"If your Mum can't tell you who can?"

[FoofyShmooffer]

Is this a perfectly valid point or is it carte blanche to say whatever you feel like?

I'm sick of hearing it. It's Mums new mantra for picking holes and criticising.

My DSs anxieties are partly caused by the fact the I'm a drama queen (I even cough dramatically) and DH overreacting when one of the children hurts themselves.

My house is filthy (it is not)

I so sick of my DH being criticised. How long he spends on the loo. He doesn't wash his dish immediately as he finishes eating.

I'm not strict enough but when I am I shouldn't be cross with them. She feels sorry for my DS when he's in trouble from me but when he pisses her off she can't cope.

And lots of other stuff. Lots.

I feel like Ray Barone. Have you ever seen Everybody Loves Raymond? Everything his over involved mother does and says is "out of love". Therefore leaving no recourse.
I'm tired of living life under scrutiny. I'm not respected as an adult.
Yet she can be brilliant and helpful and the kids adore her. I feel guilty even typing all this. Disloyal.
I dont know what I want I just wanted it off my chest. Is it normal? Can anyone relate? Thanks.

"And if your DD can't tell you you are being a whiny, nitpicking, interfering old bag, then who can, MOTHER?"

said with love, of course, OP

Have you tried in response to 'I'm only saying this out of love' with 'No you're not mum, you're just being nasty and you know it. Shut up'?

I don't think I could say either of those things. If only I could.
The comeback would be either murderous, or the guilt oh the guilt is something else. She doesn't have my dad to talk to anymore ( he died a couple of years ago) have I been such a terrible mother? Where did me and your Dad go wrong? A mothers place is in the wrong (sigh) ad infinitum. She is on her own and the children are her everything.

Today she had DD for me while I went to college because she's off school ill. No questions asked. I feel I have to take the rough with the smooth.

When my Mum goes on a whinge binge I have a technique down pat.

DS hugs her, while I give her coffee & homecake cake. Together we tell her she's the best and we love her. Our cat and dog then join in and try and turn it into a group hug. My Mum is SO not a group hug person that it instantly shuts her up

Dib, Dib........
Keep Calm and carry on
...........
As you were Captain Mannering.

LOL what katie said.

Say it every time she does.

OP I feel the same way as you sometimes. She thinks she has got carte blanche to be rude, insensitive, overbearing and downright hurtful. Everytime I let her in a bit and think she's not so bad, I am punished. Apparently I "have always been oversensitive"

It's like she physically can't stop herself from saying something.

Katie's suggestion is a good one and I am going to use that in future. Possibly.

OK. So you need to go in softly softly then.

How about "Mum, you know I love you. But I feel like you're always criticising me. It makes me want to spend less time with you and that would be sad. Please could you stop picking holes in me?"

And the answer to "if your mum can't tell you, who can?" could be "only dh, no one else. I don't criticise you and you don't criticise me".

Can you try brisk, no-nonsense, big smile, change the subject when she tries to guilt-trip you? As in -

• Sigh. A Mother's place is in the wrong. Sigh.
• Well, it is wrong to criticise but other than that you're great. [Big smile] How is your garden/dog/knitting?

• Huff. Where did we go wrong? Puff.
• Dh thinks you did a great job on me! [Big smile] Look at these photos of dd, isn't she lovely, she's got your eyes ...

• Sigh. Well I can't say anything to you can I. Sigh.
• You can say nice positive things. Have you done something different with your hair? It's looking lovely!

She can only make you feel guilty if you let her. And distraction is good, like with a toddler!

Oh LadyEmma! The "you're over-sensitive" line. How I hate that one.

No, this isn't sensitive, it's a completely normal response to rudeness.

Ah yes, the tactical subject change. I am a big fan of that. It usually works because she can be quite self-absorbed. I do feel though that I am letting her get away with it and I think she ought to be pulled up on it. She said some truly horrid things to me before we got married that have just been glossed over and I do feel a bit aggrieved that I have to be the grown up. The irony!

Sorry OP, I have rather hijacked your thread.

There's always that Mumsnet classic "Did you mean to be so rude?"

I have tried the 'please stop critizing' line and all I got back is 'Jesus! It's all about you! You can't take any critizism at all. You have always been like this!!!'

Apparently I can't write -Funny I can read my stuff and I have a very good well paid job where I have to write sometimes!

oh here's a gem 'Bloody Hell, look at the size of you. What are you going to do about it. You are nearly 50 for goodness sake, how are you going to fit into nice clothes. I am 5ft 6 and go between a 12 and 14. Admittedly I have put a stone and half on over the last 3 years but it's not like I'm waddling everywhere.

Sorry hijack there. Just needed a quick rant!

iknowwho and Ladyem don't apologise for hijacking at all. In fact most of the examples you've given are also ones that I've heard in the past.
Today, when being told that my house was filthy, I just laughed it off. Made a big joke out of it. Oh hahaha Its just my innate laziness. She knew I was hurt but chose to ignore. I spent all yesterday polishing, hoovering, mopping ,scrubbing my suite. Now I know it was looong overdue but today apparently the house looked like a bomb had hit it. Bollocks it had.
Oh and she has been on this planet for x amount of years credit her with more experience.

Thanks Foofy. Wearing, isn't it.

Does 'if your mum can't support you, who can?' not work?

Sorry your mums are arses, everyone

It's a choice, isn't it? Tell her to shut up and have guilt heaped on you, or keep taking the barbed remarks on the chin & getting upset. When it comes to my family and my home I'd go with the former every time... no-one attacks me on my own turf without getting it back between the eyes.

Courage...

What do you get out of your relationship with your mother now?. Why do you still see her; is it a combination of fear, obligation and guilt?. Many children now adults of toxic parents have all three feelings in spades.

Doubt very much that the children adore her actually, you may just like to think that she does. However, they are all too clearly seeing how she treats you.

Do you have siblings; if so what is she like with them. It would not surprise me if they have distanced themselves from her; you need to do the same. You sound like you are her scapegoat for all her inherent ills. BTW you did not make her this way, her own birth family did that damage.

I would read Toxic Parents written by Susan Forward.

Foofy

She probably also used your Dad as her enabler when he was alive. Such women always need a willing enabler to help them.

The woman just needs a good kick up the arse.... These old biddies get their own way for far too long and no-one ever stands up to them because they pull the 'how can you talk like that to your darling mama?' crap. Avoid them and it's meat and veg for the 'poor little old' me act. It's all bollocks and my theory is that these women used to be pretty young things that got their own way with men through years of eye-lash batting and head-fuckery. Stand up to them and they don't like it one bit but, once their tactics stop working, they either avoid you or they shape up.

Attila You are right!
My dad is very quiet but he often makes bullets for my mum to fire.

My parents live miles from me (hmmm wonder why I moved to a different county!)
A few years ago my friend was emmigrating and had loads of bottles of wine, part bottles of gin, vodka and the like and rather than throw out gave them to me because we used to do two or three big parties a year.

Dad came over to babysit for a weekend and never mentioned the booze. I never gave it a second thought because it had been there for a few weeks (untouched!!)

A few days later talking to mum on the phone and I get a bloody big rant about how much alcohol I have in the house, how can you afford it, Your dad said there was dozens of bottles etc etc blooody etc.

I just said why didn't he ask me while he was there. What has it go to do with you, him or anyone?

That is just one example.

I remember when I was 16 and had started to put weight on and my friends were skinny. Mum said that I needed to lose weight and went on to say ' well your dad said he saw you in those jeans and how huge your bum was, you really need to do something, I mean next to Leah and Vicky, well you looked like the back of a bus!' ( I was a size 12 not fucking 24!!)

Ha!! The 'your a fat arse in jeans' incident, my mum wasn't an old biddy then.
I was 16 and she would have been 39.
The booze stuff - she would have been 55.

Let's just say she has very very strong views and likes me to know what they are!

Middle-aged biddy then. :) Same sentiment applies. Either square up or get steamrollered.....

I've been standing up to it for years, then I get pissed off with it and just roll my eyes. Then she will bring up some slight against her that I was supposed of done a couple of decades ago .......and so the cycle goes on!

Then I keep reminding her that I have lived with DH longer than I lived with her so it is him that knows me so well.
I can go for ages not speaking to her then I get pissed off and ring and she is pleased to hear from me.
I always say, why haven't you rung, why haven't you asked about the boys, big son has just started college, don't you want to know how he is getting on?

She always wants to know how the boys are getting on but I have to make the calls. I wouldn't mind so much if her and dad were skint but she gets free frigging phone calls!!!

God I'm hijacking and ranting!!

When my mother has done something rather similar to me, I said I would be happy to discuss it with her if both of us were allowed to be completely, brutally honest about it and how we each felt about the other. Funnily enough she didn't want to discuss it much after that. Worth a try? It lets her know you are going to be no holds barred and lets her back down without having to have the row.

Soooo tempting wheel out the "I may be carrying a few pounds but you'll always be [whatever]" line. I doubt it would go down well.

Ah my Sibling. Well there by hangs a thread all of its own.
30s, single, lives at home with Mum, gay and as you can probably imagine, on the edge.

Actually my favourite response to this kind of criticism is "Oh I know. I blame the parents."