Published on 12, July, 2020
It would seem I have inadvertently ruffled my mother's feathers, which is something that I appear to excel at.
Yesterday, my mother had phoned and left a message to say that she had arranged a bank transfer for today (from her bank account to mine), and could I please let her know when the transfer had gone through. This was an unexpected act of kindness, which had been triggered by the fact that yesterday would have been my paternal grandma's birthday.
Since my grandma's death 6 years ago, this is the first time that my mother has chosen to mark my grandma's birthday by doing something kind and generous for me. Whilst I appreciated the gesture, I confess that I found it somewhat weird.
Anyway, I sent a message to my mother to confirm the transfer had gone through, and to thank her. In hindsight, I should have ended the message there. The thing with my mother is that she has a tendency to phone me when she knows I'm awake, which I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for... Not that I ever seem to be in the right frame of mind to receive phone calls from her... I made the mistake of saying I felt perplexed as to why she had made the bank transfer, and then dug an even bigger hole for myself by saying this was intended as a statement, rather than a question she needed to answer.
My message went down like a lead balloon. Oops!
Speaking as a mother with an eldest (young adult) who often doesn’t reply to messages promptly (or at all!) I suppose I’m seeing your post from the ‘other side’! I’m guessing your mum put some thought and love into sending you the money because she wanted to do something nice for you because she loves you
Most mother’s just like to feel appreciated and that their kids still love them - and that’s pretty much all they expect most of the time (I think anyway!). if you feel you’ve upset your mum in anyway I (were I in your shoes) would just send her message saying thank you for her lovely gesture and that you hope you didn’t offend her (by accident) in your response, and telling her that you love her. Then I’m sure she’ll be extremely happy and content and you can rest easy knowing that your mum thinks you are totally wonderful