Do you contact your parents or do they contact you?

My mother is the stereotypical riot with a mobile phone. Countless pointless messages.
morning.
what doing
saw car
where going
call asap. (May be an emergency, more likely to be the bin man didn’t come)
afternoon
evening
what doing
theres a cat on the lawn
the cats gone now
hows kids

shes not lonely. She is like the village chair person. Never home.

it’s just the incessant messaging.

drives my poor dad just as mad.

it’s so extreme my siblings have set up a group to share the craziness.

it’s your brothers birthday

I know I messaged him.

did you? I didn’t see it. can you show me?

it said happy birthday.

ok.

did you send a card.

there’s a cat in the lawn.

sadly, this makes me want to visit less often!!

My dad only phones me when he wants something.
I'll probably phone him in September to ask if he wants to come for Xmas.

I quite to phone him on the dc birthdays, to see if his conscience pricks him.

If we visit, he ignores them, but expects their adoration.

He lives about 8 miles away. 😀

Both

Neither. NC is a beautiful thing sometimes.

@LottieMary snap. My MiL thinks phones only work one way. It’s not my problem any more, but we are both beyond hurt she never contact either of us.
I take it in turns with my parents and we speak once a week, and send messages two or three times in a week

I only hear from or see my parents when I contact or visit them.

My mum is like this. Doesn’t like to ‘disturb’ me despite my having told her countless times if I can’t talk I’ll just tell her and call her back when I can. I’ve given up.

I contact them. They'd never contact me. Not seen them in weeks because I'm a bit fed up of always being the one to arrange to go round despite them both being able to get out and about. I gave up inviting them out because it was always me organising. I await the inevitable comments about how they never see me.

Both. I ring them most days and they'll ring and message me.

Mixture of both, but however often I ring it’s never enough, whilst also if I ring more often than I’d normally do the response is “god you pick your times don’t you? Why don’t you ring more often? You should have called my mobile instead. I’m too tired to talk now. Mmm.” Plus a load of other sarky comments. Then she unloads all her woes on me because she refuses to actually talk to her friends. It’s a fucking delight.

My mum hasn't called me since February. There's been messages between us but not much conversation. Still waiting for her to check in on how my DC's surgery went 2 weeks ago.

50/50 really for me. My MIL doesn’t realise phones work both directions though.

No and no.

A visited with my mother around 9 months ago made my mind up because she didn’t ask one single solitary thing about me or my kids. It dawned on me that she never ever does.

There’s a lot more gone on though.

So I’ve stopped going round or contacting her. She has not contacted me. She is a 5 minute drive away.,

So I won’t be seeing her again now.
My sister will let me know she is dead when it happens.

My dad contacts me every so often. There’s very little interest there either.

@WinchSparkle80 this is surprisingly common. My Dad is the same, I think after about 3 months he mentioned to my sister that he hadn't heard from me and she told him off. Many of my friends say the same, they contact their parents then they visit their parents at the parents house but at the time of parents choosing. Basically they do all the work.

I don't think its necessarily about not caring sometimes they think the DC are too busy and don't want to impose.

My Mum and I Whatsap each other and she must relay the messages to Dad.

If either phone me I know straight away that the other one has had an accident and needs taken to hospital!

I contact my mother.

It wasn't always so, my parents used to call me every week. But my mother is 90 now and with such poor eyesight (age related macular degeneration) that she just cannot see the control buttons on her phone, so really can't use it properly.

So I call her. She can answer the phone, but not much more. I called her last night and I am going to visit her tomorrow.

It used to, but I’ve had a lot of therapy in the past few years and I’ve accepted that she won’t change. She’s always been a shit disinterested mother, but she’s got her own demons so I have compassion for her.

But I agree with you, I have an adult dd and we have contact multiple times a day, even if it’s just funny memes. I adore her, and having those normal maternal feelings has really helped me to realise that my DM is abnormal, it’s not anything wrong with me (which is what I believed my whole life).

When my Mum was alive we would send a text everyday and phone call every other day or so. My Dad we text both days and we talk about three times a week, sometimes I ring first. Sometimes he does.

My DP is very different. Him and his Mum can go weeks without speaking. I think she rings him more.

I always ring mine as mum says she won't know when it's convenient for me if she calls. She does text now and then early in the morning. Taught her how to use WhatsApp years ago so we could send photos which was really helpful.

We speak at least once a week and message a 2-3 times on top of that. I've stepped it up a bit in the past few years as my Dad is now disabled and mum is his carer. When they were both well, I tried to ring and/or text once a week and they occasionally called me.

Both, but 2 weeks wouldn't be that unusual. If it gets to two weeks, when one of us calls it will be a case of "I was planning to ring you later". Usually, it will be more frequent and it varies who gets in touch first.

I live in the same house as DSs and sometimes it can be several days between contacts, with differing shift patterns and social lives. DS1 is good at responding to messages and will message me to tell.me about interesting things happening in his life. It's a complete waste of time texting DS2!

My parents live a 15 min walk away. If I don’t contact them, they won’t contact me. 3 months was longest I left it just to see if they would reach out…. very sad

Nope they didn't even acknowledge it had been a long time. Just another wake up call to the fact they have never really given a shit.

I couldn't imagine ever going that long without contacting my kids and that's not because my kids are cute toddlers, they are late teens and I still want to hear from them regularly.

Moles? Miles!
My DC, contact every few days to a week or so. Mix of who messages first.

2 weeks isn't too bad. Maybe they just assume you're fine if they haven't heard from you?

I'm in contact with mine all the time but I'm more likely to send a message in a group chat with pictures of my son or something and my parents more likely to actually call me.

Onee or the other of us every couple of months., We see each other a handful of times a year. Live 30 moles apart.