Could your mom be going through menopause as well as dealing with her kids leaving and competing with your dad?
My mom and I had some rough times when she was depressed and later when she was going through menopause.
Good luck and make sure you let your mom know how much you love her.
My mother was never very intrusive before I moved out. When I first began living on my own, though, she would come over to my apartment and clean - she’d mop the floors, clean the bathroom, vacuum. Despite her helping me out for a while, I was still able to turn into a clean freak after she stopped (at least until I moved in with my girlfriend, who is - shall I say it politely - somewhat messier than I am).
I feel obligated to encourage you to be glad you have the help. Don’t take it too seriously. Above all, don’t be like me; when you move out call your mother occasionally. I’m a rat bastard.
I learned an important lesson about mothering from an ex-bf’s mother. She did EVERYTHING for him his entire life, and ended up with a 35-year-old son who didn’t have a clue how to do laundry, manage a bank account, pay utility bills, find an apartment, or even (here’s my favorite) put a trash bag in the trash can. :rolleyes:
Incubus, it sounds like you have the desire to do things for yourself, so you’ll be fine. You’ll figure it all out. In the meantime, appreciate her good intentions.
Maybe there could be a conversation that tries to figure out how she can use her Mom Energy for Good, rather than for Evil. She must know, somewhere in her head, that a parent’s job is not to do everything for a kid, but to produce a functional adult–and she’s undermining that, along with her relationship with incubus. I have a bad tendency to expect people to be reasonable, so I think that surely if all this was pointed out to her plainly enough, she would try to change; but it seems that he’s already tried several times.
Oh, and incubus, my BIL had the same problem with his mom, with her stressing out over simple things and so on. He was out on his own and married by the time he tried training her out of it, but his strategy was to point out what she was doing and leave if she didn’t quit. As in, he would just walk right out, in a very good-humored way. She eventually got better and would try to quit freaking out. Every once in a while, if I’m talking to her and she’s worrying about something somebody is up to, I just say “well, he’s an adult, he can figure it out,” and leave it at that. She seems to take it as a brake on her worry-train.
Sure, in a pathological sense. It may not really be about how she feels about you, but rather how she wants to feel about herself. Needed, that is.
Incubus, can I assume that you’re the baby of the family?
At any rate, soon you’ll be out on your own, learning, gaining skills, making mistakes, and trying desperately to hide said mistakes from your mother. Because if she catches you in a mistake, she will remind you of it at least once a year, for ever and ever, amen.
When I was in my first semester of college, I did laundry just before T-giving break. I’m not quite sure what happened, but the colors all bled and I essentially ruined everything I owned. And of course my mother saw this. So I became the guy that ruins laundry. Despite the fact that I have not ruined a single garment since then, I clearly screw up every load of laundry that I touch. 24 years later, she still doesn’t trust me to do laundry.
MissGypsy, my sister invested about a decade of her life in a guy like that. His family loved her and she loved his family, but he was so inept it would make her furious. One of the things that really got to her was the fact his mother would always pick out gifts for him to give her for special occasions. I think they were together seven years or so before he ever picked out something for her with his own judgement instead of relying on mommy. He’s a nice guy, he’s just so freaking clueless because he’s been babied his whole life.
My wife comes from a similar background. Her mother felt it was simply easier to do things herself than goad the children into action(an attitude her own mother held). As such my wife was rarely involved in doing laundry, cooking, or much cleaning and never developed good habits in these areas. The children were not allowed to handle finances, her parents just had them sign over checks from babysitting or other jobs and they just pooled the money with no real accounting system. She was not given any real responsibility for much of anything, her own belongings, her finances, or even her sustenance. Convenience foods(cold cereal, etc.) were plentiful and fast food common. As an adult she has struggled to overcome these bad habits and it is a serious source of frustration for her.
My family was pretty much the opposite. We were always extremely action-oriented and did things for ourselves. Kind of a necessity in large families(eight kids). All the boys, and a couple of the girls, ran our own lawn care services when we were young as well as other small businesses. Bicycle repair for neighborhood kids less mechanically inclined, lemonade stands, snowcones, movie night with the family projector on the door of the garage, babysitting(boys and girls both did this), etc. My parents were very strict with finances. Everyone had their own bank accounts which we kept the registers for and made the deposits from the age of about five(savings accounts until we were 16, then mom and dad took themselves off the accounts and we were able to convert them into checking accounts). We had a very structured method of assigning household responsibilities like helping cook, cleaning after meals, and doing laundry. Everyone took turns on the great scheduling calendar. Everyone had their assigned tasks and there was a pool of tasks which could be signed up for each week(lawn care, window washing, etc.). Signing up for a task in this pool earned you some cash based on the difficulty of the task. If tasks were not signed up for they were assigned and there was no cash involved at that point.
We all had library cards and most of us were voracious readers. We’d make weekly trips(at least) to the library and come back with our bikes loaded down with bags of books hanging from the handlebars. We were responsible for paying any fees for books we checked out and didn’t get back in time or lost. We also had a reasonably active workshop in a shed we had built in the back yard. My parents took the time to teach us all some basic woodworking and we all got to help with various projects. We built a shed, a very large picnic table, a set of bunkbeds, and a handful of other large items. We also carved out a portion of the back yard for gardens. Each kid had their own rows and grew fresh fruits and veggies which we could sell to our parents or neighbors. An older retired lady a few blocks away raised chickens and one of the kids would be sent to pick up fresh eggs once a week or so. My grandmother lived a couple blocks away as I was growing up. She kept a very large garden and we would help her tend it and plow(she had a hand plow) each season. We also kept honeybees at my grandmother’s place and twice a year or so we would harvest the honey.
We still had plenty of “kid” time. Playing football in the yard, swimming, bicycling, video games, flying kites, cycling to the lake to fish or ride paddleboats, playing on local playgrounds, rappeling down the side of the garage(tends to get you grounded), climbing trees, exploring storm sewers(not the smartest thing, in retrospect), etc. One of the nice things about having financial responsibilities when you’re a kid is you also have some degree of financial freedom and several of us saved up for video game systems and games while others saved up for bicycles, clothes, books, whatever they felt was important.
Now, as a parent myself, I’m coming to appreciate all the things my parents did for us. They probably did every bit as much work as parents who do everything for their kids, but they did it in a way which encouraged us to take up the rest. Teaching a kid to use tools, keep a bank account, safety with lawn mowers, gardening, sewing, typing, all the skills our parents taught us when we were young, that isn’t easy. In fact we probably could have had more and nicer things if they didn’t entrust us with the breakable(and often broken) items they gave us to work with. The beekeeping was completely in our own interests, not only did it teach us about wildlife(and a healthy respect thereof, youbetcha) having a local source of honey collected from local pollen helps control allergies. It probably would have been less expensive in the long run to simply buy honey from the store, but my parents went the extra mile to make it more beneficial for us and made it an educational adventure at the same time.
All in all not a bad way to grow up. My wife and I are carrying some of these traditions forward with our own brood. Some will fall by the wayside and be replaced with skillsets more appropriate to their generation, but the level of activity they are actually responsible for is quite high. It is my hope this will work as well for them as it has for my siblings and myself.
Enjoy,
Steven