I act like a petulant child when I’m with my busy, uninterested mum

It's all too easy to return to the roles we used to inhabit, but try and see the situation from your mother's point of view

The question I am a 43-year-old woman. I have a happy marriage and amazing kids. During lockdown my 76-year-old mother, who is a widow, has coped well, launching herself into reading, gardening and clearing out stuff in the house, with never a word of self-pity.

Now that things have opened up and we can visit again, the distance requires that we stay over. My problem is that, on returning to my childhood home, I revert to being a teenager.