I dread phone calls with my deep thinking daughter

Agree with this.

I’ve had my IQ assessed as being in the top 0.1% of the population (only mentioning this as posters seem to be equating intelligence with interest in academia). I still don’t want to have a lot of deep conversations and would run away screaming from any kind of gathering of academics talking about their subjects.

Some people have a very narrow view of “intelligence”.

I was your daughter, and I was very aware that people found me exhausting. It made me hate that part of myself. I can do small talk, I find it very hard.

Unlike the arrogance that is suggested on this thread I have always wished I wasn’t like this. I wish I found small talk easy, and could chat about the weather, nails, whatever easily. It means I’ve found it hard to make mum friends, means I dread the hairdresser. I wish I was normal.

Im much better at normal chat now I’m older, but I find it exhausting. I chatted with an in-law over Christmas about his new Sky package, and about varying medical conditions. I basically spend all my time pretending to be someone else.

I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I think people who can chit chat are fa superior than me!

I think she needs to consider her audience when she is talking like this. You can have in-depth discussions with people who are interested in having them and with others you have different types of conversation and neither type of conversation has more or less value than the other. It's about communicating with others and maintaining a relationship with them. You have said it's too much for you and you want to talk about other things and yet she still does it. She needs to dial it back a bit with you.
I would also find it hard work. It's difficult to discuss things like that with people who have studied these topics and read (and continue to read) so many books on the subject. It's not something I'm interested in and I don't have the reading and knowledge to discuss philosophy in detail. I would have to say something her too, that her knowledge and ideas are way beyond mine and that I can't keep up with the conversation and can we please talk about something else. I'd then be changing the subject as much as possible. She's not wrong to want to talk about these things but she does need to choose appropriate discussion partners!
I studied chemistry and did 3 years of research for a PhD which I wasn't able to complete for reasons I won't go into here. I would never have dreamed about talking about my research in detail with my parents or non-chemist friends and expecting them to contribute their own opinion when none of them had a background in the subject. They all knew vaguely what I was working on but not the details and they didn't want or need to know the ins and outs of it.
It's the same for philosophy and religion. While a lot of people know a reasonable amount because there tends to be more general knowledge about these, it gets to a point when someone who has studied so much that the average person cannot keep up with the discussion, in exactly the same way as they'd find it very difficult to keep up with science topics at the higher levels.

Basically, she needs to talk to you about other things and learn the signs that show whether someone is interested and receptive to the discussion or not.

Well, we’re all different. A shame for you (and me) that we didn’t have mothers who were more similar to us!

You would rather engage in small-talk with your own child?: The minutiae of Aldi vs Tesco and how many flags are in your street? This is the stuff of work conversations with colleagues

Ds and l have had some hilarious conversations about Tesco v Aldi. As for flags, we are united in our dislike of them. This led into a short convo about history. But not deep and meaningful. Just fun.

Small talk is not 'contentless' and shows you don't really listen. I have only ever done small talk with some of my colleagues, however through their chit chat about their day, family, work etc. I understand how they view and react to certain situations and therefore their underlying philosophy and outlook on life. And I find this interesting and worthy, because people are as interesting and as worthy as each other however they choose to communicate.

I would suggest the people who think small talk is contentless and meaningless actually don't understand the subtleties of small talk, and how people use it to express emotions and deeper thoughts on things. They're missing out on a really natural and accessible way of communicating with others, and I think really narrowing down their options of who they can effectively communicate with. You can discuss a subject in many ways, not just through 'I'm having a deep and meaningful on this set subject'.

I also believe this way of thinking is a similar 'superior' attitude that European people had when they met Indigenous people in other countries... They thought that these people lacked intelligence because it didn't mirror the way of thinking and communicating. For instance it was genuinely thought that certain tribes of the American plains (can't remember their exact names sorry) didn't have the concept of 'history' or the past at all. That is because the Europeans failed to understand that these tribes past was communicated in a different way. It was associated with the landscape they lived in and the names they gave to features in the landscape which all had stories associated with them. They used these in conversation. So by saying the name of a certain hill let's say, for these people it instantly brought to mind the story associated with it. These were things seen and names mentioned in every day life and used to make decisions, teach morality, explain how someone felt in their current situation etc. So their 'history' was a living thing used all the time, and used in a very different way to Europeans (I have probably described this very badly but it's how I remember it). But because they didn't communicate it in the very set way we have of talking about history, 'this happened at this date and involved these people', Europeans decided they didn't even have the concept.

If they'd bothered to listen properly to the every day conversations and not just dismissed this as being of no importance, they would have realised this every day talk contained their history and important 'deep' concepts.

Repeated attempts at intellectual sparring and quizzing someone about a subject they know nothing about and therefore can’t respond to isn’t ok. Neither is ignoring someone’s requests for this to stop.

oh come on, the world doesn't need any more philosophy/theology research does it.

You would rather engage in small-talk with your own child?: The minutiae of Aldi vs Tesco and how many flags are in your street? This is the stuff of work conversations with colleagues, when you cannot escape and would rather look at that nice tree.

You should be grateful that she still considers you smart enough to engage in academic discourse. You should also be grateful that she looks up to you and wants to impress you.

A bit of projection here, but it's really sad when you realise you own mum is as thick as mince, doesn't want to do any mental grappling and just wants to talk about "Married without sight", even though she knows you haven't seen it. I will never forget the time I told her the dog died, she gave me a platitude and said "Janice has just collapsed in the diary room, I've got to go".

A telephone call is not really the place for this type of conversation though, so you should limit phone calls and meet up more often, or maybe text each other links to articles, or share books. Maybe steer the conversation to an area you're interested in. You are very lucky to have her. make her feel lucky to have you.

if you want to chat with me I am happy to have a private message

well I've done it many times, not because I want to change the track of he ongoing discussion, but because some relatively trivial thing has been said that awakes my interest and curiosity. I have also found that these diversions often open the discussion to very interesting and unexplored avenues to which most people want to contribute.

this is perfect

I have the same interests as your daughter and have a PHD from an elite university and have published books in the field. But im from a non intellectual working-class background and have a lot of other interests so can talk about a lot of things and most peopel are surprised when they find out im an academic. one of my friends who I have been going on holiday with for years thought I worked in the university as a kitchen help!!

my husband is however very intellectual and this was our main bonding ppint which has caused problems in our marriage if you look up my other posts.

But, and I dont want to scare you in any way - after I submitted my PhD I ended up having a kind of psychosis based around my research. thinking about existential questions every day all day really messed with my head and thats as somebody who did lots of other things and had a whole set of friends outside of academia. I got very very poorly and it changed my life forever. I lost who I was. I was that toddler and I can even remeenr my mum saying ot me back then you are exhausting I cant keep up with your questions. and then she said I was like the little girl form outnumbered and then Saffy from ABFab. and I was by far the least nerdy of my colleagues. I was researching things on social class so I had to be able to connect with 'normal' people and I was brilliant at that until I started believing I was a being used by the devil and all my theological knowledge came back to bite.

so I would say maybe keep an eye on her mental health.

I feel your pain but I was Abel to not be like this with people outside of academia

Honestly - no. Don’t do this!

My eldest son can be a bit like that.
I love him deeply but he literally frys my head sometimes.
I have reverted to when he was a toddler and talking at me, "sorry darling, mummys head is tired at the moment".
It works.

you don't need to feel like a dunce. You could pick out part of a comment that has been made, comment being eg. ' I've noticed most 40 year old men tend to wear dark brown clothes whilst drinking whisky and discussing Einstein's theory ', you could say 'do you think there's a reason why they all seem to pick dark brown?
This is an absolutely stupid example but I can't think of anything better atm, but you see the drift. An intelligent person will stop in their tracks and seriously consider your question. This will change the course of the discussion to another less heavy but equally interesting track

Tell me you know nothing about research (in either humanities or the sciences) without telling me, etc. Sigh. If you don’t actually really know about something, why not find out a bit more about it?

I much prefer deep conversations to small talk but unlike your daughter I’m afraid to bring it up and almost no one starts the conversation with me. I’d love it if someone was the same as me. I find talking about trivial things boring.

If that is all I was getting then I too would dread the calls. Imagine knowing that everything you say will be questioned, every opinion you hold interrogated to satisfy someone else's quest for meaning and understanding, that nothing you say will ever be accepted at face value. It would drive me to distraction. There's a time and a place for these conversations and sounds as though OP never has the opportunity to have a conversation on her terms. I have a good friend I see every couple of months. Conversations range from catching up about partners, pets, and work to, most recently, Japanese literature, Hegelian phenomenology, and the relevance of the work of Roland Barthes to one aspect of my friends job. Sometimes we spend the whole of our time moaning about work and you know what, that's fine.

Were you always like this, OP? I'm curious if maybe you've changed over the years without being aware of it, and your daughter is trying to connect with an older version of you. Did you used to have deeper conversations with her about tv shows? Did you used to read more? Were you more passionate about tennis in the past? I notice you say she's reconnected with religion, which was a feature of her childhood but you've had "little engagement with it lately". I wonder if that's true of the other interests she's trying to connect with you over as well.

thats me but strangely enough I never foisted it on others and was Abel to talk to anybody about their interests and keep the deep talk to my seminars

I think it has to do with maturity, or lack thereof- which is normal for a 20 something.
We all express this in different ways- I was into partying/raving and was completely uninterested in other people's lives.
As I've matured, I've become genuinely curious about the various people in my life, friends, shopkeepers, neighbours etc and as a result have meaningful small talk- which I would assert is actually the stuff of life!
As your daughter experiences more of life I have no doubt this will happen for her (especially if she ends up having kids- we all know how that brings us back to earth!)
I think it's lovely that she wants to phone and spend time with you as many her age would prefer to have little to do with their parents, but I appreciate it's very much on her terms and exhausting for you.
Best will in the world, she probably doesn't see you, "mum", as a fully rounded person yet but that will come.

TOO deep sorry

I think the fact you were able to talk to her about it is such a positive sign! She's learning how to handle people as an adult and as her mum you can gently help her adjust to others' conversation styles as she finds friends who match her needs and learns to rein in being too much sometimes intellectually. Maybe you can just say something light in conversations like "this is going to deep for me now!!"?

Sounds a bit like my DP. It is exhausting when he’s on his high horse about something (politics, poverty, the state of the world…) and won’t let it go. He thinks, and I’m inclined to agree, that it’s likely he’s on the spectrum somewhere, but he isn’t pushing for a diagnosis as he doesn’t see how it would necessarily help. My sympathies op - but if she’s a lovely person in other ways, just go with the flow? Occasionally I try and shut the conversation down with my partner (when he starts repeating points, just in different words, lol) but he’s lovely in other ways so I can live with it.