Why does my mom drop everything for random people?

[Anonymous]

I have this mom as well.

It’s all very ADHD/living in the moment/chasing a positive emotional high/martyrdom/nurturing as a drug/ennegran 7.

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to say - thank you for posting this. I have these tendencies, and I also have a young child. I do struggle with attachment due to some mental health issues. In my heart I want to put my child first, but sometimes when I look back on my week, it feels like I have been selfish. I am learning to find balance between preserving my sense of self and staying true to my more "generous" impulses, and giving my child everything. It is a hard road to walk, and I appreciate reality checks like this. I love my child so much and want them to be happy and well balanced as they grow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does my mother got out of her way to help random people in her life, yet can’t be bothered with me or my children, while simultaneously contradicting her behavior by telling us how much she misses us and wants to see us?

My mom will call and say she misses me/us and ask to make plans. Then, either one of two things will happen. She will either A.) Make the plan, then cancel last minute because she has to help someone, and it’s always a random person (I’ll expand below), or, B.) Will just tell me why X or Y day won’t work, because she has to help some random person. But then she will continue calling to tell me how much she misses us and hasn’t seen us in forever.

The random people/things: She has agreed to drive her random aerobics class friend to the grocery store. Or, she needs to help the daughter of an old friend who only very recently came back into her life, do something. Things like that. I’m just curious why she can never break THOSE plans and say to the random aerobics friend, no, I can’t drive you, I have plans with my grandchild.

Basically, why are these random people more important to my mother?

Narcissism. Unforunately, your mom wants to be seen aa a good guy only to make her feel better. My mom is one too and she has attachment issues. Don't expect her to change and it might gwt worse as she ages

This. MIL is like this. Appearances to outsiders are more important than doing the right thing, for/in her own family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does my mother got out of her way to help random people in her life, yet can’t be bothered with me or my children, while simultaneously contradicting her behavior by telling us how much she misses us and wants to see us?

My mom will call and say she misses me/us and ask to make plans. Then, either one of two things will happen. She will either A.) Make the plan, then cancel last minute because she has to help someone, and it’s always a random person (I’ll expand below), or, B.) Will just tell me why X or Y day won’t work, because she has to help some random person. But then she will continue calling to tell me how much she misses us and hasn’t seen us in forever.

The random people/things: She has agreed to drive her random aerobics class friend to the grocery store. Or, she needs to help the daughter of an old friend who only very recently came back into her life, do something. Things like that. I’m just curious why she can never break THOSE plans and say to the random aerobics friend, no, I can’t drive you, I have plans with my grandchild.

Basically, why are these random people more important to my mother?

Is your mom Indian?

[Anonymous]

I have friends like this. They will go out of their way to help people in our friends group who were very public about their bout with cancer. It became a thing for them--to get shout outs on the weekly blog update. I however was very private with my own medical issues that were also quite intense. My friends knew, but they did not come forward or show up in the same way because there was no wider social praise to be gained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does my mother got out of her way to help random people in her life, yet can’t be bothered with me or my children, while simultaneously contradicting her behavior by telling us how much she misses us and wants to see us?

My mom will call and say she misses me/us and ask to make plans. Then, either one of two things will happen. She will either A.) Make the plan, then cancel last minute because she has to help someone, and it’s always a random person (I’ll expand below), or, B.) Will just tell me why X or Y day won’t work, because she has to help some random person. But then she will continue calling to tell me how much she misses us and hasn’t seen us in forever.

The random people/things: She has agreed to drive her random aerobics class friend to the grocery store. Or, she needs to help the daughter of an old friend who only very recently came back into her life, do something. Things like that. I’m just curious why she can never break THOSE plans and say to the random aerobics friend, no, I can’t drive you, I have plans with my grandchild.

Basically, why are these random people more important to my mother?

Narcissism. Unforunately, your mom wants to be seen aa a good guy only to make her feel better. My mom is one too and she has attachment issues. Don't expect her to change and it might gwt worse as she ages

This. MIL is like this. Appearances to outsiders are more important than doing the right thing, for/in her own family.

This is my mom but in-person visits and phone calls are dominated by incessant talk about random people in her world - people I know vaguely, some I’ve met once decades ago. Then she becomes frustrated if I can’t immediately recall “important details” about her former neighbor’s daughter’s new husband.

Now she challenges herself to recall exhaustive details as part of an introductory preamble. This happens when she introduces me to someone or even wants to tell a story…I have to get their name, where they’re from, career, interests, family members, health info. Ugh

She very disinterested in actually helping people, volunteering, establishing and maintaining relationships with family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does my mother got out of her way to help random people in her life, yet can’t be bothered with me or my children, while simultaneously contradicting her behavior by telling us how much she misses us and wants to see us?

My mom will call and say she misses me/us and ask to make plans. Then, either one of two things will happen. She will either A.) Make the plan, then cancel last minute because she has to help someone, and it’s always a random person (I’ll expand below), or, B.) Will just tell me why X or Y day won’t work, because she has to help some random person. But then she will continue calling to tell me how much she misses us and hasn’t seen us in forever.

The random people/things: She has agreed to drive her random aerobics class friend to the grocery store. Or, she needs to help the daughter of an old friend who only very recently came back into her life, do something. Things like that. I’m just curious why she can never break THOSE plans and say to the random aerobics friend, no, I can’t drive you, I have plans with my grandchild.

Basically, why are these random people more important to my mother?

Narcissism. Unforunately, your mom wants to be seen aa a good guy only to make her feel better. My mom is one too and she has attachment issues. Don't expect her to change and it might gwt worse as she ages

This. MIL is like this. Appearances to outsiders are more important than doing the right thing, for/in her own family.

This is my mom but in-person visits and phone calls are dominated by incessant talk about random people in her world - people I know vaguely, some I’ve met once decades ago. Then she becomes frustrated if I can’t immediately recall “important details” about her former neighbor’s daughter’s new husband.

Now she challenges herself to recall exhaustive details as part of an introductory preamble. This happens when she introduces me to someone or even wants to tell a story…I have to get their name, where they’re from, career, interests, family members, health info. Ugh

She very disinterested in actually helping people, volunteering, establishing and maintaining relationships with family.

Maddening. WTH cares about STRANGERS details that someone is babbling on about??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does my mother got out of her way to help random people in her life, yet can’t be bothered with me or my children, while simultaneously contradicting her behavior by telling us how much she misses us and wants to see us?

My mom will call and say she misses me/us and ask to make plans. Then, either one of two things will happen. She will either A.) Make the plan, then cancel last minute because she has to help someone, and it’s always a random person (I’ll expand below), or, B.) Will just tell me why X or Y day won’t work, because she has to help some random person. But then she will continue calling to tell me how much she misses us and hasn’t seen us in forever.

The random people/things: She has agreed to drive her random aerobics class friend to the grocery store. Or, she needs to help the daughter of an old friend who only very recently came back into her life, do something. Things like that. I’m just curious why she can never break THOSE plans and say to the random aerobics friend, no, I can’t drive you, I have plans with my grandchild.

Basically, why are these random people more important to my mother?

Narcissism. Unforunately, your mom wants to be seen aa a good guy only to make her feel better. My mom is one too and she has attachment issues. Don't expect her to change and it might gwt worse as she ages

This. MIL is like this. Appearances to outsiders are more important than doing the right thing, for/in her own family.

This is my mom but in-person visits and phone calls are dominated by incessant talk about random people in her world - people I know vaguely, some I’ve met once decades ago. Then she becomes frustrated if I can’t immediately recall “important details” about her former neighbor’s daughter’s new husband.

Now she challenges herself to recall exhaustive details as part of an introductory preamble. This happens when she introduces me to someone or even wants to tell a story…I have to get their name, where they’re from, career, interests, family members, health info. Ugh

She very disinterested in actually helping people, volunteering, establishing and maintaining relationships with family.

Maddening. WTH cares about STRANGERS details that someone is babbling on about??

My inlaws are like this. They bicker about the background details (no, she lives in Cincinnati not Akron!) for a good while before the actual story begins about a person no one knows or cares to hear about.

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this. I think she likes being the hero to someone in need, while we don't "need" her as much even though I'd love to see her more.

But mostly, she enjoys going to the store or chatting with someone, in a way she doesn't enjoy traveling to see me. So she's doing good by doing something she likes: win-win. (Same reason she buys random stuff at Marshalls to give me: it's not about me, she enjoys the shopping.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have friends like this. They will go out of their way to help people in our friends group who were very public about their bout with cancer. It became a thing for them--to get shout outs on the weekly blog update. I however was very private with my own medical issues that were also quite intense. My friends knew, but they did not come forward or show up in the same way because there was no wider social praise to be gained.

I've seen this a lot. I tbink though that you also wouldn't have been happy by their need for social praise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This rings so close to home I had to call my sister and ask her if she posted this.

Same here… never expected to have (multiple!) people describe experiences so similar to mine.

In my case, though a lot of therapy, I’ve come to the conclusion that my mother is only comfortable in relationships where she is unquestionably “the giver,” and tries to force all her relationships to fit this dynamic. If you are self-supporting, she loses interest completely.

It’s sad for her because she is not conscious of (or simply doesn’t have the capacity to understand) what she is doing, and absolutely refuses to change her behavior. But will also ask me why we aren’t closer.

[Anonymous]

Covert narcissism? These moms tend to treat other people outside the family just a little bit better than their own kids. This way, their kid/adult child feels smaller, more insignificant, even invisible, and scrambling emotionally. Covert narcs can be very hard to suss out, they can be very tricky to spot. But putting other people over their own children tends to be one of the signs. Not saying your mom is one, but you can go read up on this particular personality type if you want.

[Anonymous]

When some random relative's neighbor dies my mom starts calling everyone up to share the news. I mean, why?

[Anonymous]

Not just Mothers. I'm learning from this thread! Friend from college. She would do such weird things. Like plan a birthday party for me, all on her own (so nice, gosh) and then the day of, she wouldn't be there. Showed up 3 hours later as I was cleaning up. Someone she just met asked her to be on a softball team. Asked her that day and she went to practice.

It's like she had no sense --- that schedules would conflict. AND she always chose the stranger, the person she knew least and disappointed people close to her.

I flew to visit her a couple times. Double ... triple checked the dates with her. I arrive and she already has houseguests. Another time, evening plans turned out to be bringing me along with her to a dinner party. The host had no idea. Another time, on a couple's vacation, she decided to leave early, days early.

For decades, I considered this person one of my best friends. Just quirky. But she kept doing such weird things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't answer why but I can tell you we have the same mother. And I would have asked if you're one of my sisters, but my mother drops everything for them too, it's just me and my kids she will break all plans with for some random person I have never met or heard of before to do something for them that the random person could easily do themselves (like take an uber).

+1. My mother does the same. It comes from a deep need to be needed. Family doesn't count for that.