BPD mom babysitting

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I’m wondering if there is anyone out there who has dealt with a similar situation and if there is a solution.

My mom has bpd and is high functioning. She’s been decent with my kids, for the most part, but as they get older I’m seeing a shift in her behaviour towards them. If they reject her in any way in favour of having “mommy do it” she takes it very personally, gets annoyed with them, sulks and pretends not to care about them. Naturally, this brings up big feelings in me because my mom did the same thing to me growing up.

She occasionally babysits for us but now I worry about how she will be around my kids when I’m not there. She’s perfectly responsible but I fear her emotional response when things don’t go her way. How do you handle this? If I bring it up with her (i.e. the sulking) she gets really defensive and shuts down.

[Chantsy]

I’m wondering if there is anyone out there who has dealt with a similar situation and if there is a solution.

My mom has bpd and is high functioning. She’s been decent with my kids, for the most part, but as they get older I’m seeing a shift in her behaviour towards them. If they reject her in any way in favour of having “mommy do it” she takes it very personally, gets annoyed with them, sulks and pretends not to care about them. Naturally, this brings up big feelings in me because my mom did the same thing to me growing up.

She occasionally babysits for us but now I worry about how she will be around my kids when I’m not there. She’s perfectly responsible but I fear her emotional response when things don’t go her way. How do you handle this? If I bring it up with her (i.e. the sulking) she gets really defensive and shuts down.

[LeneLu]

So, I think there is a "rule" here that says we aren't supposed to tell people what to do, but I gonna go out on a limb...GET A BABYSITTER INSTEAD!  While my situation was not exactly the same, my bpdSIS begged to be my sitter and then after the fact accused me of taking advantage of her by being my "free childcare".  It is not worth the worry and frustration.  Get a sitter and say it was too much to ask of her or something that appears to be in consideration of her.  I wish I had seen it coming and done it sooner.

[Harri]

Hi.

Several of our members have talked about the same issue as their kids got older.  What your mother is doing is emotional manipulation/abuse and is quite damaging to a child, heck, it is bad for an adult to experience too. 

Several of our members have chosen to only allow their parent with BPD or BPD traits to be with their kids with supervision only.  That means you  being there at all times. 

... she takes it very personally, gets annoyed with them, sulks and pretends not to care about them. Naturally, this brings up big feelings in me because my mom did the same thing to me growing up.

What she is doing is invalidating their feelings, teaching them to care more about others than themselves in a very unhealthy way and teaching them not to trust their gut in addition to teaching them to care take her. 

No!

I am sorry you experienced that growing up as well and I am glad you are able to see what your mom is doing and know it is not right.  Protect your kids and say "stop doing that to my children" (we can work on the wording here if you want).  If she gets angry, she gets angry.  You are the parent and your instincts here are good.   Again, let her get angry and sulk.

She’s perfectly responsible

She is being emotionally manipulative and abusive.  It is so hard when we can see the good parts of our parents too isn't it?  You know she loves your kids and would never deliberately choose to hurt them right and yet this emotional abuse is so damaging and hard to see sometimes. 

I am not sure how best to phrase what I said above in terms of saying stop it and say no so I hope someone can chime in here.  One thing I am sure of though is that she will have a negative reaction to whatever you choose to say and you will have to ride it out. 

We can help you though.

[Turkish]

Not sure there's a "rule" here, but it's good to step back to think about what might work and what won't 

I don't see a crisis here,  but definitely 

Telling her may not gain much.  Whether you want to try, with the tools, is up to you. 

Cutting her off may be drastic, but limiting time might be better before you have to engage in emotional cut off which isn't usually healthy (and you'd have to explain it to the kids who might take out negatively since they don't know better--- we've seen this).

I'd cut back time slowly yet at the same time talk to and validate the kids.  Maybe they already sense something is not normal?

[Notwendy]

I agree that it is not a good idea to say anything to your mother about her behavior. This is her emotional level of maturity and how she interprets things. I also agree that it probably isn't necessary to do something drastic, but a subtle change- decrease the babysitting, visit as a family ( so she isn't one on one with the kids).

My mother did not babysit on her own, but there were times I left her with them when she was visiting with my father. I did not ever leave her alone with them. She was too unreliable. However, like you, it was less of an issue when the kids were very little. As they got older, she began to enlist them as her emotional caretakers- make them responsible for her feelings. I saw this as a red flag and then had more boundaries with her. She didn't like it, but I feel my first consideration is to protect the kids from her emotional manipulations until they were old enough to have their own boundaries with her themselves.

My mother has poor boundaries and tended to enlist them as her confidants once they were pre-teens. She also would tend to triangulate them- take them aside and tell them things about me and say " this is our little secret". At this point I enforced the " do not be alone with my mother" for the kids. We visited in family groups and still she'd try to go off with one of them. They learned to not do this.

Ultimately it was about validating the kids, and their boundaries- giving them the tools to deal with people who tend to violate boundaries as they got older. This would be useful to them with anyone.

[Chantsy]

I really appreciate your replies. Thank you for offering suggestions and advice.

I’d like to work on some form of proper reply when she acts this way but I’m afraid that no matter what that might be she will respond defensively and it will go in one ear and out the other.

It sounds like limiting or refusing to let her babysit altogether is the best way to go. I need to work on a solution for this to happen. 1)Other than family we don’t have a proper babysitter and 2)I have a chronic illness that makes it difficult to do lots of daily tasks with kids on my own. And of course, my mother is always waiting in the wings to “help” with many strings attached, naturally.  

[Notwendy]

If your mother is basically stable with them, I don't think it is necessary to completely sever her babysitting or even say something about it. I don't think talking is especially effective. My mother wouldn't change anything if I spoke to her about it.

A strong reaction is likely to cause a scene. I would reserve that for serious situations. I think something subtle like asking her less, being busy without her is an option. Also if she is helping you do things with the kids, and you are there, it may be less of an issue.

How old are the kids? An eventual goal is for them to have their own boundaries with her- be able to not take what she says or does as personally while still being cordial to her. Unless you choose to have no contact with her at all, this is a way to go. There will also come a time when they don't need a babysitter so you may not need a permanent, drastic solution to your situation as it is a temporary situation.

It takes a while to find a good sitter. Depending on the age of the kids, a mature high school student or college student might be an option. Decreasing the frequency of mom "babysitting" also helps diminish the effect of her behavior on the kids.

Eventually, we had the "psychology" talk with my kids when they were old enough to understand mental health issues. BPD is in the psychology books, on TV shows- they will hear of it. It puts my mother's behavior in context for them.

[RavenWatcher]

A similar thing occurred about a year ago between by uBPD mother and my brother/his kids. She was pushing and pushing for more FaceTime/in person time, but when she was exposed to the kids, she was exhibiting problematic behaviors that were distressing the older of the two kids (the youngest was less than a year old at the time). My brother decided to cut off contact between Mom and the grandkids.

I like the idea of supervised interactions, but would suggest having a plan for how to react if she starts being manipulative and abusive. A way to interrupt or end the interaction if needed.

Not sure the ages of your children, or when is an appropriate age to talk to kids about bpd, but are you able to talk to them about your Mom's condition?

[Chantsy]

My kids are 6, 4 and 2 (they are on the verge of being 7, 5, and 3) with Birthdays in September.

NotWendy, I’ve been trying to call on her less for help or to babysit. I just hate having so few options for child care and yet feel an intense need to have time away for an evening with my husband. I appreciate your suggestions. I will have to think good and hard for a referral from someone I trust.

Ravenwatcher, I don’t know at what age to have that talk with my kids. I also don’t know how to broach the subject.

[Notwendy]

It was a challenge to talk to my kids about my mother without it looking like triangulation. I waited to have the BPD explanation to when they were teens and aware of mental illness. I presented it that way rather than have them think she was a bad person.

Your children are too young to have this discussion. For now, the best you can do is not put them in situations where they would be uncomfortable. I would make sure they were not alone with her much. But I had to wait until they were older to discuss BPD .

[RavenWatcher]

I agree with notwendy. Too early to discuss, and probably best to limit contact. Which just makes all of this harder for you, Chantsy. I'm sorry.