Reply to Mother passive-aggressively criticizes my/millennial parenting

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[quote=Anonymous]My parents came from very patriarchal, authoritarian cultures, but I know several members of my family who had loving and emotionally available parents.

So I would start strongly pushing back on your mother's assertions. When my mother says something stupid, I call her out on it immediately. It's the only way she can respect me. I've done this since I was a teen, and realized she wasn't exactly in the running for best parent of the year. She knows what my values are, because I've explained them to her, and over the years she's become way less critical.

It's also a function of your children's ages and her own decline. My kids are now tween/teens. My mother is in her 70s. She both realizes that I'm doing a great job of parenting (even though this is not something she'd ever articulate directly), and she's getting a little tired herself. I feel friction is inevitable when you're just getting started as a mother, your kids are little, and the grandparent inevitably feels impelled to weigh in, in case their child fails in their parenting. It's typical.

So: be a lot more blunt about what a poor parent she was and how you're doing a much better job. And do that much better job! No quarter unless you want criticism your entire life.[/quote]

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