Sorry about the lengthy post. I just needed to vent.

My mum came to stay with me and she has been stressing me out instead of helping.
A quick info about us. We live outside Nigeria and domestic help is very expensive so we basically do everything by ourselves here. Everything is also by time here and kids are involved in extracurricular activities after school. My children only have 1 day of rest after school before lockdown. They come back home late . My son trains on Sunday morning which we do before church. Saturday is a busy day for us as they both play games on that day.
I have a baby that is less than a year. My mum knows that I need help but since she came she has this idea that she is on holiday. She doesn't cook , she only helps around the house like moping, carrying baby and loading dishwasher or spreading clothes. All these are not done everyday except dishwasher and carrying baby. My daughter has complained she shouldn't be doing her job as they get weekly allowance from doing chores.
My baby wakes every 2hourly until 1am and he starts waking every 45mins and glues on boobs all night. So every morning I am always weak and exhausted. So I give my mum baby around 7am to get sleep for 2hrs before i take baby back to me by 9.30am to put him to sleep as none could get him to sleep. Even though my mum knows this she always wait for me to cook everyday if I cant cook we order food. What she does is as soon I take over baby by 9.30pm from Her she eats her breakfast and go to her room and keep watching TV until 2.30pm. She will come down to eat anything i cook if no food she will do quick healthy food I taught her like fish and vegetables and she will continue watching TV until 6.30pm. She will come and eat her food again. If its swallow she will not even ask whether my primary school kids are eating for her to do their own. She gets angry demeanour if I dont cook when she comes down.
When she first came here, in the morning she will sit in the sitting room watching Nigerian movies and wait for me to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner and serve her she will also ask that u get her water as well. She has this attitude u must take care of me bc am ur mum and likes attention yet she doesnt ask about the welfare of any of us and then finds it difficult if u dont ask her after hers.
My husband is very busy and work almost everyday. I also work but currently on maternity leave. I've asked her I would like to do casual may be once a week but she will shout noo pls stay at home even though she knows we need money as I send money to my brother that schools overseas as well. We spent over #2M just on flight alone to bring her here because she refused to come during off season and insisted she will come back together on the same flight.
Not just that she is not helping around the house she also finds fault in people and gives no one rest when u stay with her. She just stayed with my sister before coming to mine and my sister complained that the 3months she stayed with her was frustrating. At a point she started leaving house to stay in their shop to avoid mum and this my sister is very kind and has a mellow nature.
I will be going back to work in less than 2 months so I've been sleep training my baby and mum knows this and she hears baby crying but all she does now is to come downstairs eat and goes to her room to sleep, watch Facebook videos and Netflix. She will not even care to find out if am cooking for her to come and help. My older kids can look after my baby and do those minor chores she does. I have talked to her about cooking but that is her nature. She likes to eat food but doesnt like cooking it and she likes people serving her. She has turned me to a maid. Any day I dont cook she laments I dont look after my mum. That i brought her out here and not looking after her. We buy things in stock here that lasts upto 6months. Boxes of chicken, Turkey, rice, beans but she will not cook.
She has this attitude i noticed, she cooks for my brothers and she will be begging them come and eat but when she visits her daughters she will not lift a finger even though we are the ones that need her help most. The brothers live alone
My mum is 67 but she has a mentality that she is very elderly. I see other friends that their mum visits how helpful they can be to their kids and some of them are older than my mum by 10 yrs.
I don't mind her behaviour if I live in Nigeria where there is help around the house but she has turned me to that and I am no longer happy and beginning to resent her. She will not be helpful around the house and also be picking quarrels. Since she came I have taken her for medical checks, ultrasounds and scans and be buying her things clothes, jewelleries, perfumes, electric brush etc to make her happy. I even paid a naija cook to make food for us two weeks ago.
She will be staying for a long time and I dont know if I can continue like this. My sister and kids were warning me that is too long with her but here most people's parents stay for a long time due to distance and I would like for my baby to stay at home than at nursery when I start work.

This one get as e be. You know your mother better than we do and from your write up, it seems like you said she came for holiday. But we need to know if this has always been her behavior right from time. If it is, then there's nothing you can do about it. You just need to cope since you were coping before she came.

You are not overreacting. But just keep coping!

Just saying that if my 67yr old mama visits me, she'll be coming for a vacation and not to work.

Maybe you should open up to her. She'll help.

Afam4eva:
This one get as e be. You know your mother better than we do and from your write up, it seems like you said she came for holiday. But we need to know if this has always been her behavior right from time. If it is, then there's nothing you can do about it. You just need to cope since you were coping before she came.

I was coping before because I didn't have to cook everyday before she came as kids eat more of oyibo food and me and hubby dont expect each other to be cooking everyday and we are used to oyibo food as well. We can just grill chicken and eat with salad

Op, I can feel your pain. it's kind of hard to just do away with her considering where you are presently. Being a Nigerian mother, who got an attitude problem, just endure 4 now as u are about getting back to work to see if she can look after the baby within the 1yr she got to stay. She is ur mom.

Did you finally register on Tinder to catch your husband?
That's all I'm interested in.

You should be able to handle your own mother, this is not your mother-in-law.

Wetin man pikin go do? You cannot throw her away so manage her like that. She is 67 years old: that means she will NEVER change

Hmmm. Just be patient

All these simple issues sef.

Go into her room early in the morning and have a discussion with her regarding this again. If she's not gonna help, she should just return to Nigeria. Since her presence left you worse off, she better return back to home. Hian this shouldn't be hard...its a simple stuff.

First of all congrats on your new baby.


Please do not send your mom away cos if you do, you'll now see the true definition of the word "suffer".

Firstly, you will have to wake up very early, bathe and get the baby ready to go drop off at the nannies(another special kind of stress story for another day)

Secondly you will have to pay daily for such childcare

Thirdly, you will have a slated time you must pick the baby up whether you like it or not. If not, you pay even more

Fourthly, you cannot guarantee what kind of care your infant will get there.

Here's what you should do:
1. Next time you're stressed up so much again, start crying and let her see how stressed you are and when she asks you whats wrong, politely explain to her how stressed you are with cooking and all that. As a mother, she'll start trying to encourage you and stuff, then PLEAD with her to help you out the more.

2. Designate what and what you need help with from her. Please leave the cooking out of it. Do that one yourself. For example, Ask her to face everything that has to do with the baby n kids while you do the other chores

3. Open an account for her and be giving her some money weekly. Just a little bit and always appreciate her for all d support. Everyone needs motivation no matter how little

4. Take her out sometimes. Mothers get bored when they're taken out of their comfort zones. Keep her entertained.

5. Don't worry, she will be do all that work when you start working. She won't even remember there's tv in that house when our cry cry baby will put her to work.

You must admit that you're at a very difficult stage in raising children. Even if you have 2 additional helping hands, you'll still be feeling some pressure cos your family is still very young.


Also nicely involve your husband. Everyone has a role to play not only your mom.

Please "explode" and tell her everything....overseas is not like naija that she can say.she is been stressed out....what is hard in holding a baby for some few minutes...what her mates would gladly do...please next time she "acts" one of this her dramas"Explode" and tell her how you feel....too much bottling of all these negative energy can cause you one post-partum disorder

These days everybody is a wimp


A simple sit down to iron out your grouse with your own mother is what you're opening thread for


Ike gwuru'm

jess2019:
Sorry about the lengthy post. I just needed to vent.

My mum came to stay with me and she has been stressing me out instead of helping.
A quick info about us. We live outside Nigeria and domestic help is very expensive so we basically do everything by ourselves here. Everything is also by time here and kids are involved in extracurricular activities after school. My children only have 1 day of rest after school before lockdown. They come back home late . My son trains on Sunday morning which we do before church. Saturday is a busy day for us as they both play games on that day.
I have a baby that is less than a year. My mum knows that I need help but since she came she has this idea that she is on holiday. She doesn't cook , she only helps around the house like moping, carrying baby and loading dishwasher or spreading clothes. All these are not done everyday except dishwasher and carrying baby. My daughter has complained she shouldn't be doing her job as they get weekly allowance from doing chores.
My baby wakes every 2hourly until 1am and he starts waking every 45mins and glues on boobs all night. So every morning I am always weak and exhausted. So I give my mum baby around 7am to get sleep for 2hrs before i take baby back to me by 9.30am to put him to sleep as none could get him to sleep. Even though my mum knows this she always wait for me to cook everyday if I cant cook we order food. What she does is as soon I take over baby by 9.30pm from Her she eats her breakfast and go to her room and keep watching TV until 2.30pm. She will come down to eat anything i cook if no food she will do quick healthy food I taught her like fish and vegetables and she will continue watching TV until 6.30pm. She will come and eat her food again. If its swallow she will not even ask whether my primary school kids are eating for her to do their own. She gets angry demeanour if I dont cook when she comes down.
When she first came here, in the morning she will sit in the sitting room watching Nigerian movies and wait for me to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner and serve her she will also ask that u get her water as well. She has this attitude u must take care of me bc am ur mum and likes attention yet she doesnt ask about the welfare of any of us and then finds it difficult if u dont ask her after hers.
My husband is very busy and work almost everyday. I also work but currently on maternity leave. I've asked her I would like to do casual may be once a week but she will shout noo pls stay at home even though she knows we need money as I send money to my brother that schools overseas as well. We spent over #2M just on flight alone to bring her here because she refused to come during off season and insisted she will come back together on the same flight with us as we all travelled for xmas.
Not just that she is not helping around the house she also finds fault in people and gives no one rest when u stay with her. She just stayed with my sister before coming to mine and my sister complained that the 3months she stayed with her was frustrating. At a point she started leaving house to stay in their shop to avoid mum and this my sister is very kind and has a mellow nature.
I will be going back to work in less than 2 months so I've been sleep training my baby and mum knows this and she hears baby crying but all she does now is to come downstairs eat and goes to her room to sleep, watch Facebook videos and Netflix. She will not even care to find out if am cooking for her to come and help. My older kids can look after my baby and do those minor chores she does. I have talked to her about cooking but that is her nature. She likes to eat food but doesnt like cooking it and she likes people serving her. She has turned me to a maid. Any day I dont cook she laments I dont look after my mum. That i brought her out here and not looking after her. We buy things in stock here that lasts upto 6months. Boxes of chicken, Turkey, rice, beans but she will not cook.
She has this attitude i noticed, she cooks for my brothers and she will be begging them come and eat but when she visits her daughters she will not lift a finger even though we are the ones that need her help most. The brothers live alone
My mum is 67 but she has a mentality that she is very elderly. I see other friends that their mum visits how helpful they can be to their kids and some of them are older than my mum by 10 yrs.
I don't mind her behaviour if I live in Nigeria where there is help around the house but she has turned me to that and I am no longer happy and beginning to resent her. She will not be helpful around the house and also be picking quarrels. Since she came I have taken her for medical checks, ultrasounds and scans and be buying her things clothes, jewelleries, perfumes, electric brush etc to make her happy. I even paid a naija cook to make food for us two weeks ago.
She will be staying for one yr and I dont know if I can continue like this. My sister and kids were warning me that one yr is too long with her but here most people's parents stay for one yr due to distance and I would like for my baby to stay at home than at nursery when I start work.

My dear sis, I became tired after reading all this

Your mother is not helping the situation on ground

You must find a way to trick her home, one year with her will lead you to depression and its not her business

Save your life and your happiness
You only live once

Your mother is there to rest first before anything. she is not your house help, get that into your head.

However, have a heart to heart discussion with her so that she will understand how far a help will go in helping the household.

Finally, biko reduce the activities and stop putting your household under pressure. It's already overwhelming to read here and I wonder how your son have his childhood and still cope with all that.