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Need Advice About Mother

My mother was recently laid off from her job which was a shock to all of us. Since then, we have been trying to be as supportive as possible. She lives by herself and has been feeling terribly depressed and alone since this happened and asked if she could stay with us for little while. At first, I looked at it as an excellent opportunity for her to spend time with us and the kids. She is a wonderful cook and we enjoy the meals. The kids took her mind off her work woes and it was a fine situation. Now it's been a couple of months and she still hasn't found work. I know she is in no position to retire and won't be able to manage on unemployment alone. She has made little attempt to find work and is hoping something will just come her way. We are in no position to help her financially.

The problems are these:
1) My mother has been hinting at how much she loves being at home to cook and watch the kids. - I am a SAHM for a reason and wanted to stay home with my kids so I can be with them until the are ready to start school. I have a feeling that my mother would like me to return to work so she can sell her house, retire and come live with us to watch the kids. I really don't want this to happen. I would prefer to stay home with my own kids and stick to our plan which is for me to go back to work once they are ready to begin school. This is the main reason why we had our kids so close together.

2) When my mother is here, the kids tend to act up. My three year old wants my mother to sleep with her and my mother happily obliges. If I tell my daughter not to do something (such as not to play with a new toy) she goes and asks my mom who just says yes without checking with me first. SO my daughter gets her way, I am am the bad guy and my mother looks wonderful. She never acts up the way she does when my mother is around because she knows we won't tolerate it. My mother on the other hand is a pushover which is fine for most grandparents but starting to be a REAL problem as she is here EVERYDAY.

3) My mother claims that she wants to be here so she can help me out while I'm pregnant. The problem is she tends to be very messy and actually causes more work for us than help. When she cooks, she always leaves the counters and floors a mess. I think she wants to stay with us more for herself and her lonliness than to help us.

I am 8 months pregnant. My husband and I have a small three bedroom house which is perfect just for our little family. My three year old sleeps in one room, my one year old in another and my husband and I are in the master which we plan on sharing with the baby until she is four months old or so. We don't have guest room space and didn't plan on my mother being a permanent household member.

When she originally wanted to stay with us, we knew we didn't want her sleeping with our three year old so we purchased a beautiful sleeper sofa. She has yet to use it because she loves sleeping with our eldest. She acts as if the thought of sleeping on the sleeper sofa is terrible.

I am truly stressed out to the max. On one hand, I love and respect my mother and would never want to hurt her feelings by asking her to leave. I have explained how I feel but it is very difficult for her to change even though she has good intentions. I feel sorry for her predicament but she is causing us to suffer along with her and disrupting our family life and routine.

I am at my wits end and don't know if it would just be too cruel to ask her to return home so she can focus all her energy on finding a new job. Or should I just wait until she does find a new job because I know that she can't stay here forever and will need income soon.

Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated.

1 mom found this helpful

What can I do next?

So What Happened?™

Thanks to everyone who wrote for your advice and encouragment. My mother raised me alone and I am an only child so somewhere along the way our lives became intertwined and, while I love and respect her dearly, I do find myself longing for a part of my life which is my own. That is why this situation has been so tough and delicate to deal with. I'm not sure what happened but after discussing a few things in general without becoming emotional or using blame, my mom happily decided to return to her own place so she can focus on finding work. I think the realization that she will be without health insurance really began to frighten her and I suppose everything she was trying not to think about by keeping herself distracted with the kids started to creep up on her.

We've decided that she should try focusing on finding work M-F and will then drive up to stay with us on the weekends or I will drop off one or both of the kids with her for a few days so she can enjoy them.

We've all discussed that grandmothers can break rules but only in their house. When the kids are at home, what mommy and daddy say goes. Grandma and kids have to obey even if it means a few tears will be shed.

I hate being the bad guy when my mother is around. Since she gives in constantly, I am the boundary setter which makes me the wicked witch of the west but I am a grown up and have decided that those sentiments don't last too long and I can deal with it if I have to.

Thanks again for all the kind words and wake up calls. I was mostly worried that I was being selfish so I am most surprised and relieved that most everyone (including the grandmothers out there) agreed that we need our space.

Wishing you all the best!

Featured Answers

I wouldn't approach her with anything unless you have some suggestions already on hand. That way you will be saying to her "here are some issues but here's what I've come up with to make it work". Make a list and think it through. It will help both parties make quick and better decisions and make it all less emotional b/c believe me - it WILL be emotional when you talk to her about this. Good luck!

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L D,

Wow. This thing is LOADED. You definitely need to address some things, but what I do wonder about is your circumstance when baby 3 arrives. Either way, you'll need to take some time, make a note of what you want to cover with her, then proceed with as few hurt feelings as possible.

My first response would be if you need mom's help when baby 3 arrives, then you need to establish some ground rules with that in mind, and probably avoid evicting her at this time.

First, you say that she is a wonderful cook and you enjoy the meals. While I sympathize with your dilemma of having to clean up after her, I also realize that someone MUST clean up the kitchen no matter who cooks. Is it so bad if you don't cook, but have to clean up the kitchen? I mean most of the time, we moms must cook AND clean up the kitchen. Rather than let irritation take over in this instance, you could go out there with her and clean as she goes, rather than the usual clean as you go, that we usually do.

Put a stop to the sleeping arrangement. Explain to mom and the 3 year old that this is not what we do. Sleeping with parents/grandparents is a treat, to enjoy say, on Saturday nights. (or even ONLY at Grandma's house - reinforcing the difference between home and Grandma's home) Further explain to mom that you don't want the torture of breaking the co-sleeping habit when she goes home. (and say it like that - lay the groundwork of the expectation that she will go home.) Co-sleeping is a hard habit to break, especially if it goes on at length.

Further, in your ground rules, you'll want to add that Grandma's (I'm not sure what her name is with the children) rules MUST be the same as mommy's rules. While you understand that at Grandma's house, the rules are often different and less restrictive than they are at home, that too, is a special treat - a bonus of being at Grandma's house. At home, the rules are Mommy and Daddy's. Period.

Then comes the job situation. You should tell mom that you would be happy to sit down and help her tweak her resume (or curriculum vitae as they are now apparently calling it) so that she can find a suitable job. In this matter, you may have to be explicit and firm. Saying for example, "my husband and I are not in a place in life where we are able to support a family of six, or to support your retirement. We had planned to be "here" in life, I plan to return to work "here" and we are not in a position to alter that plan. Finances just won't allow it." You might set up a time each day to sit down and scour online job postings, newspaper advertisements, et cetera, and respond to agreeable postings. It is possible that if you don't take the initiative in this, she will simply not look for any position.

Right now, Grandma is railroading you. Granted, it is probably not be a conscious, deliberate railroading, but she is in effect, running YOUR house HER way. If you do not think you'll need the extra hands when baby 3 arrives, you can pretty much skip to the issue of the job situation. All the other problems will cure themselves, because she would no longer be there, anyway.

There is probably no way to address these things with no hurt feelings, but you can certainly minimize them by carefully approaching each subject with reason and calmness. Best of luck to you with this and with your new arrival!

3 moms found this helpful

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Mom,
It is so great to have you around to help out with the kids, but I’m afraid that we are taking up too much of your time and energy that could be better spent on your job hunt. Though we all love having you around, I’m afraid that the kids are going to stop seeing you as grandma and more like mom. They need a place to go to get away from “mom.” That should be grandma’s home- that is your role for them. I really appreciate your help around here, but I feel like I’m missing out on the mom stuff and this is my only chance to get my hands dirty. It is my job to do the day to day dirty work and drop the kids off with you so I can get away. How can I help you find a job and get back into your grandma role so I can start pulling my weight around here again? ;)
Make it clear that this is your job now and she can’t have it and reminder her how great the grandma role is. Spoil them rotten and send them home. Good luck and how kind of you and your husband to open your home to your mother. Very brave and very kind.

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There are a few things you do not mention about your mom's situation...which is fine as they are really non of our business, but they may have a HUGE impact on your mother's confidence in her ability to secure a new position in the economy today.
1) does she have a college degree of any sort?
2) how close is she to a retirement age
3) what type of work skills does she posess?

I am not saying that your mom is incapable of learning, or that she will be discriminated against due to the above factors, however when she goes up against young men/women fresh out of colleg with MBA's and high skill levels competing for the same job as a stepping stone to where they want to be cause they will take anything to get their foot in the door it can be quite daunting...especially to someone who is a bit older...so her self-confidence may have taken a direct hit due to the economy being so bad and the job market being such a high demand arena right now.

I feel this may contribute a lot to what you feel is her current feeligns of wanting to just retire now and let you go back to work. She may see it as you having a stronger chance at getting a job than she will.

You can help assuage her concerns by helping her find the places that give her skills a freshening up to todays levels (perhaps she was working with Microsoft Office 2003 and they can help her learn the newest version of the software, or if she has not really familiar with Excel but can use Word they will help her better her Word skills while teaching her Excel, etc.). They often have job listings there as well of businesses who give referrals from them first look.

Another option for your mom, if she is looking to cut back on her hours, wants to ease into retirement, or wants to work while looking for the best fit job for her, is to work with a temp agency or two. This way she gets some income and gets her feet wet and it will help bring her self confidence back up quite a bit. There are many people who make a great living working only through temp agencies...

As for the stuff at home. It is always difficult having an extended family member living with you. I recently had my own mother here for a month to help with my children while I recovered from a major surgery (my husband is deployed and was unable to come home for such an extended length of time). We discussed before hand that normal "grandparent" things had to be limited while she stayed because it was important that my children have as much normalcy during my surgery and recovery as possible.

I think this should work in your situation. If you talk to her and say that the special grandparent treatment has gone on so long that your children's routines have become disrupted and you would like to get things back on track before the baby come, she should understand, especially if you ask her to help you with it. Explain what she can do to best help you get the kids back on track. Don't tell her what she can't do anymore (with the exception of the sleeping with your oldest child) but ask her to help out in differnt little ways. This will feed into her desire to feel needed and help her depression a lot. It may even help her not need to sleep with your daughter. I agree with the woman who suggested that you make sleeping with grandma something that is a treat for one weekend a month or only at grandma's house...

Part of the annoyance at cleaning up after her is probably coming from your natural desire to nest at this stage in your pregnancy. Ask your husband to pitch in and explain that your mom is cooking and it's not unreasonable that a bit of cleanup afterward be done by you guys...after all when we cook we don't enjoy cleaning it up as well...have him do the counters and floors...

In the meantime, while having the discussion with your mom, and once you get her involved in either a temp agency or a place that will help her update her skills and find a job set a date that she move back to her place...even if it is gradual so she doesn't slip back to depression..Say she go back on weekends at first, then during the work weeek, and only come over on weekends...and soon you will all be back to "normal"....

Good Luck... ;-)

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You need to set the rules and inforce them on your mother. The sleeper bed is hers to sleep on. Tell her to sleep there. When she gets in bed with your daughter treat her like a child. Take her by the hand and say no your not sleeping with the child. Get in your own bed. When she gives your daughter something you just said no to go to the mother and tell her you said no and tell your daughter the same thing. We got in big trouble for this with our parents asking dad for something mom just said no to. We would be in trouble with both parents. I would not have allowed her to live with you in the first place unless it was understood that she was going to be perminent. It sounds like she has a good thing going. She might need a push to get a job. Good luck.

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Be honest with your Mother, as long as you are not specific she will continue to do things her way and just hope it flies. It will be difficult for the 3 year old to adjust not sharing her room and bed with her "friend", get that settled asap before the baby comes.

If Grandma has a house or apartment maybe she could take in a "roommate" to share expenses. Your church would be a good source for that. It is tough at her age to start over but it sounds like she has no choice. Unfortunately this is not a unique experience but she needs to be told as much as you love her you can not have her living with you at this time. Maybe help her find a less expense house / apt. if the other one can not be kept. If she was fired / laid off she may qualify for unemployment benefits until she can find another job. Whatever - you need to have that talk with her privately and immediately. Good luck to you all.

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Hi LD,
Your Mom needs your help. I can understand your frustrations but she needs help! Give her a helping hand.
Always remember that what goes around comes around. It sounds like you all need to talk. Be honest with your Mom
and tell her that you appreciate her help. The last thing
you need is for her to fall into depression.

Good luck,
E. M

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Hi Ld
Well, it is time for Mom to go. I am a mom of 12 and I don;t think I could ever live with any of my children for any length of time.
Your mom right now needs to be needed- and you will need your mom when the baby comes. But, I would have a really long and hard chat with her to let her know how much yu love and appreciate her but when the baby comes she must go home.
Try to get her started on a "home business" ...something that will take up her energy and time but in her own home--- using the internet etc. Give her a timeline deadline so she will know she has to make a decision. don't be afraid of hurting her feelings because you probaly will somewhat- but if she were in her own home she will soon realize she has her own life to lead. Just letting her knw how much you appreciate all her help- but that you have everything under control now and she needs to either get a real job - start a home business or find a room mate to help her manaage her expenses in her own place.
this is a tough one- but you are strong enough and with hubbies help to help her make the change back into her own home.
good luck and blessings

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I have some of the sam eproblems youi have, just on a diffrent scale. My MIL lives RIGHT next door. She spoils the kids and dsirupts our routine. All I can advise is this, you HAVE to tell her how you feel before the resentment adds up and you blow up. Think about your baby. All of this stress is not good for youi or your unborn child.

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