What is one thing your parents will never learn?

[TwoManyKids]

Light hearted!
My mum refuses to learn the difference between the WiFi and mobile data. She runs her data down at home (messing around with settings and accidently turning off wifi) and obsessively hounds waiters/baristas for WiFi codes when we are out! I keep telling her she is paying for data and she can use it!
What is something your parents can't get their heads around?
Also She'll also hopefully never learn it was me and now my sibling who dinged the car twenty years ago!

How to answer a video call. I don't know why, she answers a phone call just fine, but every video call:
"Hello? Hello? Shoot, I can't do this. I don't know how to turn this thing on. Hello? Can you see me? Shoot, I can't see anything" etc ect for about 60 seconds 😁 me and the kids love it. Its hilarious

That to be told by my Dad on my birthday every single year that he couldn't believe he had a daughter x years old wasn't amusing, clever or kind. Especially as I got to 40 and beyond. When I finally snapped he told me what I should have already realised - that he was really saying what he couldn't believe was that he was old enough to have a daughter x years old. Which made me feel a whole lot better 🙄

Online banking. Although given they never run the security updates on the laptop and iPad it’s probably for the best!
i also seem to be the only person in our family who can use google. It’s like they’d rather expend the energy on wondering about something e.g. shop opening hours, than actually look it up.

That at nearly 60, sometimes I really do know best 😁

Empathy

Or that they both need hearing aids now!

@squashyhat that's a pretty normal thing to feel I think? It shocks me every year my son is another year closer to 18, age is a fact not an insult? I'm not sure why you'd take it as an insult for a parent to be shocked at time passing which is all he's saying, you are older!

That parenting should not be transactional. If you want to help me/my family just do it but please don’t expect that we must do everything to your pleasing forever or be reminded constantly of said help.
Also, when you have failed to grasp the above we will no doubt talk leas and not see each other as often.
Along the same line if you want to see / wish you had spent more time with your grandchildren you have to talk to them and make plans with them. It doesn’t happen by magic.

Online shopping- refuses to put her card details in, questions why they need her address (how are they going ro know where to deliver it????) and is generally terrified that she'll do "something wrong". So anything she wants ordered she'll ask me to do, then make a trip to the bank to do a bank transfer to me.

Make that two 😉

What my job is (roughly). I'm a tech lawyer and my mum just mumbles 'I think maybe something to do with contracts and computers'. I mean, just 'lawyer' would be fine and surely easier to understand 🤣

If you're not connected to WiFi then your phone uses data to connect to the internet. If you use WhatsApp to text then that's the internet so it uses data not texts/minutes.

If anything's open on a tan in the background (Amazon, internet, Mumsnet, Sainsbury’s etc) then it will use data when you're not connected to the WiFi.

If it frequently says you've run out then your data package is likely tiny. Double check you're not being charged fees for going over your data allowance.

That the robot vacuum doesn't have eyes and can't do corners. She often sweeps in front of it as it goes around, and then complains if it misses a bit!

Also, that we don't eat cake or scones on a weekly, let alone daily basis, so she doesn't need to worry about baking. Every day, solidly, when she comes to visit.

That it is possible to tidy up after yourself as you cook. And there's no need to use every pot, pan and utensil in the house. I hated this growing up when I always had to do the washing up (while my younger siblings slunk off) and I still hate it now!

Also piling stuff up by the sink. If I've used something and it can't go in the dishwasher then I just wash it straight away unless I'm in a massive rush.

That it doesn't need to take 3 hours to get up, have breakfast and get ready to start the day!

I love my parents but on these things we differ (and obviously my way is the best way lol).

I don't look down on them for tech related failings as I am equally as clueless. I don't know how many times DH has explained how to work the TV to me but it just goes in one ear and out the other. My FIL got DH to write him a simple instruction sheet for his TV and I think I need the same!

My parents are the opposite. Eg this week their internet wasn’t working (the didn’t mention or I’d have looked into it for them) so they decided the solution was to buy 2 new iPads…

That I am my own person with my own DC, and not just their DC, there to do their bidding

I'm in my 60, and still give my AC advice (whether they ask for it or not). That's because people of my age have got experience with so many things in life.

That she isn't better than people who have tatoos

And yet @IheardYouButDontWantToAnswer sometimes the supportive thing is to listen, to let your children make their own mistakes and perhaps trust that they’ve done their own research.

Your mum sounds amazing - hope to be like her when I'm 81

That is perfectly acceptable for other people to have different tastes to my mum. She constantly bleats on about ‘she has tattoos! On her arm! I just don’t understand why anyone would do that”. “You’re going to Ibiza for a hen do? I cannot understand why anyone would do that!”

I always say you don’t HAVE to understand it. I don’t understand why anyone would have 12 dinner sets they never use, just sit in a cupboard but I guess we are all different mother

I agree with this. My parents will never, ever give advice which is too far the other extreme but my DH is a terror for dispensing "useful" advice when I just want someone to vent to.

People are saying that their parents do particular things, not that they think all old people do them. In the case of my examples, my parents have been doing these things my whole life, and it's only been the latter part of it that they would have been considered "old".

Been married 20 years, my DH is a data scientist. My DM is still convinced that means he fixes computer hardware for a living.....

That PayPal isn't a scam.

That online banking is used by nearly everyone now, without all their money somehow being stolen.

That text messages and WhatsApp are different things.

That you don't need to have your mobile phone plugged in and charging every single second that its not in your bag.

That TV programmes are now in a letter box format and that if you change it to a square shape using the remote, you lose part of the picture off the edge of the screen.

That having a filthy, dirty house doesn't make people think you're cool, interesting and have such a fun filled life you're too busy to clean. It just makes you look dirty or mentally ill.

That no one likes your dog.

That I have never liked tomato juice really.