My Mom Is Always Agitating Mebut Am I the Problem?

Solutions to, um, universal problems, from our new advice columnist, therapist Minaa B.

Dear Minaa,

I'm wondering if I could be better at dealing with my mom's increased need to communicate after I got pregnant during the pandemic.

We've lived on opposite coasts since I went to college, and I like it that way. It's not like my mom and I have a bad relationship-I just don't feel the need to be physically or geographically near her all the time.

For the most part, we've communicated in a normal, healthy way. But when my dad died several years ago, things changed. My parents were divorced and had been since I was a little kid. But my mom kept pressing me for more information on how I was feeling and what I was going through at the time. It felt really invasive, like she wanted to be a part of my grief even though I didn't want to talk about it with her. I could tell that she wanted that experience to be a shared one, but it wasn't.