What is "normal" contact with an adult child who lives away?

[Cocoagrowing]

DS is moving, with his GF, a very long way away.

I'm very happy for him, he's going for a great opportunity and a lovely lifestyle. GF is nice enough although neither of us have made an effort to be "close", on my part mainly because I didn't want to interfere and have let them lead. They haven't actually been together long and this has been a very quick decision. She's already moved to "the place", I won't have any opportunity to see her over Christmas, as she won't be here. He currently lives with me, so it's a big change. He goes before the end of the year.

When I was a child we lived far from GPs. My Dad spoke to his parents once in a blue moon and wrote never. Mum (and we children) spoke to her parents, without fail, every Sunday evening and wrote once a week. This was a time when sometimes that meant going to the phone box, depending on where we were living.

My sister also lives away and speaks to Mum every Sunday evening. I know DSis hasn't always loved the sense of "having" to find the time to do that.

Anyway, obviously I'd like to keep in touch with DS, hear about his new life, and be there should he (they) need me. I'm kind of accepting that I'll have to drive any contact and make sure it happens, but I also don't want to be a nuisance or cause any friction in their relationship.

So I'm assuming a fixed time weekly call isn't the way to go, but how would you approach staying in touch with your son without being a pain? Woukd you accept it's going to WhatsApp messages on the whole or would you expect to speak too. How often?

I think we have a good healthy realtionship but nothing like the "best friend" some parents claim. He talks to me a lot about work/career stuff, not so much about his love life!

I wouldn't have a set day and time for a call as that's restrictive for both of you.
I live abroad and stayed in touch with my Mam via aol messenger (long time ago now), we played various games online too and we used skype. My Dad and I sent emails every day. Once my Mam died my Dad and I would arrange a time to call via email. He was out a lot and so was I, whereas my Mam was unwell for years and was always at home so it was easy just to skype whenever. Neither of them had smartphones.

I stay in touch with other family members and friends via WhatsApp. We message a couple of times a week and every so often we'll arrange a time for a video call. I think that's the best way to go about it.

I have a son who is 3 hours away.
I just casually text every few days, ask how he is, any news.
Give him any news here.
He texts back when he has time.
Keeping it casual and easy is key.
He rings when he needs advice about something and we chat.

OP, its a big change for you and you will be surprised how much you miss him, but if you get into a really easy dynamic of texting him generic questions regularly, you will develop an easy pattern that will be easy to maintain and will make it very easy for him to reach out to you.

I often send snippits of news from our area and keep him gently informed which he likes.
Best of luck.

Why don’t you ask him what he’d prefer?
I live about the same distance from my parents. They call once a week on a Sunday, unless one of us is busy or they’ve got something in particular they want to discuss. It’s just a routine we’ve got into I actually won’t mind if it was more.
We try to see them roughly every 6-8 weeks. If we lived closer i’d want see them more.

I’m in my 30s with small children so commenting more as the child in the relationship, but I’m in very regular WhatsApp contact with both my parents through the family WhatsApp and individually. Maybe not daily, but very rarely more than a few days. A mix of what we are up to, funny things we have seen, DIY help, offers of random bits of furniture, articles/podcast recommendations, memes, funny videos etc. I’ll let you figure out who sends what based on age 🙈

We don’t really do phone calls, definitely not “just to catch up”.

We actually see each other probably every couple of months and they are an hour away, although I see my mum a bit more often as she helps out with occasional childcare and is obsessed with trying to “do” my garden that I don’t have the interest/time/money to invest in. We always make an effort to see each other around birthdays, Christmas, Easter and Mothers/Father’s Day. With plenty of autumn birthdays that covers the year pretty well.

My daughter moved away for school in September. We message every day. And speak to one another every couple of days.
I’m sure it will be less once she has a wider social life …

Myself and Dd whats app everyday, sometimes just one message, sometimes several messages. As long as I know she's ok I don't mind, she tends to call once a week

My mother and I exchange messages on all Sunday mornings..she occasionally updates me on stuff during the week , not every week.
My eldest son and I have a Heardle competition every morning. I WhatsApp him my results, he sends his. Either can go first. It’s a fun way of letting the other know we are still alive 🤣 . No pressure to answer straight away. It might or might not lead to more communication, if there’s something interesting to say. We actually communicate more than the son who lives 15 minutes away.

I also think a set time, but with flexibility to cancel when life gets in the way. That’s what we do with my son in Canada. We didn’t at first, and weeks could go by with just a few messages. It’s quite a short call, and always better when my other kids also pitch in with random comments… more like a convo in real life.

Oh you’re such a lovely mum! As hard as it is you may just have to see how it goes to start with until a more natural routine sets itself.
Ages 18-25, I was completely self involved I won’t lie. But as I’ve got older and now I have my own DS 1, i’m absolutely desperate for that closer relationship and more contact. Sadly my mum doesn’t seem to be driving the effort much, but maybe that was because I didn’t for 7 years. A bit sad really.
We always love and need our mums and as he gets older he will likely come back to you ❤️

We use WhatsApp,and DD calls us somewhere between once and twice a fortnight when it suits her - she’s working full time and has much busier social life than us. But some of those calls, especially if her BF is working late or away can be long enough for us to need a wee break😂
we visit each other a few times a year and she (and sometimes her BF) come on holiday with us.

It all depends, doesn't it? DS lives 15 mins walk from me but it can be a month before I hear from him. However, he works nights 6x a week, sometimes 12 hour shifts so - no wonder! On the other hand, I sometimes come downstairs in the morning & he's watching telly, so it's swings & roundabouts.
I would totally let your son drive the communication - if you normally get on, a silence isn't sinister - he's on an adventure!

I work full-time with a young child and husband, and my dad manages to keep in contact with me marvellously. Basically, he puts no pressure on me. He tends to WhatsApp message me, so we keep in touch with a few witty funny messages. If we do have a phone call, it’s generally me who instigates it and he always says about 10 minutes in, oh you can go if you want I know how busy you are, but that just makes me want to talk to him longer.

On the other hand, my mother-in-law gets it wrong. She puts pressure on my husband to have phone calls, instead of just messages. In essence she’s a talker not a listener so it’s 45 minutes of his life in a call. She won’t really engaging in witty banter or funny little comments that he can respond to during the day, so the relationship is very much one of a forced fortnightly phone call where he sits with his mother on speakerphone and doesn’t listen.

It’s a shame, I think it’s because she had to do that for her Mother. But I suggest you do what my dad does. Every now and then he just sends me a message saying love you hope I have a good day and he was thinking of me and some other little witty comment. I love him so much.

Our DD lives in a slightly different time zone o/s. Her Dad and she might text each other every now and then, but she and I have a messenger conversation going which would be most days I initiate contact.

In times of need such as when her pet here went missing, she checked in a lot as well as re-initiated her access to our external house camera subscription to see if he turned up if I was out.

it seems to work for us.

haven’t heard if she has a permanent relationship though. Will also let her take the lead to tell us when she wants to. I know she has a very good friend but hadn’t indicated he is anything else. Wouldn’t surprise me though.

We have a family WhatApp group where we all drop random photos and comments, our DC were not close growing up so I’m surprised how well this works but if someone posts something everyone responses.

I also message each of them about random stuff. I try not to make it sound like something that needs a reply, so they can ignore me if they want. The DS who lives furthest away has a busy social life but rings every Sunday and we have a long chat about what we’ve all been up to. He’ll usually send me a message to check if I’m free for a chat. We find that system works well for us.

I think you’re overthinking this. Also why are you so worried about GF? She’s not replacing you but it sounds like you’re overly concerned about her existence.
if you have a good relationship with your son then this will develop organically. It will be and photos and WhatsApp’s as and when relevant. The odd phonecall when he needs mum advice to know how to cook shepherds pie or wash a bloodstain out of a sports kit. Birthday phonecalls etc
you sound like you want to maintain an old-fashioned method because you don’t have faith in your relationship with your son or are inventing problems with your relationship with his GF that don’t exist.

Dd lived the other side of the world to me for a year and we did set up a time on a Sunday otherwise it was difficult to get the timezones right. If it’s a difficult timezone I would set up a call but be prepared to be flexible when they have other plans!

I speak to my son at least one a week and we have contact by Whatsapp every day - even if it is sharing something silly we have seen on social media. He visits once, maybe twice a month. I imagine as he gets older and has his own family this will become less - unless he moves back to the area he was bought up ( which is commuter distance to London and work).

No idea ? I speak with my mum and dad daily ( they live abroad ) my sister every other day .

I think you should have a chat with ds and certainly broach the idea of a set time, perhaps once a fortnight. Relationships do take effort and commitment so I see no harm in telling him openly that you are happy to be party to that and that you hope he is, too.

I live in the same town as my Dad, and only 1 town away from my Mum. I don’t speak to them every week without fail. It doesn’t usually go beyond 10 days though.

I live a plane journey from my mum, we speak when we need to speak to each other & WhatsApp through the week. We also have a family WhatsApp group, sometimes we put lots on, other times it’s months but we all have lives so contact when we need/want/have time to. Sometimes it’s just a “Hiya how’re you?” other times it’s for a purpose.

My Dad lives 40 mins away & I see/speak to him less as he also is always busy. We make a point of speaking after a few weeks if no contact but that could be a message or a call.

Just contact, your son, at least once a week and see how it goes. My brother lives abroad too, he leaves us all unread unless you send a photo so I send random pics to make him open the message 🤣 He’s very busy so we accept we don’t hear from him unless he wants something but doesn’t mean he doesn’t love us. I saw him a few weeks ago & told him that mum is still waiting for a call back from 4 weeks ago 🤦‍♀️

Maybe you could have a WhatsApp group that includes his GF so you get to have a relationship with her too & hear more about what they are doing etc. Make her feel she’s part of your family too.

Don’t worry, your son will be in touch but you may have to be the one to instigate messages until it becomes the norm.

Trying not to be the stereotype MIL is a rocky road. When I went through the same as you, I talked to my son to see how he felt. I said "For the first time ever, you won't be there to talk to and I will miss that terribly but however much I'm wanting to call you every day, I promise I won't. I have all the time in the world but you don't so I'm going to leave it up to you. Call whenever, face time would be even nicer - what about lunchtimes?" Lunchtime is a way of saying 'not when she's around'. Face time means it's on speaker so that's iffy at home.

I might be wrong but between the lines, am I seeing that you aren't too keen on the gf? 2 of my sons have had appalling gfs and my tongue still has ridges left from having to bite it. Luckily my 2 got ditched so I could commiserate and never have to say I told you so.

Somewhere in the DM / DS equation there's a never to judge clause. The trouble is that we are more fussy than they are but we are the ones who made them so ! All we want to do is avoid their pain but they don't see it that way!

Your 4 kids sound great, the other 2 don't count - their loss.
What did we do before WhatsApp or even Skype? I have 4 kids who we dragged all around Africa and Asia till Uni when they were in Europe but that was before face time existed and in half the places where we were the phones didn't work. We all emailed a lot, mine long and theirs usually much shorter. I am so tempted to call every day but I remember how my Dad did and it drove me mad!