mama drama

I lived with my mother for the last 6 months of my pregnancy as well as the first 16 months of my daughter’s life. I honestly don’t know what I would have done or where I would be right now if I hadn’t. Although my mom and me had and have many differences, I will always believe that at that time in my life that was the best place for my daughter and me.
My mother taught me so much about caring for an infant, and helping me to understand that her crying wasn’t meant to annoy me, but was her way of communicating. She really did a lot to bring out the empathy in me and was truly the key in helping me to create a solid foundation for being a good mother. My mom stayed with my daughter all day while I worked full time, and two nights a week while I went to school. In addition I was also permitted to go out on occasion which was nice considering I had a 4 month old on my 21st birthday. For all of this, I will always be grateful.
On the flip side, like I stated previously, my mom and I have a lot of differences. Once I felt I had the swing of caring for my child I felt she was always breathing down my neck. She became overbearing. Her opinion found it’s way into every aspect of my life and it was too much.
I think a lot of it was the fact that my mom and I (she may not even realize it) have a negative history. I won’t go into details, but she’s done a lot of things over the years that have caused me to lose a lot of respect for her. Most of which took place when she had 4 young children with a 5th on the way and was in her mid thirties, ahem. Although now that we’re all older, including my mom she’s seen the error of her ways and she’s trying to be better (emphasis on trying), it is still difficult for me to take any criticism from her as a result. I just don’t feel she’s in any position to judge me, or anyone else for that matter.
For me, growing up, I never really got to know my extended family. I have many aunts and uncles that I didn’t know anything about them but their names. It seemed like my mom didn’t like her family so we just didn’t see any of them. My mom didn’t like my dad’s family so we didn’t see any of them. I don’t know, I guess it’s not that big of a deal, but I feel like I missed out of family functions and big family get together’s because of this.
This is why now that I’m a mom I really want to put all my personal feelings aside and give my daughter the chance to know my parents, my brother and my sisters. It’s that age-old desire to be better than your parents were. To be different…to show them up in a way. I just find it difficult at times, and now here is the point of this post.

I live in Central Wisconsin. My mother lives in a south suburb of Chicago. We try to do our best to visit, but mostly we just talk on the phone. I recently took a 5-day vacation and drove the 300 miles with my daughter to go visit for my daughter’s 2nd birthday. The visit was good, but a little too long for my taste. There were so many presents to bring back at the end of the trip that I couldn’t fit them all in my car so we left them, planning for us to either make the drive to pick them up at a later date, or my mom would drive up to WI to drop them off and stay the weekend with us.
Now, I am required to work one weekend a month. I have a lovely sitter here in my area that my daughter adores by the way, who is gracious enough to be reliable for me on these weekends. Here is the issue. I made sure my sitter was available for my weekend in advance. The Monday before my weekend my mother decided she was going to drive up for that weekend so I wouldn’t have to pay my sitter. Very considerate, right? I thought so too. So on the Tuesday prior to said weekend I threw my sitter a text message that I didn’t need her. Long story short she had declined another sitting job for this weekend because; well…I more or less have first dibs on her. And now she’s sh*t out of luck for spending money.
I just assumed my mother would understand that unless she can guarantee she will be able to drive 5 hours once a month to cover me for my weekends to work, I need to keep my sitter happy. She’s reliable, she’s good with Nevaeh and I can afford her. This is not a situation I want to mess up by cancelling to late and messing with someone’s cash flow. My mom can come up virtually any weekend, but when I told her I needed to cancel the visit, she threw this big guilt trip at me, and it was at that moment I realized how good my mother is at playing the victim. “It's really just completely illogical that after 47 years of life I have not yet learned to EXPECT to be treated as if I am of so little significance.”
Okay, so maybe some of you out there would feel sorry for poor mom trying so desperately to make me feel like crap while she attempts to play the role of ‘person being shit on’. All I can envision is her stomping her foot like a two you old ‘But I wanted to come up THIS weekend, Waaaaaaa!’ And now, because of this (what I consider small and petty) situation, we are not speaking. I’m sure it’s just temporary, but I also know she will never let me forget that one weekend that I chose my sitter over her.