I’ve always thought I’m close with my mum but her behaviour seems to be becoming cold towards me and I don’t know what I’m doing to cause it or why she can’t see how she’s being.
I’ve recently had my second child. Through pregnancy when I’ve struggled with a toddler, being pregnant and lockdown I just get short responses or told to just put the telly on for the toddler and stop complaining. When we rang her to tell her that I’d given birth she was clearly livid that I hadn’t called to say I was in labour. I didn’t rise to it, but she hung up abruptly and didn’t show any interest in how my labour went and couldn’t say anything positive to me about how I did. She got annoyed when we asked her to let us share the news, and said her friends would be hurt if she didn’t tell them that day. She was going to come up after the baby was born and stay for a few days (and I hoped help with my toddler), but instead she came on a flying visit as though to just tick that she’d met the baby. She then put quite a few posts on Facebook about how much she loves her children and how proud she is of me etc.
Now my baby is a few days old and I had a wobble getting used to juggling two children and feeling a bit overwhelmed. I was telling her this and she just snapped back ‘you think you’ve got it hard with a baby’ and went on about how difficult it’s been managing my sibling’s mock exams. All of this happens alongside generous gifts being given and sometimes written loving messages to me and I do actually believe she loves me deeply, but it feels like she’s suddenly become so cold and harsh towards me when we speak in person or on the phone.
I don’t really know what I’m asking. I think I was hoping that writing it out would help it make sense. I don’t want to say anything to her because she can be explosive and I’m hormonal and don’t want to taint this special time with arguments. What would anyone do or think to it?