How to plan for a nice, non-confrontational visit with kinda-estranged mom?

In My Humble Opinion
41

My advice is forget all about it. Nothing will change. I’ve been estranged from my mother for 12 years and my father for 32.

They were detrimental to my peace of mind. So I ditched them. As it is now, I wouldn’t piss on either of them if they were on fire.

If you believe you must go through with this, I suggest ativan. .5mg taken an hour before they arrive and another .5 taken at the four-hour mark will have you calm and indifferent to whatever poison your mother spews. You’ll sleep well that night and you’ll wake up with a resolve to never see her again, which I heartily endorse.

Blood is NOT thicker than water, IF the blood is more polluted than the water.

42

Given this, ok yeah, no time alone with that baby! :eek:

Edit: Also the below!

43

It’s sometimes hard to listen to maternal instincts with all the other white noise.

Baby smaje is the reason I finally had the courage to tell my mom off after years of verbal abuse. I saw how my mom treated her - the bath, feeding her seeded watermelon on a sharp fork at 7 months, letting her cry herself to sleep for an hour - and I just freaked. It made me realize my mom was a person without empathy, and I was just shocked it had taken me this long to admit it (oddly enough, this was also the year that I finally admitted to myself that I don’t believe in Jesus/God/Catholicism). I think having a baby just made shit real.

Mr. smaje and I will be present at all times during this visit. I’ll be judging my parents based on how they treat my baby, and they know it.

Thanks again to all for reading and commenting.

44

Makes perfect sense, religion is something we tend to initially learn from our mothers. If you’d never grown a separate set of beliefs from the ones she dropped on you, the whole package got rejected at the same time, POP!

45

Feeding a 7 month old baby little chunks of seeded watermelon with a fork is not a dangerous thing to do if you are exercising some care in delivering it to the baby’s mouth. Unless you are forcing them to eat the whole melon, babies tolerate a few watermelon seeds just fine. If you are uncomfortable with her doing this it’s your absolute right to stop it, but on a practical basis if I had to listen to some howling drama of how I was a sociopath because I did this as a grandparent I’d think my daughter was a raving loon. If this is what your mother has to put up with in interacting with her grandchild in your presence her PO’d attitude toward you may not be entirely unjustified.

46

Context is everything. In the context of a loving relationship with trust and support on both sides, one thoughtless and boneheaded move is not enough to bring the walls crashing down. In the context of a tense relationship with someone with a history of being abrasive and dismissive of one’s concerns and feelings, it’s the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I can’t even fathom the thought process of someone delivering a bite of solid food (I can’t even remember when my kids got their first spoonful of non-pureed food, but it was waaaay after 7 months) via fork (babies tend to lose muscle control in their necks in a heartbeat; I’m still amazed they never broke my nose with an ill-timed head-butt) to an infant not their own. Further, it’s common to introduce one new food at a time when babies are starting to expand their food repertoire; no one but the parents get to decide which food will be next.

I’m only going by this thread, but smaje1’s mother seems to have a major problem with respecting her daughter’s boundaries. She doesn’t have a reserve of trust and good will to draw from. The OP is absolutely justified and correct to treat her mother with wariness, particularly when it comes to how she interacts with her child.

47

Yup. Plus, smaje1 has come to the conclusion that her mother lacks empathy. That alone makes her mother unsuitable for hanging around with baby smaje unattended. That’s it; no more justification is needed. I mean, if more justification IS needed, the woman gave a baby a bath while drunk, doesn’t seem to care how long she let said baby cry (at what, 7 months?), and has no regard for her own daughter’s feelings. I mean, maybe she will magically develop empathy and kindness around the baby after being cut off for a year, but what possible reason is there to assume she will? If someone’s not going to be decent out of the goodness of her heart, smaje1’s choices are to cut her off entirely or take a hard line with the bitch. She doesn’t have the luxury of being a doormat when her kid’s well-being is at stake.

48

The mother simply doesn’t respect the boundaries, and smaje1 is perfectly right to make all the arbitrary limits she wants, as “normal” rules don’t apply with manipulative or dysfunctional people. That was the mistake I made for years with my bother, brother-in-law, and other relatives, trying to follow polite society rules when they weren’t.

The parents, especially the mother, but also the father, are not being fair, considerate or helpful, and are dumping all of their junk on smaje1. She can, and probably should make new family “rules.” No more complaining about food, etc. The parents are acting like children and need to be treated as such.

My BIL is an arch conservative who hates Democrats, liberals, atheists and marketing people, and I am all of the above. I finally had to make new rules that none of the above topics were allowed in conversations. Normally, polite people do not make rules for what other people can and cannot say, but BIL simply would not respect my beliefs. Arguing doesn’t help, so we just have a new rule that these conversations are off limits.

If it were me, I would change the goal of having a “nice” visit to surviving this visit and then rethinking what I would be prepared to do the next time.

One thing we had to get my mother to understand was that she couldn’t have my younger brother in her house because he wouldn’t respect her or her boundaries. I always told her to meet him outside, since it would be easier to remove herself from the situation than to try to get him to go.

This would be another reason to go to a zoo or something, is that smaje1 can just leave with her family if the mother gets out of hand.

49

Plan the visit you’d like to see unfold. Paste a smile on your face and remember - it’s only 12 hrs, (you survived labour you’ll survive this.) Not leaving them alone with your child is definitely the right thing, in my opinion. No booze in the house, also great.

One of the keys to your survival is to have a back up plan for all of your time. So, what will you do if she brings her own booze? Or shows up drunk? Have you even considered it? (Why haven’t you?) What will you do, in that event? Discuss it with your husband before the visit. Are you both prepared to enact a plan, whereby, you say, “I’m sorry, this was clearly a bad idea. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” and stand by it? Are you even capable of that? If you’re not, then you’re not ready to let these people around your child!

Because that is what it’s really going to take, for you to get through. Seriously. An exit strategy that ends the visit, the histrionics, the dysfunction, on a dime. Knowing it’s in place, everyone is on the same page, and that you’re prepared will completely change your interaction with their dysfunction, however it manifests. And it will give you enormous ‘confidence protection’ and alter your every reaction to your Mom.

Have the In laws pop over for a visit, that’s a great idea and a wonderful distraction. Plan to cook a wonderful meal, have it prepped/be prepping when they arrive. Point out that you’ll understand if they’d rather go out to a restaurant, offer them a restaurant guide, but, of course, you’d love for them to stay. Then be good with whatever they choose.

How will you react if she harshs your cooking skills? Can you smile and move on? Because that’s what it’s going to take, you need to be prepared. Keep smiling, keep serving. Or enjoy your dinner and welcome them when they return from the restaurant.

We’re all pulling for you, do let us know how it goes!

50

I was in the midst of thinking up what I was going to say and how to say it so it made sense when I read what elbows said.

What elbows said. Excellent post and excellent advice!

51

You’ve asked her nicely not to drink alcohol while she’s visiting you, right? Does she know that you consider it unacceptable to care for your baby while she is drunk? Making your expectations clear to her might help. You might think you shouldn’t have to tell her these things, but your experience shows that clearly you do.

Dreams aren’t always reflective of reality, though. Just because you dreamed that you and your mom had it out and it was awesome, doesn’t mean it would necessarily be that way if you had it out with her in real life.

52

Make turkey like Thanksgiving. Its a fairly easy way to feed a lot of people without much fuss

53

Yeah, I know, right? It’s like, well, if it’s just me, whatever. Me and my husband, whatever, we’re both adults. But when it’s a little baby… gotta protect my child!

(To be fair, I let my baby cry herself to sleep for two and a half hours (checking on her at five-minute intervals) at seven months as part of our cry-it-out training (the longest night of my life). But no sharp forks at 7 months (eek!) and no alcohol baths (OUCH).)

I’m so glad. SO GLAD. From what you’ve said, I wouldn’t let these people alone with your child without repeated trials that show that they can respect your boundaries and at least make a stab at following your instructions, or at least reasonable expectations, concerning your child.

Also, everything elbows said. Especially the exit strategy and making sure they know what will trigger the exit strategy. Yes.

54

The classic turkey dinner with all the fixings is also what some people consider their ultimate comfort food meal, though you have to be careful about the ‘proper’ menu - what kind of dressing/stuffing, cranberry sauce from a can or homemade, nasty arsed green bean crap or not, nasty assed canned yam with marshmallow garbage or not. [dressing made outside the turkey, no oysters, garlic sauteed green beans, mashed sweet potatoes not sweet with sugary crap, escalloped potatoes for our family]

55

The baby is a built-in excuse to not go out for dinner. I’d either cook dinner or use the option of ordering in as a compromise. If you really can’t remember what they like just email and ask. Maybe give a couple options for them to choose from or ask for Dad’s favorite. If they respond by saying they want to go out, then that’s when you can say that because of the baby you’d like to eat in. If they don’t respond after that just pick something and go with it. Or ask your sister what they like. Something like spaghetti is easy and a homemade sauce can show off your culinary talents and it’s hard to mess up. It will also give you a chance to escape to the kitchen to check on it since it can simmer for several hours, and it’s one of those foods that fills the house with yummy smells. Who will be able to resist that when dinner time rolls around.

As for the in-laws, I would invite them to dinner only. Like it or not your parents are coming a very long way and only staying for a short time. They want quality time with their grandchild (and I would hope with you, too) and it would suck to have to share that with another couple, especially since baby likely favors the other grandparents. They obviously won’t know it but it would be doing them a favor, and unneccesarily inviting hubby’s parent’s to hang our for no reason could come across as a slight. Having the in-laws for dinner also cements your plans to have dinner IN and could serve as a good pressure release if things are starting to get tensein the hours before. Do the in-laws even know what they’re in for?

Just keep in mind that the things you do to deal with your Mom also impact your Dad and it sounds like things are OK with him.

56

In my family, we barely have fixings. I just make the turkey, we buy some greens, sour cream, gravy, and tortillas, and dig in and make little turkey soft tacos. Its not too difficult, and most of the cooking is waiting for a bird for 4 hours.

57

Thinking of you smaje - how’d it go?

58

She’s probably buried them under the patio and is now regretting this thread! :smiley:

59

:: hums :: . . . there must be, 50 ways to lose your Motherrrrrr. . . .

60

This is a complete load of crap. This whole post is a tutorial on how to be a doormat.

The backup plan is “GET THE FUCK OUT,” if there has to be a backup plan at all.

What it takes is telling mom “You fucked up, you’re an asshole and you will never see me again.”

“You don’t like my cooking? GET THE FUCK OUT!”

You’re pulling for the OP to reward her mother’s bad behavior. What’s up with that?