Advice on relaxing in a high-strung household

[Anonymous]

My mom is like this. Part of it is that she's single, and it's a lot of work for a single person of her age to host and cook for a family of four, and there are no restaurants anywhere nearby. So she freezer-cooks in advance, and it's a great solution, I really appreciate it.

But the other issue is that she doesn't like how I'm raising my children in a city. She thinks it means I didn't like growing up in a small rural town (and she's right about that). So for the benefit of my children and their character development, she tries to jam Every! Rural! Small! Town! Experience! into our visits. And trying to jam a whole childhood into a few visits a year is exhausting. My children will never be a part of this community in the same way they would if they lived here, and that's fine with me. But it's not fine with her.