How much of your problems do you share with your parents?

[Hotbot272]

I've got a lot of problems at the moment. Just one thing after another, my health and DS's health are the main concerns and then lots of general life shit-issues in work, finances, house repair.

My mum and I are very close and I used to tell her everything but she's in her 70's now and I've started keeping stuff to myself, I don't want to burden her however, I'm really missing the support.

How much do you share or do you try and protect your parents too?

Nothing really. Mum just listens or criticises. Nothing constructive from her so I generally keep my mouth shut.

I hope my kids share more with me.

I told my children I don't mind if they have things between themselves and don't include me, something's you just don't want to talk to the older generation or parents about and that's ok.

I share a lot with my mum (also early 70s) and she’s very supportive but I’ve also begun to worry about the burden on her. I recently went through a very long period of work stress and did overshare/lean on her too hard, which I’m sorry for now although she never complained. I have now had therapy to help recover from it and was pleasantly surprised by how helpful it was - I always felt (probably wrongly) that therapy was only for problems that couldn’t be solved by talking to real-world family and friends but now realise it can help to protect importing relationships from becoming too burdened.

*important

V. little. I only have my Dad (83) now and he’s a stressed type with health issues so I minimize my problems. He offloads to me a lot, far more than he does to my step-Mum. I’ve essentially replaced my Mum as his emotional rock ( she died, then he met my SM).

I offload to my best friend and sometimes to my DH, but I’m careful what I say as I don’t want to hurt feelings. My children, OTOH, completely offload to me and now they’re teenagers, it can be exhausting when they’ve both had a bad day.😂

as little as possible.
my parents tend to worry a lot which results in them doing google research (badly) and trying to give advice. preferably by phoning me at 2am...

Nothing. She is 90 now but I've never shared info with her. Honestly I don't think she has ever been interested!

@purplesequins

as little as possible. my parents tend to worry a lot which results in them doing google research (badly) and trying to give advice. preferably by phoning me at 2am...

Yes, Purple, this has happened with my Dad too! He worries about it and then phones in the early hours wanting to talk about it. All I want him to do is go to bed!

No, my mother turns everything into something that affects her which means my siblings and myself would have to spend more time & energy reassuring her/drying her tears/hearing about her sleepless nights etc than we would solving any problem we had. We don't tell her anything.

I'd love to know what having a supportive parent would be like.