Mom drama (vent)

DecemberGirl1216

I really just need to get this out...my mother causes me a lot much stress as a grandparent. Today she brought down to my house a gigantic radio flyer horse that is way huge for my house and A is too little for. She disregards my wishes as far as bringing excessive weird/inappropriate toys for her and it drives me crazy.

Every time she visits she has her cell handy to snap pictures just to facebook them. I think sometimes that is the point of the visit for her to get attention on facebook later. I really wish I didn't live so close to her. Anyone else dealing with anything similar? I see posts about women's mothers who help them with the children or do wonderful things with their grandchildren...my mother threatened to take me to court 9 days post partum because I stayed home with my 6 lb baby on Christmas Day

jac409

This kind of crap is why I live 2000 miles away from my mother : ). I can't believe she threatened to take you to court. I would have laughed in her face and told her good luck with that. My inlaws bought DD a leap pad 2 for Christmas. She was just turning one. Talk about inappropriate! Luckily, they live far away too, so I stuck it in a drawer and it will come out when we are ready for it. Sorry you have to deal with that. Sometimes I wish we had family close by and other times, I am sort of glad we don't because I would be dealing with the kind of nonsense you are on a regular basis.

DecemberGirl1216

Thanks for that....I will always remember my first Christmas with my baby as the time my Mom threatened me with court...very sad

SingleMom31

Oh, I can't begin to share the mom drama that comes from my mom. She hasn't threatened court, but 1. Got extraordinarily offended that I didn't call her personally from L&D to tell her DD was there. Never mind that I was in labor for 26 hours and pushing for 2+ and was exhausted, or that she was a vacuum delivery and we were trying to get cleared by the NICU team, or that I didn't want to spend the first minutes of our baby's life on the phone. Instead, DH texted someone that let her and others know (she also didn't have a cell phone at the time). Before I got to recovery, I had an unfriendly message about how unreal my behavior was. 2. Has seen DD 4 times in her life and could come visit (she's about two hours away), but doesn't. 3. Doesn't agree with our parenting choices, like not giving DD milk that she appears to be allergic too (pedi doesn't want to do allergy testing until two, but she throws up if she has it). She's not shy about it either. Also why my dad/stepmom have "won" being able to watch her while we're in the hospital with #2, which is another battle. 4. Has decided that she doesn't like our name for #2, and that she's going to call her Carrie or Carolyn instead of Caroline. Both nice names, but not her name. 5. Continually takes my sister's side over our DD. For example, sister sent me an outfit that I think is too revealing. I said thank you and was polite, but DD isn't going out in it. Sister calls my mom to complain that none of her outfits are ever featured in my FB pictures. Mom calls me and tells me to be nicer to my sister, send her pictures, etc. We're 33 and 49... Thanks, but not so sorry.

I could go on, but my point is that you're not alone. I don't understand why she can't just enjoy our DD... Then again, my relationship with her isn't good either, so I can't say that I'm surprised.

DecemberGirl1216

I am so sorry you have had to deal with all that. It's frustrating, I can really empathize with you...sounds like your Mom has tactics like mine of finding ways to make it about her

SingleMom31

To be fair, I really do love my mom.  You happened to catch me during a bad week when she's making something out of nothing (there are some boxes of my childhood stuff at her house still, which have suddenly become a big deal).  I am sometimes envious of my friends' relationships with their moms though.  Like, a few friends have had their moms come stay with them after delivery -- I can't imagine my mom offering, let alone it going well. 

DecemberGirl1216

I agree (hence the vent), love mine too but wish things were different....I guess the best we can do is remember how these things made us feel when it comes to doing things differently with our daughters

*LrCg*

I'm hoping my situation is the extreme for you but I had a toxic mother before I even had kids (my mother is only capable of loving one child and unfortunately I wasn't born first).  I stupidly thought/hoped when I had kids we'd suddenly bond-.nope.  Anyways like your mother, when mine would visit (at most 3 times a year even though she lives less then 25 min away) she would spend the one hour visit (yep that's the longest she'd ever stay- unless she brought my Aunt then she'd stay longer to show off) taking photos just to put them on Facebook and look like she's this amazing grandmother (she'd also take pictures off my Facebook page and post them onto hers) she would have no other interaction with them.  The odd parent is she is an AMAZING grandmother to my sibling's child but again she's really only capable of loving one.  For numerous reasons, years ago I decided to walk away from the relationship (as I said it was very toxic) and we haven't spoke in years.  My only reason for responding was to tell you never fear of your mother taking you to Court.  Check your state- in my state grandparents have no rights UNLESS DH & I divorce OR one of us dies.  However, for the later we added a clause in our will that indicates that our parents have no relationship with our kids and we do not want them having any type of visitation if one or both of us should die and there is no reason why our Court system wouldn't honor that. 

Again, I'm hoping your relationship is no where like what mine was.  If your interested in sticking to your guns about gifts, you could always donate/sell them and when she asks about it say it was too young/too old for LO so I donated it to someone that could use it.  Maybe then she'd get the point.

DecemberGirl1216

Thanks for the reply. I have started consigning some of the ridiculous/dangerous stuff she buys. She was toxic too before A came along, I just am struggling to shield her from it as a mother...I really don't want her to be drawn into the dysfunction