGS for you both))))))))))

Thank you all. I have read every post more than once. I hear what you all have to say. I am seeking professional help to deal with this (have a counsellor who has helped me through my separation from my ex-husband and through the ensuing child residence court-case etc). I will NEVER allow my children to be alone with my parents again. I have no idea how this would work in practice if I they came to visit, as I cannot even trust them alone in a room with one of the children when I am upstairs with another in the bath. It is my daughter's 3rd birthday next week, and we have an arrangement to meet at a theme park in Devon for a family day out. I think that cannot go ahead, as inevitably the older child will need accompanying on a ride which the younger child cannot go on, which will mean leaving one of the children with one of my parents. I cannot do this. I am SICK to the pit of my stomach with the thought of what could happen to them. I cannot sleep for thinking of what my parents might do to my children and how that would make them feel. I no longer care WHY my mother behaves like this. Although I know her childhood was wretched, as was my father's in a different way, I cannot and will not permit her to act this out on my children.

Hey Nono, it's very good to see you here again - I was worried you might have been frightened off!

You are doing the right thing to protect your children. It must be incredibly hard but it is right. So glad you are getting some help - and you are thinking about the risks in advance.

No, not frightened off. It's hard as someone who has grown up with 'all this shit' going on to read the dire warnings about my parents and believe that they really do apply. Which is why I am going to the counsellor and will seek her advice. Again though, I battle with the fact that it is my version of events that she is dealing with. And as someone who has been on the receiving end of 'all this shit', I always feel like I must be making some of it up. I know that the received wisdom is that the abused always blames themselves. Hard to apply it to yourself though - when you are the alleged 'abused'.

Anyway, the ultimate resolution is a work in progress. But for now damage limitation is in place. I have had no apology from my parents. And I have no respect for them. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect them to demonstrate to me that they merit my respect. This is something that I intend to explore with my counsellor. I don't think they will ever respect me though - I don't think they ever have. So that is probably going to make my decision for me.

But really - bollocks fuck and shite. I really don't need this.

Christ. You poor thing. They really have done a number on you.

Send them an email or write a letter telling them that the police contacted you about the abuse. In fact I would send the police around if it were me. Tell them you want nothing more to do with them. Ever.

As for the family fun day? Cancel it. Future visits? No way.

You need to protect your children.

NoNo - sounds like you are on the start of a path to a better life with your DC. Be brave and strong -it hurts to cut such influential and important people out of your life or at least erect solid boundaries to keep them from harming you. It is the right thing however.

'I suppose I don't see her abuse as as bad as her mother's was towards her, or as bad as her abuse was towards me. And it's not. But that doesn't mean it's ok.'

NNN, you haven hit the nail on the head here. my mother was abused, and in her turn fairly emotionally haywire with me, emotional blackmail, turning all her issues into things that were my fault, blaming my 'oversensitivity' to comments, changing history when I bought things up as an adult. What I try to remember, when I'm being strong and not accepting it, is that JUST BECAUSE she didn't hit me like her mum hit her DOESN'T mean that whaht she did was acceptable.

If she ever tries the same tricks with DD or ds that she did with me she gets Told, very strongly, that she needs to back off. She has a choice, behave or get out of our Lives.

if you tell your Mum the same she will do one of two things right? She'll stfu, or she'll sulk and cut you out, and you won't have to worry about it anymre anyway AND you'll know it's her and not you! Don't let her abuse your kids like she did you and let the rot permeate another generation...I know how hard it is, but you will feel so good knowing that your childrens self esteem has been protected by you, that you stood up for them, and in turn for the child you were once too.

Oh, and everything you have said screams out TO me that your mother AND father were highly, highly emotionally abusive. You are NOT making this up. It is real, not misremembered or made up. It happened. I am so, so sorry for you that it did, no child deserves that.

You are not ike this with your own children despite years of severe abuse, if you can do it, then THEY could have done, but they chose not to, they chose instead to make you, a vulnerable child, worth of love and protection, into their scapegoat. I wishI could scoop the child that you were up and give her a big hug.

Please try and love yourself enough to cut ties with them. They do not deserve you, your time or one second of your consideration.

Can you talk to the police, explain the way they have always intimidated you, and ask the police to go round and have a stern word with them? It is very badly needed. It would be better coming from the police, and they will be experienced in dealing with horrible people like your parents.

Re the theme park, I would either a) cancel or b) get a friend to come with you so that neither of your DC are left alone with these people. But really, the best possible solution would be to have nothing more to do with them.

Just re read this thread and seen the post about your mum and your 2 yr old inthe wayhme from swimming... Forget telling her to behave or get out of your life, go straight to the second bit. the B*tch doesn't deserve to see your children, ever again.

EightiesChick - I am going to talk to my counsellor (who is experienced in all matter police-related) for advice on what to do about the police. My dad, ironically, is ex-police (military, though). He is therefore, clearly, above the law. . He will NOT pay a second's heed to a member of the constabulary paying him a visit. He already told me that he thought the person who reported them to the police (he was implicated also apparently - according to the policeman, it was an elderly couple who did the screaming, shouting, hitting etc) was a coward and should have come and tackled him directly about it.

I am also very aware of the fact that my parents have CRB clearance for various charity / coaching things they do... Had my parents been driving THEIR car rather than my car on the fateful day when they were witnessed walking back to the car from the park and ride with my children, it would have been a very different tale. The police would have traced them to my parents' house on the day it happened. (The policeman who visited me had tried calling the day before - the day it happened - but obviously I was still at my parents' house). I would have been sitting in their lounge when the police had turned up. The conversation would have been very different indeed.

Crikey, do their charity activities involve dealing with kids? Frankly, the sooner that stops the better. Your dad can dismiss an intervention all he likes ( at his finding fault with the way it was reported!) but he won't actually be able to prevent the police taking action if they think it's needed. I hope your counsellor guides you wisely.

Their charity stuff doesn't involve kids at the moment. They have worked with them in the past. I guess they may in the future. Which is why I need to work out what to do. Urgently.

I have always known that my mother can't deal with kids. My father, however, was always supposed to love kids, and they him. He was always a magnet for them, and certainly when we have had kids' parties, the kids have been all over him because he will do the rough and tumble thing. But with my kids... he has NO patience. His attitude towards them is harsh, and every bit as bad as my mother's. I am not sure whether he would smack them. It was always my mother who hit me - I don't remember my father doing it, but then he wasn't around much as he worked 12-hour shifts. But my father is an enabler, and he enables my mother's behaviour. So he condones what she does. And last year, during an emotionally difficult time for me, when I was sobbing on my bed and very depressed (the children were with their father at the time), he came into my room, pinned me to the bed by my wrists and screamed in my face that i was a 'fucking waste of space'. So the emotionally violent outbursts are there, and is the ability to restrain an adult (and therefore, by implication, a child also... much easier to do it to a child than an adult - physically).

So basically they don't give a shit that you got a very distressing visit from the Police about their behaviour, and inability to control themselves with a 2 year old baby?? They don't care that their actions could have caused a great deal of trouble for you and greatly upset their grand daughter? It's very hard to find any positives about them isn't it?

What very self obsessed people they are.

Cancel the day with them and take a friend or someone. You don't owe them any explanation.

I would back right off and concentrate on building a strong support network around you without them. You will be far happier.

God what a horrible time you've had.

You are doing absolutely the right thing in limiting contact with your parents and re-thinking the birthday party.

It's not easy, is it. You are going against everything you have been taught by your parents. However, as everyone here is saying, you are right to not trust them and absolutely on the right track.

One step at a time.

Keep checking in here for support. We can help you through this.

Just seen your last post. Wow. Your parents are ghastly OP, do you think you could sever ties altogether? Pinning you down and screaming in your face? When you are so sick? This is dreadful. They are horrible bullies and you need away from them.

treadwarily - sometimes I feel too that they are bullies. But then the next moment I think it is all in my head and I deserve that treatment because I am indeed a waste of space, because only a waste of space would have ended up sharing residence of her small children with someone whom her marriage guidance counsellor described as abusive. I feel like a failure across the board. I feel like I have let my children down because I went to the family courts to seek residence of my children and ended up with shared residence - an outcome which appalled my health visitor and the counsellor who tried to help my ex and me when we were separating. And I couldn't fight the ruling because I was emotionally devasted by the whole experience (and my dad screaming in my face did not help) and I also had no more money to fight. the fight had cost me £11k up until that point, and I had no more money. And then I feel like I deserve that treatment from my parents because I am indeed a waste of space.

There are way too many issues here really I know. I am weaving it all into a big morass of shiteness. But all this stuff is in my head and in my heart, and I don't know what to do. Hopefully my counsellor will be able to help me unpick it.

Your counsellor will definitely help you unpick it. And it is a process, not an overnight fix. Given your ghastly upbringing and no doubt equally unhappy marriage, you are doing astonishingly well to even function, never mind take care of two small children and try to stand up to your parents and your ex.

You are definitely going in the right direction and you will keep going forwards if you can maintain some good supports. Do you have nice friends? Do you have time to do some nice things for yourself? All these things help us gain and maintain strength.

I can relate to the toxic parents and the feelings of it all being my fault. And I can assure you that you can move along from that place to one where you feel good about yourself and automatically keep your children away from toxic people. It can be done and you can do it.

Small steps and gradually things come together. Start with your little one's birthday party then worry about the other things. And in the meantime please look after yourself and ban those self-blaming thoughts. xx