From a nagging / always wanting to be right perspective....
I'm over 50 years old. Not lived with my parents full time since 19. Moved abroad 17 years ago. Been married / divorced etc.
Yet every time I go back to the UK I immediately find myself back in the same relationship with my mum in particular as we had when I was 14! I know know people have different and often strained relationships with parents but this isn't normal surely?
To give some examples....
First day I was back there last year, my mum pointed out that 'my' room had just been repainted. And the painter was due to visit next day, and maybe I'd like to thank him? Eh?!
She 'corrected' the pronunciation of the local town. If I pronounced it the way my parents do when I was at school, I'd have been beaten senseless 😀
She 'suggested' that I call someone in relation to a hobby / interest I had during pre-teen to early teen years. Someone I've not seen since around 1985. I don't even have the opportunity to travel around the country to catch up with old friends, so while this person is a nice guy, it was never as a priority to call, and I didn't even know if he wanted me to call him, or if it was just mum being mum. She ended up having a full-on flounce because I didn't call.
It culminated in a full blown argument over the pronunciation of Porsche on the final night LOL..... Mum pronounces it the 'correct' way with the audible 'E' at the end which is fine, but I and millions of others don't. Full-on flounce ensues because I pointed out that it doesn't matter, culminating in me doing an impression of Margaret Thatcher saying 'PorschE' and pointed out that zee Germans probably don't sound like that either! Cue mum storming out of the kitchen, Dad firing off at me and siding with Mum blah blah blah. Utterly ridiculous.
Is this normal? 😀
I called my mum a gobshite the other day and my dad burst out laughing 🤣
She remembers things differently to everyone else and there os definitely embellishments. My dad has a shocking memory (he really does) i think he quite enjoys when i turn up to match her stubborn, pedantic and argumentative streak gene for gene.
I’m from a provincial town that I couldn’t stand, so was out of there like a Polaris missile as soon as I was an adult. That was over 30 years ago, yet every time I go ‘home’, my mum gives me a running commentary on what’s going on in the lives of people I either couldn’t remember anyway or couldn’t wait to see the back of.
No matter how blank faced and indifferent or how many times I shrug and tell her I don’t even know who she’s talking about, I am still always greeted with this full and detailed update.
I’m from a provincial town that I couldn’t stand, so was out of there like a Polaris missile as soon as I was an adult. That was over 30 years ago, yet every time I go ‘home’, my mum gives me a running commentary on what’s going on in the lives of people I either couldn’t remember anyway or couldn’t wait to see the back of.
Same (apart from the provincial town bit, it's a nice area and I like going back) but my Mum (and I suspect this could be linked to early stages of dementia) runs through a long list of who from my school days is doing what and where the old neighbours have moved to and stuff from 30+ years ago that I stopped caring about roughly 30 years ago.
Nope.
My mum still nags me about shit i didn't care about when it was still current, 40 years ago. She still wants me to move back home to the UK so she can nag my kids too. TBH, the chances of me moving to the UK are effectively zero, the chances of it being any more convenient to get to than Sweden are even smaller. With some flights it's quicker to get to from my place in the frozen tundra of the north to her place on the south coast than it is to get from my brothers place near Knaresborough to hers.
My dad's memory of events is ropey at best, downright insulting at worst. Very good at remembering money i borrowed from him as a teenager (and then paid back, or i'd never have heard the end of it), but incredibly poor at remembering the money i loaned, and eventually "gifted" him in my mid 20's when he was struggling after divorcing my step mum and walking out with nothing (literally just his company car and a few bin bags full of clothes).
On the plus side, a good chunk of recent therapy on my side meant that last time i visited my mum i was happy to shut her down and then give her both barrels when she tried to parent me and my kids at the same time. So she's been good for the last 6 months, just whines a bit.
And Dad's sort of calmed down a bit since a cancer diagnosis.
They still both drive me up the bloody wall.
Hopefully i do a better job with my kids, wouldn't be hard.
Yup, same here. I get calls that go through what the village has done since she last spoke to me, what my sisters have been up to, etc, and end with her saying she misses her little boy (I am 51 and, for the record nearly 2m tall).
It can get annoying and has been hard to put up with in the last few years (with the depression I have had) and the worst part is that she does not seem capable of acknowledging how much it annoys me and pushes me down.
This a a very big reason why I try hard to avoid going on visits back to the UK and, specifically, to her.
If someone is pedantic (myself for example), I don’t expect that this would improve as we get older.
Heroes when you are young,
Floored when you are adolescent,
Respect when you are adult,
Forgiven when you are wise.
You may have a VERY good reason why the bottom two do not apply. But them bleating on about Jim Smith from the year below you probably isn't one of them 🙂
With so little going on in their own quiet/slow/older lives they talk about other vicariously.
Try listening to them just for the sake of making them feel heard.
If you dad asked for help to mow the lawn you'd be round they like a shot to help.... Listening to your mum bang on is just like that ... helping her.
Well that's the way I see it.... and lets be honest .... they are NOT going to change, but maybe we can.
Good luck
I think all of peoples personal traits kind of get worse as they got older. My mum always seemed to speak without a filter (possible autism related) and now when i visit its incredibly bad.
Anything that pops into her head that in some vague way relates to what is being discussed just gets blurted out regardless of whether its totally irrelevant. Could be something from the daily mail, an event that happened 30 years ago, anything.
My dad is more controlling, abusive paranoid and difficult than ever. Frequently dishing out criticism to everyone else, but literally sulking for days if you ever push back.
Their relationship is totally disfunctional, with dad essential being abusive, coercive, and my mum constantly unsure of herself and apologising.
I visit as little as possible.
Whilst i love my parents, they do my head in. Both in their mid 70's, Both comfortably retired.
They do nothing with their days. My dad is super opinionated. Always has something to moan about their neihbours.
Any conversation you have with them, they think you are asking for financial support. As a 44 year old, with a half decent paid job, mortgage and been self sufficient for many moons.... i am not asking for money, i am making conversation.... grrr!!
And it annoys me they arent using retirement to see the world. Highlight of the week is lunch at a garden centre.
But yeah, bless em. We will miss them when they are gone!
We are mid 50s. MrsMC still both tries to coddle and undermine our two kids (22 & 19) even though they aren't at home any more.
Youngest plays it to her advantage, we are popping up to see her at the weekend and she's given her mum a list of things she needs shopping wise, which is fine, she's at uni, we help out.
Obviously we are also taking up all manner of Christmas related tat her mum thinks she wants. The random parcels from home that she receives from her mum are already legendary with her flatmates
Short answer no, but how you react to them being parents can change if you want to.
Parents really aren't going to change that much - they're still going to think the same things are important, still going to try to press the same buttons for a response, etc. But you're an adult too, and you can decide whether to engage with it, or just step back and not get drawn into it.
Biggest difference for me over the last few years was sticking to the mantra of water off a duck's back. It only bothers me if I let it bother me, and I don't have to get into a "he said/ she said" thing if I don't want to. An interested "mmmm" I think is my stock response now, which has reduced the amount of really obvious silliness they try...
I play Mom phrase bingo, often get a full house. Always the same stories of specific husband being loaded, someone selling a house, specific persons got a nice house, specific person has a nice BRAND NEW expensive car, specific person has got lovely kids etc.
This week they came round for my youngest's birthday party and just before doing the cake my mom went full random & asked me if I'd ever been to Auschwitz in front of everyone and started talking about war grave sites as we were about to sing happy birthday.
Mine are OK - I just wind my mum up if she tries to boss me about - left home 30 years ago.
MIL was a bit manipulating with her daughters, but she was needing extensive care in her retirement years, but she'd forget two of her daughters were 60 plus. Usual stuff like they didn't visit enough - one of the three daughters was there every day, along with carers - so they all visited at least twice a week.
I can go a month or more and not see my folks, and I only live 2 miles away.
I play Mom phrase bingo, often get a full house. Always the same stories of specific husband being loaded, someone selling a house, specific persons got a nice house, specific person has a nice BRAND NEW expensive car, specific person has got lovely kids etc.
Yes!!
TBH I was like that with my mum, we could never just get on, there was always some sort of clash and most of the time knew I was contributing to it.
I regret it now that she's gone
^ this.
Lost both my parents over 30 yrs ago pre my marriage and children arriving. It's rubbish and I try very hard not to think about it.
Put a bit of effort in and try and turn the conversation to something you can both laugh about. In years to come they will be among your best memories and you'll feel so much better for it. What is a few minutes effort when most of us spend hours pedalling bikes up and down hill and tinkering with them for hours.
@Ro5ey has it right.
Someone has to say it so I might as well get it out of the way [EDIT: someone already has]: I wish I still had the luxury of my mum nagging me.
I get calls that... end with her saying she misses her little boy
I suspect this is the answer to the OP's question.
The parents haven't been present for the last 30+ years of their development. In mum's head your still her little boy despite being old enough to be a grandparent yourself. And be honest, the reverse is probably true too otherwise you wouldn't put up with that crap.
This all sounds largely like people trying to get a conversation going and using what was a common link to do so. Parents miss their kids and when they see them, they want to chat. Most don't really understand what their kids do so there is a comfort topic for them to talk about.
Most still see their kids as youngsters, so the chat isn't going to be great and they still all believe they know best so happy to lecture no matter how old you are!
My mum said to my wife when she was cuddling my two boys shortly after no 2 was born that the thing she misses the most about me and my sister is just sitting quietly having a cuddle while we slept in the afternoon as babies.
Phrased like that I'm still and always will be her wee boy.
She may be radio rental and have her quirks (like not liking bikes) but she's still my mum.
Both parents carry their issues from their childhood and I'm hoping not to pass those on (not 100% sure I always succeed).
Put a bit of effort in and try and turn the conversation to something you can both laugh about. In years to come they will be among your best memories and you'll feel so much better for it.
Most definitely this. My remaining parent spends long periods in France and we regularly talk on the phone about nothing in particular. It doesn't help that when he re-married the step-mother is a competitive, nasty piece of work who has steadily cut his anchors to his biological family. So much so that my sister no longer contacts them and I now have to wear my duck's back coat to ensure I don't get drawn in. We suspect that he is somewhat repenting his partner choice 20 years in.
My lovely wife helped with the disengagement process around 4 years ago and so far we are maintaining communication channels. It is sad as he was an only child and wanted a family more desperately than my mother but his loneliness and impatience after her death has completely loused things up.
If you think that's bad, wait until they regress to the level of children.
My father died when I was 2 my mum has dementia so is largely not really here. You will miss them when they are gone...just saying
My brother, while going through a perfectly amicable divorce, had to temporarily move back in with mum while the family home was sold off and spoils divvied to purchase new homes.
As a bystander, I found this hilarious. Mum washed and ironed his pants, waited for him to come home to have dinner together, generally operated as mums do.
As others have said, mum will always be mum and I for one wouldn't want her to be anyone else. After dad died, it was obvious that she felt lonely. She now meets me every week at the boys football training and is quick to give a hug. She blethers on about my aunts (who I have little time for) but it's just a way for her to have contact. I can easily start a conversation about absolutely anything. It doesn't matter if she's interested or not, she will listen. So I give her the same courtesy.
Take a moment and step back OP. You're mum just wants to remain part of your life. Just cos you moved out, it didn't stop you from having a parent who cares.
You'll miss her when she's not there. Maybe....
left home 30 years ago.My mum left home before i did, then my dad followed her ~18 months later when i was not yet 16, leaving my brother and i to run the house with only a twice weekly visit to go shopping, if he (or my step mum) had the time, and to make sure we hadn't burnt the place down.
Respect when you are adult,I don't get *any* from either parent.
Any conversation you have with them, they think you are asking for financial support
Any conversation I have with my daughter includes her asking for financial support. Maybe I should start a thread asking if kids ever stop being kids 🙂
Duplicate post. This forum is weird!!
Parents miss their kids and when they see them, they want to chat. Most don't really understand what their kids do so there is a comfort topic for them to talk about.
That was very true with both me and my sister. My original degree and job was chemical engineering (organic chemistry) and my sister is a vet so my Mum (who was not remotely scientific in any way) had no common ground in terms of "how was your day at work?" type stuff. Easy with a vet to sort of understand that you fix unwell animals even if the details escape you but she never understood anything about what I did and I think that was frustrating for her. Hence the retreat to familiar ground of school and neighbours and the local area for her.
Both parents carry their issues from their childhood and I'm hoping not to pass those on (not 100% sure I always succeed).
This, took me a long time to appreciate that my grandfather being an alcoholic from serving at Gallipoli and then abandoning my dad's family in the mid 1930's, plus my dad's formative years being evacuated during WW2 had made him the annoying arsehole that he was.
The problem with families is that they are made of people and people are £✓π!&. Every b@$7@£9 in the world comes from a family. At what point do we not indulge their behaviour? Those who say we should tolerate them didn't know my parents. When they died I couldn't feel sad and I certainly don't miss the abusive poison they spread
Two things that I've noticed (not aimed at any poster in particular on this thread including the OP).
The first is that people who've grown up in a healthy family dynamic often struggle to recognise abusive behaviour for what it is, as they've no direct experiences of it eg "Oh yeah, my dad could be strict as well" etc.
The second is that often people who've grown up in abusive families also tend to minimise it, often because the consequences of naming it can be so devastating and cause such cognitive dissonance.
Thank you, Stany, I enjoyed reading that.
I guess I was lucky in that both my parents were ok. My dad died when I was 19 and I often think of him when trying to do some DIY tasks. His skills put mine to shame but I still have a level of ability and am willing to try to do things that I learnt from him.
My mum died after a battle with cancer when I was 38. I had become a parent a couple of years earlier. I feel my daughter has missed out massively from not having her grandmother around as they have similar temperaments and interests.
She never ceased being a parent but did it in a supportive way.
I guess I was lucky with my parents even though they both passed away too soon.
Difficult to say, as I bought the house I was living in with my mum and step-dad, they were living with me until they both passed, my mum never really nagged me about anything much, I dressed how I wanted and came and went as I chose, mum was pretty chilled about everything, basically.
One example, an aunt who was a regular church member asked my mum if my brother and I went to Sunday school. Mum said she left it up to us if we wanted to go or not, to which the aunt said, “oh, I do feel sorry for you”. Mum bit her tongue and smiled, but she was fuming about such a condescending and sanctimoniously snobby attitude! That was never forgotten.
So basically, I guess I’m pretty lucky in that regard. As my dad died when I was thirteen, I don’t know what he would have been like as I got older, but my early memories of him are him always being someone who always wanted to share his interests and things he enjoyed; he was born in a tiny village a few miles away and grew up in the countryside, so he always wanted to share those early days of his boyhood with me, showing me a dipper’s nest under a bridge, trying to teach me how to tickle for trout in the river that runs through the village my grandparents moved to. He took me to air shows, to bike scrambling meetings, and as former RAF ground crew I developed a keen interest in aircraft generally.
I’ve no kids of my own, but I’d like to think I’d have brought them up to be interested in anything and everything that took their fancy, and to develop a finely tuned bullshit detector.
I think it's more a case of your parents never stopping being the people they are, for better or worse. I think that most people's personalities don't change that much once they've bedded in, with various traits coming more to the fore, depending on the situation. (the eventual deletions of dementia are an obvious exception).
My dynamic with my parents is pretty much the same as it's always been, but that's largely a good thing. My dad's still just a chill, fun and, it turns out, pretty stoic guy. He's taking physical decline pretty philosophically while doing what he can to mediate it. My mum is still a hilarious ditz. Definitely doesn't take things in her stride the way my dad does, but responds well to a bit of compassion.
Their dynamic with my sister is a bit trickier, as she's a bit more demanding (not all her "fault" - neurdivergence in the mix as it turns out). She'd probably complain about being "parented" in her late 40s, but doesn't seem to realise how her own demands maintain that dynamic.
I’d love to be able to go home and see my mother 😢
Any parental relationship has to change as you grow into and adult. If it doesn’t, there will always be friction.
Yes, when they become your "other" children. 😉
In my case, as soon as my Dad died we had to go into overdrive dealing with my Mum. Simple things like money matters, house repairs and maintenance, even some shopping etc became my responsibility. FWIW I didn't grudge it at all, despite not having a particularly close family dynamic before that. If anything, I felt closer to my folks as I (and they) got older.
But yeah, bless em. We will miss them when they are gone!
Right there is what should always be remembered. I constantly reminded myself as I sat in silence during those daily phone calls from my mother detailing boring pointless trivia that I would one day miss them, i wasn't wrong.
Thanks all. Some good insights. I get the connection side of things (talking about pets that I had and other childhood stuff. How amazing Shropshire is. BC has too many trees.... Mum even managed to get my teddy bears into the local village calendar this year LOL!).
It's the over-bearing nature that is frustrating. Mum has fallen out with her sister because her sister is 'always right', but she is the same. Certainly childhood and marriage related issues....
Like others above that move abroad, we've not had that 'flash point' where we could have a big bust up, forgive each other and be more adult like in older life. I do for the most part take the high road, but mum makes it soooo hard....
Anyway, way more importantly, did you go to Auschwitz Scruff?
My mum's good. She still thinks of the 3 of us as her boys, even thought we're all over, or nearly 60. But gotta respect an 86 year old, who goes to folk festivals (her fella's into all that) and sleeps in a camper van, still rides her ebike around Portsmouth... and just had an op on her hand and was riding the ebike a week later, with the hand wrapped in a thick woolly glove. Pretty awesome really 😀
Lost my mum earlier this year to dementia. Its heartbreaking. She was always supportive and understanding. Quiet and smiling most of the time.
But my dad... He's unable to listen to anyone else once he feels he wants to talk about something. It's either what's in his head or he's just not interested. You can tell him something 5 or 6 times and he nods along but when you mention it the 7th time he goes "oh really" like it's never been mentioned before. And god help you if he's got an ache or pain, that's all he can talk about. My brother has him over for tea once a week since my mum passed, a nice gesture he now regrets and cannot find a way out of.
I just think of how I felt when mum passed so indulge my dad and just listen. I don't think of it as a 2 way conversation, more of a duty to just to listen. He was a good dad when I was younger so now it's about supporting him even if I get naff all out of it.
I’d love to be able to go home and see my mother 😢
Any parental relationship has to change as you grow into and adult. If it doesn’t, there will always be friction.
I'd love to go home and my parents had accepted i was a grown man and not still a schoolboy but that ship sailed long ago, and dementia and the grim reaper have had their way. But i had made my peace, a good few years ago, with the fact that I was never going to change them, and my life was mine to live, and not theirs to meddle in
I try to interact w EpicJnr and SnrEpicJnr differently than how i was parented, but I'm sure that I'm just giving them different neuroses
Philip Larkin says hello
No disrespect intended to those of you here who are on better terms with their parents - it's a continuum.
I'd hope not.
Maybe in a different way, but you can't have them back when they're gone.
Not at all. I've a pretty grown up relationship with my father. He's 83 and has a lifetime of quirks and character so that makes our relationship strained on occasion, but I've learned what can be ignored and to predict issues. He's great when I need another view, but it's definitely not a child/ parent relationship anymore.
I'm having to learn the same with my grown up kids. So many times I want to ask questions or challenge them, but it's thier life and they need to lead it. I'm sure there will be a post or three over the next 30 years grumbling about me 😉
*waves at two sons on here*
I was rather surprised to learn (relatively recently) that both my siblings had very different feelings towards our parents and how they brought us up. I suspect it's got a lot to do with the nature of the children and how they cope with parenting styles, as well as the parents themselves.
Do children ever change?
Son has come home to visit - he’s over 50x moved out 30 odd years ago and left the country 17 yrs ago. Screwed up a marraige but still thinks he’s wiser than me!
everytime he comes back it’s just like he’s 14 - arguing about silly stuff just to try and show he’s in charge. I know know people have different and often strained relationships with parents but this isn't normal surely?
To give some examples....
I had his room specially decorated for him coming back, he didn’t seem at all grateful and when the painter was round to do some other stuff didn’t even have decency to comment on the good job he’d done.
He refuses to pronounce the local town correctly. He knows full well how I think it should be said but insists the school bullies stop him saying it that way.
He turned up without any real plan how to spend his time, so I suggested catching up with someone he’s not seen since the 80’s. You’d think like most people he’d be interested in how his old friends were doing - but he made a big fuss and refused to call him. I just thought he might want out from under our feet for an hour or two, but he made it sound like we were the problem.
Then he had the most ridiculous argument over who to pronounce a car brand. I simply pointed out that he didn’t want to sound common and he accused me of being Margaret Thatcher and said these things don’t matter, when clearly he knows they do matter to me. He even did a bit of a racist accent thing which made me so annoyed I had to leave the room. Then he tried to get his dad to join in targeting me, fortunately he stuck up for me which is why I know the issue is him not me. Utterly ridiculous.