sorry this is going to be long - i'd really appreciate peoples' thoughts on this cause i'm obsessing about it
my parents first DGC was born a year ago to my brother. i had their second DGC three months later. before becoming a grandma, my mum was always the most non-judgemental, tactful fair person. lately this has changed and it really upsets me. it so out of character.
the way she is with me is dif to the way she is with my SIL.
my mum and i are struggling to negotiate our relationship now i ama mum. its difficult, but we doing ok. i feel like my mum will never be as involved in our lives as she wants to be - but short of her moving in and becoming a full time nanny, there's nothing i can do to remedy that . i find it upsetting that everytime we speak on the phone i have to say no to her coming up to stay all the time. before dd came along, we got together every other month or so. now its about every three weeks. aside from that the other thing i find frustrating is that she now treats me like a child again - before i was a professional woman with a great career and we had a great relationship. now she babies me and treats me like a bit of an idiot. we have come to blows a couple of times,but cause she's my mum, i can knock it on the head. like i say, we doing ok. tho i have been surprised by how different she seems to how she was before dd came along. its def been tough.
pheeewwww.... so thats me. now for my SIL. i always wondered about people who slagged off their MIL, and always reckoned there were prob two sides of the story. now i can see how it all happens. my mum is clearly v nervous around my SIL and says stupid stuff - its like every MIL parody. it really upsets me cause its so unlike her. i also worry that it is only going to get worse.i hate seeing my family being unhappy.
ever since my brother got together with SIL, my parents have been held at arms length and it got a lot worse after their dd was born. initally my mum was the model of fairness and refusal to judge that she's always been, but thats changed as the months have passed. i know she says silly stuff cause she's nervous, and when i have talked to her about it she says she worries about "being interesting enough" .
BUT recently - she quizzed my SIL on whether she had got round to sending thank you cards to relatives who'd send their dd birthday presents (SIL is always v prompt with cards) and most of all.
my mum recently said to SIL that i was "so tired from being pregnant that i was even considering feeding dd with food from jars." this last comment as you can imagine really uspet me. i only talk to dh and my mum (cause shes a foodie) about feeding dd. i love cooking for her but would never judge how anyone fed their kids, ever. if you asked anyone who knew me how i fed dd they would not really know except that whenever we're out i always seem to give her avacado. i certainly never said to my my mum that comment re jars so why would she say it??
if i was going to be totally honest, i would say that the thing that i fear the most is having my "perfect mum" vision shattered. she's so different to how she was before DGCs came along.
sorry this is long and boring. i just really want someone to chat to about this