Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Did/does anyone else’s mom put on an act when there is other people around?

51 replies

YouAreNotBatman · 27/09/2022 09:05

I was remembering when I was a kid, she was (and is even today) miserable, judgemental, critical, very selfish and rude person.
Wouldn’t really talk to me or my dad.
Neutral or grumpy face on most of the time.

But if we had guests over she was talkative, energetic and seemed interested in other people.
Once they or we left, boom, the facade would drop.

I’ve forgotten what she is like, I’m used to her being a death eater, but recently when I was spending time with her, we pump into some people she knows and my goodness the change in her demeanor!
And was we continued our way it all dropped and she started to criticize them.

It’s so weird!

Does anyone else know people like this?

OP posts:
piegone · 27/09/2022 09:07

Mine was like this. She was nasty, men's and neglectful towards me. We would bump into people she knew or go to visit family and she acted like the world's greatest parent. I no longer have anything to do with her.

piegone · 27/09/2022 09:07

Mean and neglect

stealthninjamum · 27/09/2022 09:10

My mum had a telephone voice, she’d be all tinkly laugh and lighthearted to people on the phone and as soon as she hung up she would spend an hour dissecting the phone call and criticising the ‘friend’ with real venom. I couldn’t understand how the one person could change in an instant.

SnowFir · 27/09/2022 09:11

Yes. My mum was very different behind closed doors. She was either an aggressive bully or burdening me with adult problems when I was much too young. To the outside world she was sweet/kind/helpless.
After I left home I only saw the sweet helpless face but the damage was done to our relationship.

Taffetasilkchiffon789 · 27/09/2022 09:11

Sounds like she could have been depressed?

melchim · 27/09/2022 09:14

Yes I have to say I was a bit like that before I went on medication for depression and anxiety. I'm now a happy and engaged person rather than just constantly wanting to crawl into a hole and be on my own.

Although I did do my best not to take it out on other people because I was fairly self-aware, I'd say my family may have considered me constantly grumpy and out of sorts vs putting on a facade for others. I regret it.

Original poster
YouAreNotBatman · 27/09/2022 09:15

stealthninjamum · 27/09/2022 09:10

My mum had a telephone voice, she’d be all tinkly laugh and lighthearted to people on the phone and as soon as she hung up she would spend an hour dissecting the phone call and criticising the ‘friend’ with real venom. I couldn’t understand how the one person could change in an instant.

Ooh, the telephone voice, YES!

All giggles and chirpy, the second the call is over the voice goes back to monotone and the complaining starts.

OP posts:
MrsMariaReynolds · 27/09/2022 09:17

My husband's mother operates like this. Therefore, we've chosen to live our lives 4500 miles away from her...

stealthninjamum · 27/09/2022 09:19

Going back to your original post about judgemental and critical I can now see how misogynistic my mum was too and most of her hatred was directed at other women.

My parents had a couple friend who were married for about 15 years. The man had an affair and so my mum described the affair partner as a whore who had lured him away. At the same time his wife must’ve been frigid as it’s ‘normal’ for men to have affairs if their wives (who also have small children) aren’t always ready for sex. So blaming everyone except the man!

EmmiJay · 27/09/2022 09:20

I'm not excusing her in anyway but could she have been doing a form of masking for something else like depression or anxiety? Its sad she did this to you and your father (?)

Sago1 · 27/09/2022 09:24

My mum was a narc, a truly nasty narc.
She would be charm personified in company and then in the blink of an eye return to her bitter and twisted self.
Unfortunately few people saw through her, she was a good narc.
She told so many lies and convinced people I was a thieving, lying witch of a daughter.

madasawethen · 27/09/2022 09:26

Most people are like that. It's called a mask.
It's not anything unusual.

Original poster
YouAreNotBatman · 27/09/2022 09:29

For this saying it could be depression or anxiety, of course you never know…

But she plans and goes and does things, enjoys them.
And she only does the ”mask” to people that are useful to her or is round people who are ”worthy”.
So people she know through work (her clients, not her employees) or hobbies (horse stuff - so horse owners are treated differently than stable girls).
There’s a hierarchy to this.

OP posts:
Teddletoddle · 27/09/2022 09:30

I was once at a Eurocamp site in France. We bumped into some parents from school. I was always a bit intimidated by the perfect Mum with two perfect little girls. Coming back from the loo block one night I saw her absolutely lose her rag with the children. It was nasty shouting and really mean with shoving. I was shocked, I would not say for a second I was a great Mum but I tried not to shout or lose my cool.
There are some Mums on here who come on to say that they shout daily at their littlies. Other posters do their best to reassure them that they are a great mum. They are not great mums. I wonder what their adult relationship with their children will be like.

TightDiamondShoes · 27/09/2022 09:36

Yes, she was a bloody teacher who went “above and beyond” including character references in court for her “charges”.

vile to me.

piegone · 27/09/2022 09:39

Sounds like she could have been depressed?

Or an arsehole, because you know, some women are.

IScreamAtMichaelangelos · 27/09/2022 09:41

TightDiamondShoes · 27/09/2022 09:36

Yes, she was a bloody teacher who went “above and beyond” including character references in court for her “charges”.

vile to me.

Snap! Teacher mother here too. So many students when she died came up to say how wonderful she had been to them. That really hurt, but of course how could they have known.

My mother was depressed I think. I see elements of the behaviour in myself too, in honesty (effort made with others outside the family, less effort inside the family), and do try my best to be as kind to my own children as I would be to others. It is often an effort though.

Sorry, splinters in my bum from this fence I'm sitting on!!

Teddletoddle · 27/09/2022 09:56

I think we are fed a diet on MN of perfect mums and awful dads. I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. There are a lot of not very nice women out there. Posters are so quick to condemn older mothers and MILS but I wonder how many of these posters are not so nice in reality. MN is very pro women unless they are over fifty. I wonder how wonderful some of these mothers really are. The mother at the Eurocamp really opened my eyes to the fact that some mothers pretend to be lovely but are not lovely to their husbands and children.

daretodenim · 27/09/2022 10:13

OP and others, I think we have the same mum! 😂

After a lifetime of this and basically when I was protected and she couldn't be her vile self to me, she treated - separately - two of her very close friends the way she treated me. Saying they were SHOCKED is an understatement. It's years ago and they still can't believe the woman they knew for 30+ years vs the one I lived with. And they wouldn't, if they hadn't had the experience themselves.

There are plenty of vile women out there. At the same time women also overwhelmingly carry the burden of the donkey work of family life, plus working, so I can understand why they may feel trapped or depressed. That doesn't give them the right to treat their kids badly though. And the fact that they can treat people well when they want to shows that either the niceness is a mask, and they're simply horrible underneath, or that they're choosing to not be nice to their children too, in which case they're also not nice.

Even when life is horrific we always have options - and if we pick the wrong one, because we can't think or see straight, we always have the option of severely apologising later and trying to repair the damage.

Women like my mother do not make that last choice.

daretodenim · 27/09/2022 10:15

*sincerely apologising

saraclara · 27/09/2022 10:41

This was my life until I left home as soon as I could. And my mum's behaviour was nothing to do with depression. She just liked her friends more than us. She had endless tolerance for them, but the slightest thing we did wrong (in her eyes) would lead to her not speaking to us for days.
I half willed friends or neighbours to come round to lift the atmosphere, and part resented it when their presence proved that my mum was choosing to be awful to us.

Bookworm20 · 27/09/2022 10:42

YouAreNotBatman · 27/09/2022 09:29

For this saying it could be depression or anxiety, of course you never know…

But she plans and goes and does things, enjoys them.
And she only does the ”mask” to people that are useful to her or is round people who are ”worthy”.
So people she know through work (her clients, not her employees) or hobbies (horse stuff - so horse owners are treated differently than stable girls).
There’s a hierarchy to this.

Not my mother, but DPs mother sounds exactly like this.

When I first met her I thought she was fine, even though a few people had said a sort of 'good luck with that' type comments. She seemed pleasant and nice.

However, over the past couple of years, I have certainly noticed she has some sort of hierachy thing going on, she is nice as pie to those who are useful to her and a total cow to those she sees as beneath her.

I can't stand her now. After over hearing her talking to someone about me, after being nice and lovely minutes before to my face, I actually pretty much hate the woman. She is definitely a narcissist. I steer well clear now.

starrynight21 · 27/09/2022 10:46

Yes, mine was the same. An absolute bully at home, undermining Dad and us girls at every opportunity. With people outside, she was friendly and sociable to a fault. When she died, her friends hired a bus so they could all attend the funeral , and they were all crying and telling us how Mum would be missed. I still can't get my head around it .

Original poster
YouAreNotBatman · 27/09/2022 10:52

When she died, her friends hired a bus so they could all attend the funeral , and they were all crying and telling us how Mum would be missed.

I know this is gonna happen one day.
That if anyone will come to her funeral, they will talk how lovely and lively and bla, bla she was.
And that I will not recognize the person they are describing.

I just want to say thank you for the comments, because for a long time I thought that it was me. That I was bad or crazy. So it’s ”good” (not actually, but hopefully you’ll know what I mean) to know there are others.
I know her way of being has effect my self-esteem a lot.

OP posts:
fairgame84 · 27/09/2022 11:11

Yes my mum is like this.
She's like a totally different person in front of other people but behind closed doors she's critical and mean.
She's also a compulsive liar. She got struck off as a social worker for dishonesty but of course she maintains she did nothing wrong. She's a permanent victim.
I'm low contact with her.