What do I say and do when my mother lectures me all the time about my kids?

I agree with Carol's points. I have a mother, unfortunately, who absolutely goes BALLISTIC if you try to tell her anything. I really do believe she can't wrap her mind around the fact that I am 57, a grandmother of 7 and haven't lived at home since I was 20! Having drawn boundaries with my mother a year ago, after she hung up twice on me for asking her not to gossip to me about my sister, I had to write her my thoughts in an email which she construed to be 'disrespectful'. She would not be satiated in her fury at me until she successfully caused such a stink in the family that all four of my siblings and my dad first begged me to 'make it right' with her, basically apologize for whatever she wanted, just to make it stop. I calmly told all of them that I would gladly apologize but exactly for what? No one had an answer to that, because they all know how she is. And I see they are willing to serve me up to their own peace. I have received monthly crazy, written rantings from this woman since I blocked her from my email and I am done talking to her. Sorry to say, you have to get to a point where you have to draw a reasonable boundary and be firm about respecting it. Hopefully, she will. If not, you have to stop talking to her for a while.

I think expert Carol is spot on. Do not continue to stressfully accept your mother's constant criticism. You are an adult now. You have no more duty to respect her than she has to respect you. It must be mutual.

Try this....it worked great for me. Tell your mom you would like to have a chat or a cup of coffee and talk about life. Just be the kid or daughter needing advice and just discuss a little of all of it. She will be the mom and offer you Great advice and won't feel you are ignoring her help. Be genuine and remember the times she was there for you. She still can be. Then thank her and tell her you couldn't do it without good advice from mom. You'll be amazed at what happens. Just try. In the meantime we will be praying for you to find a local support group regarding your husband. It needs to be addressed as well. Stop ignoring all this it won't go away or get better until you face it. Learn to prayerfully address things with kindness just as you would want to be treated. You'll find great hope when you try. Blessings

If she's doing this on the phone, you can put the phone down on the counter and say um hum once in a while as you do something else in the room.

It's sad to say, but somehow you have to learn to tune out your mom and detach from what she is saying. If she is getting worse, you may have to firmly tell her that you can't be around her unless she stops criticizing you. If/when she gets mad when you say that, calmly say, "I have to leave now. I'll talk to you when you can be respectful to me." You can point out that respect goes both ways.
She may act the way she does because she gets a reaction from you. Many people will stop misbehaving if they are basically ignored when they act rude or mean. If she acts nice toward you, then reward her with your company.
Learning to detach from other people's controlling behavior (and that's what she's doing here) can be very difficult. But we are not in charge of how other people act - just our reaction to their behavior. By changing your reaction, you may be able to at least limit her outbreaks. It may sound unfair, but I'm not sure how else you can accomplish what you want to do. Good luck,
Carol

Does your mother have dementia? When someone does have dementia, they get in these 'loops' is what I call it. They CAN NOT let something go it seems, whether it's something simple that's bugging them, or something serious like in your case. Add to that, the fact that you already admitted that what she's saying is probably right, and to me that would be salt in the wound. I'm wondering since she has all these complaints, does she have any answers? Tell her to stop complaining and give you something concrete you can go about it. I bet she can't come up with anything. It's easy to complain about something, but really hard to put your 'money where your mouth is' when it comes to action. Who knows? Maybe she actually HAS some usable ideas. hmmm