My mother makes me feel guilty

[msann]

I am a single mother of 2 girls. I split with their father 3 years ago....and i am in a year old relationship. My mother makes me feel so bad about asking for babysitting which at most i do once every 6 weeks or so. In fact she makes me feel that crap that ive even started just asking my dad instead! She makes me feel that im allllways dumping my kids on her, which is unfair cos im not. I only go out occassionally so my current partner doesnt feel hard done by! Does any1 else experience this or is it just me??

Yes see my mother is mad thread! My mum always expects a favour in return as well and it is always much much bigger. Strangely though when I dont ask her she has a go at me too!

phew at least im not the only 1!!

I hate asking for babysitting from my parents or ILs. Feel like they only really want to do it on their terms and that I am putting them out.

Also hate asking my in-laws, they live on the other side of town, about 10 mins drive away, but made it clear after MIL babysat a few times for ds1 that she really didn't like having to come to our house. So we used to bring ds over there and put him to bed. However, as I worked and he went to nursery, they also didn't want to get up early in the mornings with him so we used to have to trek back at 11 or whatever and bring him home again! Completely mad - I can't believe we actually did it! Anyway, 6 years down the line, we obviously have well-established baby sitters and only ask them in complete emergencies as they have made it fairly clear that they just find it all too much. It does irritate me - and they're not old or ill!

You are by no means alone.

My mum lives 2 mins away from me. I love her to bits - honestly I do.
I can't ask her to sit more than once or twice a month, if that. When I do I get the usual, where are you going, what time are you going to be home, etc... I am 40 this year. My two are not the worlds loveliest angels but they do behave for others.... especially my mum. (Take no prisoners!!)

Why dooo we feel so guilty tho. I always craved my kids having a fairy tale grandma... like in the story books.

I wish.

My mother is the Queen of "No, I can't I'm far too tired.... anyway, why haven't you invited me out?" ("Er, cos I only see dp for 15 minutes a day, that's why!")

Guilt is my mum's specialty. If she ever does have my two for more than about 10 minutes, she will subtly let me know somehow that she had to take to her bed for the next day or so to recover.
She also frequently uses 'babysitting the grandchildren' as her escape clause for anything she doesn't want to do, so most of her friends think I take the piss royally when in fact she isn't babysitting at all! Her second favourite excuse is that she's not feeling well, so the accepted view amongst her cronies is that she's permanently ill due to the excessive amount that I dump my kids on her Unfortunately we are now living in another country, so she's had to use the illness excuse far more - apparently she's now 'worrying herself sick over me' so I can't win.
I shouldn't be rude about her, she's mostly fantastic, but it does make me laugh when I hear the complete fallacies some of her friends get told.

My mum is different I suppose in that she isn't really fit to babysit as she is elderly and recovering from a hip op. She would love to do more but hates to admit that she can't and I hate feeling bad for her. Aside from that I've been thinking a lot about our relationship and whilst I love her to bits, it's not the perfect daughter/mother relationship you'd expect. I would never turn to her first for advice, I'm too independent. I resent when she offers common sense advice like I'm incapable of thinking for myself - this is probably more a fault with me, not sure why! She also makes judgements and comments that have 3 tons of implications behind them which really wind me up - why can't I just ignore and accept she's getting old rather than boil about it for days!!

Sorry to have nicked thread. I've heard from other pals that their Mums or MILs can also pile on the guilt - along the lines of "you never ask me to babysit" and then when they are asked they always have an excuse not to!