My Mom likes to create controversy out of thin air.

My younger brother and his family live out of state. My mom spoke with him on the phone earlier today for Christmas and all was well.

About 20 minutes ago she asked if I thought we should try to video call them. Before anyone could answer, she says

"You know what? I'm his mother. He should be ASKING ME if I want to video chat. Right? Forget it. Out of sight, out of mind. If he doesn't want to talk to his mother on Christmas, then I don't want to talk to him. They're just so ungrateful and rude. Geez...."

She then went back to doom scrolling on Facebook.

I can assure you that this has now started an argument and small mini-war with my brother that he's completely unaware of.

She's always been like this and has always started wars with her side of the family over trivial things most made up in her mind. I think she learned it from my grandmother. They would stop speaking over small disagreements and not talk for years.

In fact, when my grandmother died, they hadn't spoken in about 5 years. And my uncle didn't call to tell my mom she'd died until 8 days AFTER she was buried. Apparently my grandmother made him promise that he wouldn't call my mom or my aunt if anything happened to her for at least a week.

Anybody else have a parent like this? I don't understand it. Neither does my brother or my dad. They understandably got divorced over 20 years ago.

I don't even bother engaging with her because she seems to feed off it. It's like she thrives off of being upset and miserable. Always claiming that nothing she ever does goes right, she has the worst luck in world, it's her lot in life to be disappointed and suffer, etc...It's her preferred state of existence.