"I wish Nana was my mother"

[Meli65]

I have been hearing this, and variations on that theme (such as "I wish I had two mothers" ) too often and for too long and it's making me crazy!

[A new theme is "I hate our house, let's get a new one." It seems connected in my mind some how if only because it too makes my blood boil.]

But to stay somewhat on topic -- ds1 (age four) has always had a special bond with my mother. She lives ten minutes away from us and we see her just about every day. Every morning one of the first things to pop out of his mouth is, "Are we going to see Nana today?" Every night, whenever I ask what his favorite part of the day was, it was "seeing Nana" even when we did lots of other neat things like go to the zoo.

Now, I don't begrudge him the relationship and I know that it really is wonderful that they are so close and love each other so.

But I am sick of it! I am sick of seeing so much of my mother. And I hate scenes like we had tonight when he was wailing and crying about wanting to sleep at her house or to just go over there for dinner (and not eat the dinner that I'd made that was already on the table) -- we could not calm him down for the longest time.

Again, I know I am lucky to have a mother who I get along with at all, who I trust with ds1, who even has him over for sleepovers so I can relax with dh and ds2 (ds1 is high needs and wears us all out).

Are there any practical things I can do about this? Or do I just need to focus on the positive and get over my annoyance? Thanks!

[mykdsmomy]

My dd11 has this relationship with my MIL. I have no good advice for you but am anxious to hear what others have to say. :

[Canadianmommax3]

Well i am not much help, but went through this with a good friend, she would come and take my oldest son when he was about 3-4 years old. He was a wild one and it would give me a break from him. But she was also loads of fun and i was just the cranky mother! It would hurt my feelings terribly because he wanted to be with her and say hurtful things like he wished she was his mother.
It really only stopped when he started school so she wasn't involved in his life as much.

Sorry not much help but have been there (somewhat)

[eilonwy]

Not long ago, BeanBean (3.5) had his first sleepover at my mom's house with my sister and his cousins. Now he regularly throws fits and asks not only to go to Nanny's house, but to spend the night with his cousins.

I think that this is a good sign-- he's very secure in his attachment to me, and now he's developing security in his attachments to others. It's a test for all of us-- am I willing to let go of him a bit more? Is he comfortable being away from mommy? Will my cousins still love me if we all sleep over? Etc, etc, and so forth. The thing to remember about this (for me) is that he's not saying "I don't love you anymore, I only love Nanny/my aunts/my cousins;" he's saying, "I love you so much, and I want to love someone else, too." BeanBean is a very healthy, attached little boy and he just loves people in any context; I'm sure it helps that my mother is simply not me.

I've got another perspective on this, though: ChibiChibi, my 8 year old niece, is constantly begging my mother to come home with *me*. She would gladly switch places with BeanBean any day of the week, and when she says she wants to move in with us forever, she means it. She loves her Nanny, and to some extent she loves her mother too, but she finds it easier to be with me and Mike and the kids for many, many reasons. In her case, it's an attempt to escape some miserable things in her own life that she has absolutely no control over.

[angela&avery]

Ugh!! I hear you!! It is so hard, mama. I lived with my parents for a year. During my second pregnancy, when my ds was 2. It was soooo hard for me and hurt so much that ds wanted to be with them all the time. I feel like i missed a year of his life. I was so depressed. I learned real quick that I needed space. We moved back out as soon as we could afford to and we are a safe 15 minutes away. My mom still watches the kids for me 1-2 days a week and they have sleepovers there about once every one to two months. I had to create space. I need it to create the home I want. I want my kids to want to be home with me. That doesnt mean that they always want to leave and come home, they dont. But they know that they spend most of their time with mama , and thats just how we do it.

If you dont want to be further away, you just have to create more time for just you guys. Start like one day a week tell your mom, oh I met a friend with kids and we are going to get together,etc etc, so we probably wont see you tomm.... do this every week for a while, then like sign up for a class or do story time at the library. Oh mom, Im going to take the kids to story hour tomm and then we have a craft we are planning to do in teh afternoon, so I guess we wont see you tomm..... or ... just keep "getting together with friends".


Or if you are close enough to your mom, just tell her how much you appreciate her, but that you are having a hard time with your son wanting to be home, and that you really need to create more time for just you and the kids during the week. If you can do this without causing tension, it would also be great because then she would understand why you are pulling away a bit.

[fiddledebi]

DD1 is VERY tight with my MIL, and I am mostly thrilled about this, but it does hurt sometimes when she says she wants to live at her house instead of ours. I know this is because when she is there, MIL focusses 100% of her attention on DD1. DD2 seldom goes there, and never overnight, and MIL does not work or cook or do anything but play when DD1 is visiting. Heck, I myself would love to go live somewhere where someone wonderful played with me all the time and gave me macaroni and cheese, pizza, and french toast every time I visited!

When DD1 complains that she wants to be there instead of here, we tell her that her grandmother has to work now, and she can't play right now, and that if she went to live there, Daddy and I and DD2 would be really really sad, and miss her terribly. We just repeat these facts over and over, and know that it's not that DD1 doesn't love us. It's hard, though. to you

[velochic]

My mother lives with us.

Dd is very close to her.

Mom won't be around forever and I love that dd is so close to her. Grandparents are a special part of children growing up. We believe in extended family.
My opinion... focus on the positive.

[LIZnCHAD]

I'm sure it's completely normal. I remember thinking the same thing as a kid. Like fiddledebi said, grandparents love spending time with grandchildren doing kid things. They can forget about cleaning the bathroom or folding laundry for an afternoon or a whole day and do it tomorrow. If moms do that, well that just leaves twice as much to do the next day. It's hard for young kids to understand that some things just have to get done and the day can't be spent doing 100% kid things. I'm assuming your mom doesn't discipline your ds either. Your ds doesn't understand why just yet that you have to discipline him sometimes. All he knows is that you do and grandma doesn't. But at the end of the day, your his mama and nothing can change that.

[delicious]

that sounds really frustrating. i would probably be annoyed, too, even though i have a great relationship with my mom.

i am not sure what to do about it, though. maybe after a while your mom will seem boring? i mean, i agree, if a child has an involved, loving grandparent, that's awesome, and i'm all for it. but the whole, you just cooked dinner but i'd rather go to grandma's would drive me nuts.

this will probably happen to me tonight now. :|