This has been a bad week. I've been almost but not quite getting a cold, and the kids have been unpleasant and challenging. I had a non-fight over email with my mother, who is reverting once again to her usual pattern of making family her absolute last priority and making sure we know it by her actions, but not admitting it---it's always "just such a crazy week."
In theory she takes the three little kids for four hours a week, and that's supposed to be the time when I can make my own appointments, but she cancels so often I definitely CAN'T make appointments. And then she's always just so dismayed! about how BUSY she is this week! She's just devastated that she can't take the kids, but of course NEXT week will be back to normal, WHEW!
So I finally said no, it wasn't just this week, it was every single week. And that it was actually worse to have hope of free time, so why don't we just not plan on it "until she was less busy." And she got miffed and canceled our weekly Saturday shopping trip, saying she was "sick." But oh, she will be better for church tomorrow, and for her lunch with a friend on Monday and her hair appointment Monday afternoon and her women's Bible study Tuesday morning and so on.
It's exactly like that anecdote that goes around about the professor teaching his students time management, the one that ends in either "There's always room for beer" or "There's always room for coffee," depending on the version. Leaving aside the punchline, that's what my mom does: she fills her jar right up to the top with pebbles and sand, and then laments that somehow she has no room at all for the bigger rocks. But it's totally not her fault! It's just her BUSY SCHEDULE! And if I even SUGGEST in a very passive sort of way that it's in any way unpleasant for me to get canceled on again and Again and AGAIN, she gets miffed and wounded, and acts like I just don't UNDERSTAND her WORK and her OBLIGATIONS. No, I get it. Her actions show them to me in a list, ranked, and I totally get it.
Does she really believe that she's that busy, or is it just her excuse? Good for you for calling her on it. How frustrating!
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to KNOW, but my theory is that she really does believe it---but it's because she convinces herself of it, and deliberately makes herself busier in order to reconcile it. It makes it impossible to confront her at all, because even a SLIGHT accusation causes her to shore up her self-belief EVEN STRONGER, and with righteous indignation. Do you know anyone with this temperate type? She will, for example, back out of a commitment at the last second, always for a totally good reason---but it only happens when it's something she didn't want to do, and over the decades I notice the pattern: again and again she's so upset that circumstances have conspired against her to prevent her from something she seems to totally believe she really did want to do.
ReplyDeleteTotally frustrating. My mom is a little bit this way too, though she lives far, far away from me so I don't have to deal with her on a regular basis. But even this summer, while we were visiting, she kept finding stupid reasons to not be with us. She went to CONCERTS at the FAIR the first FOUR nights we were there. By herself. Because "she always goes to the concerts at the fair". UM? We only visit a couple times/year... you can't skip this year?
ReplyDeleteI say good for you for calling her on it... but I know too how that often backfires. How now she'll PROVE to you how busy she is.
Oh man, that sucks. :(
ReplyDeleteKind of in the same boat with you (sort of). My mom lives close enough for a visit but far enough away that we need to make plans to see her. She is a member of AA and has been sober for almost 10 years. AA and it's people are at the top of the priority list always with her. It's difficult to say anything to her about it because first, it's keeping her sober and I would rather have that than my drunk mom. Second, she is helping other people stay sober also. Every single time I am on the phone with her and someone from AA calls on the other line, she hangs up on me to talk to them. Every single time we are over at her house visiting (once a week) she spends over an hour on the phone with her AA people. If we need a babysitter for any reason, it can't be on a night/day that she has to go to a meeting because unless someone is dying or it's a SUPER emergency, she will not ever miss a meeting.
ReplyDeleteI feel like an ass complaining about it so I haven't said a word to her about it.
My parents are EXACTLY this way. It is one of (if not THE MOST) surprising part of parenting to me: how little my own parents want to be actively helping out. In THEORY, they help out. And they love to talk about how wonderful it is "to have all this family in town so we can help out... and what do people do without family?!?" when in reality, they never, ever help. EVER.
ReplyDeleteI'm still glad we're in town with them, and that my children have good relationships with them. I just thought at this point as a parent, I'd be so grateful to them for all they do. And that's simply not the case.
That must be so frustrating!
ReplyDeleteI know I may be stating the bleeding obvious here, but could it be that she just finds babysitting little ones too hard, so she invents these excuses? Does she regularly cancel non-babysitting family things, or just that one? If it's just the babysitting duties, maybe she's just starting to find small kids too overwhelming now that she's a bit older, but doesn't want to admit it - to you, or to herself. So instead she just comes up with lame excuses?
Could be way off, but it was just something that struck me as I read your post.
:(
ReplyDelete*hugs*
Susan- I do think that's a big part of it. And yet, if I say anything like "Maybe we should cut back a little..." she FREAKS and says NO, she LOVES taking care of them and WANTS to and etc. It's only her behavior that suggests otherwise---which makes me furious, because then it's up to ME, not only to figure out what she wants but to implement it. And then she gets to blame ME for cutting back on babysitting: it's not HER fault! SHE still WANTED to! Sigh. It seems like such an "old lady" thing to do: blaming the children for "fussing too much" or whatever---and yet NEEDING the children to fuss.
ReplyDeleteThis just makes me so frustrated for you. My own parents are super helpful and accommodating. When they go away for a month or so in the winter I feel a little out of sorts knowing I don't have the option of dropping the kids off for an overnight or even for a couple of hours of shopping by myself.
ReplyDeleteDo you think she would get it if you actually made a big deal about having to cancel/change an appointment after she backed out?
LoriD- You know, she might. I'm always so aware of what a favor she's doing me by taking them at all (despite her constant claims that she loves it) that I'm all, "Oh, no, totally fine, don't worry about it, sorry you're having such a rough week, kiss kiss!" Even when, for example, I had to call and cancel a doctor appointment because she told me at 8:25 that she couldn't babysit at 8:30 as planned.
ReplyDeleteI am identifying SO STRONGLY with this right now, I can't even put it into words. Thank you for this post and the comments. --Sarah
ReplyDelete