Will start by saying I'm a sleep-deprived new mum, so not sure my reactions/feelings are proportionate at the moment.
I have a poor relationship with my mother and (partly in consequence) my father. She is anxious to the point that her anxiety coloured all our interactions - I learnt early that I could never tell her anything, at all, because I'd be met with hysteria rather than reassurance. Things ramped up as I became and adult and moved (far, far) away, and after a lot of therapy (ongoing) I feel I have a comfortable handle on our relationship.
Father tends to respond with "Oh but that's how she is"/will ask me to put up with all sorts of shit from her, including outright (usually harmless) lies, conversations in which she is always the hard done-by, excluded maligned poor soul even though in practice her family and his go out of their ways to include her.
Other stuff, which to me was more important growing up- constant low-level disappointment with my appearance, hair, clothes. Took me a good long while to realise that I am just fine and even (shock!) attractive.
So now DD is here. I obviously called parents from the hospital to let them know, Skyped them on Monday and again yesterday so DD could gurgle at them. During all calls there was lots of anxiety-provoking shite/questions that were just wildly out of kilter - "Why didn't she wake up when x happened, is her hearing OK?"
"When are you weaning her?"
"Aren't you in pain?"
And so on. Everyone else somehow manages to just talk, you know, normally. I responded to her in a level (and honest) way - that it's all fine, I don't need nappies sent from Tel Aviv (??), etc.
During yesterday's call she also said something like, Oh, I don't think that green outfit suits her, the other yellow one was much better.
It riled me. One, DD is 6 days old and in whatever sleepsuit is clean and vaguely fits - in spite of all my gender neutral aspirations we wouldn't bloody care if it was bright pink with fairies on it. Two, the clothes thing - again, I feel like she's criticising/undermining the choices I'm making. And again, everyone else manages to have a convo with me without saying this sort of shit.
I replied to the effect that we're busy and dressing her how we dress her. She's got the hide of a rhino so I don't think that achieved much.
So. Phew. I think written down it's a small thing, and I have 18+ years of demonstrating to her that I'll parent how I parent and if she doesn't like it she can go hang, but does this kind of thing in particular need a response/assertion?
I am wholly uninterested in whether she is narcissistic or anything else - I want to get on with my family life, not focus on hers.