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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To find this so tiresome? Mum and phone contact

52 replies

VegasWithRadishes · 14/12/2017 10:38

Hi,
My mum lives overseas,
a 10hr time difference at the moment (varying due to clocks going backwards and forwards) we do try to talk a bit daily.
We both have iMessage and FaceTime. If I text and don't respond I get something like this (x being my name)

Hey x you about?
Hey! You here?
X!
X!
Oi!

OP posts:

tiptopteepe · 14/12/2017 12:14

I think you are doing a great job of staying in contact with your mum. Please dont listen to all these guilt tripping other posters. If you are speaking to her once a day, then her calling and messaging multiple times is innapropriate, annoying and claustrophobic. Unless its a genuine emergency obviously.

I think its totally fine to set boundaries with this. Just calmly tell her that you will contact her every day but that you would appreciate it if she did not repeatedly message you and call you if you arent immediately responding. She my be a little upset by that or take it as an insult at first but im sure if she is a reasonable person, when shes had a bit of time to think about it she will realise that it is quite invasive to message someone that much even if they are your child. If shes not a reasonable person then theres not that much you can do about her reaction but I think its still a good idea to make these boundaries otherwise this whole thing will end up putting a strain on your relationship because you will be annoyed by her all the time and she may sense that and possibly be even more needy as a result.

Mummyoflittledragon · 14/12/2017 12:16

You speak to your mother daily . She’s a year younger than me. Do you want to talk to her daily?

mindutopia · 14/12/2017 12:21

I live overseas from my mum. Thankfully, mine wasn't really the type who just randomly called even before this (we've pretty much always lived far from each other, even when in the same country). What I've found helps is making pre-planned times to call. We don't really ever randomly call each other at another time. It would drive me mad if she was just randomly calling because obviously the time difference means I'm usually at work or going to bed when she's free or in the middle of cooking dinner. If we schedule it and only talk those times (obviously unless it's an emergency or something), I can plan it for a time when I am free to talk and it's much easier on both of us (she's retired, she can talk literally like any time). Would that work?

mindutopia · 14/12/2017 12:25

For the record, I literally talk to mine about twice a month! It is for about 1-1.5 hours each time (via Skype). Except when I was like 18 and still living at home, we've never talked daily. Maybe weekly when I still lived in the same country. We do email regularly just to keep on top of anything that's going on, but that doesn't trigger a phone call. If it did, I'd be keeping it to a minimum.

Tinty · 14/12/2017 12:27

Are you quite young OP, is she feeling a bit bad about living abroad whilst you, her baby are fending for yourself?

Maybe she just texts you and sends you emoji's because she thinks it is fun, us oldies can get a bit hung up on the the new technology (well me mainly ). I was very excited when I finely got a phone which does emoji's and kept sending messages to DD and DS with them on, I get rolled eyes and muuum from them.

I am about your mum's age and I do the same thing to DS who is away at Uni. I send a text then a few emoji's then a text asking him to call me, but only if I really need to speak to him. (Are you my DS?, just kidding, we are at least in the same country). The reason I send a few texts is because DS is often texting his friends/girlfriend and if I need to ask him something I think he will miss a single text, whereas if I send him a few texts he will text me back, probably to shut me up because he loves me.

hereitis · 14/12/2017 12:27

It doesn't sound like a healthy relationship tbh.

ThunderboltsLightning · 14/12/2017 12:28

I live round the corner from my parents and if we are all busy, i can easily go a week or more without speaking. Every day would be too much

RebeccaBunch · 14/12/2017 12:32

tell your Mum how annoying you find this.
reassure her that you want to talk with her, and you will reply when you are free.

You talk to her everyday - so talk to her about this!!

zzzzz · 14/12/2017 12:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

dustarr73 · 14/12/2017 12:37

Im 44 and thats way too much.It doesnt sound healthy tbh.Maybe a preplanned call once a week would be better.

Plus what would you have to talk about every day.

babyboomersrock · 14/12/2017 12:40

when it's 5pm here she's waking up, so I'll chat to her while she has her morning coffee and then text back and forth a bit until 11pm where I'll go to bed, then when I get up it's 11pm ish for her, she'll chat to me while I get up etc. I speak to her all the time, I don't deserve to get the "when she passes away" line. Plus, she's not a doddery pensioner. She's not even 45 yet!

I'm amazed you find enough to talk about. Does your mum not have a job or hobbies? I'm 70 and I'd be far too busy for all that - and I hope that even when I'm ancient, I won't be badgering my family for more contact. I use text and FB messaging to keep in touch - as well as actual visits - but we all have busy lives and I don't expect them to be at my beck and call. If it's urgent, I'd call them - if it's just keeping in touch, none of us expects instant replies.

HermioneAndTheSniffle · 14/12/2017 12:41

Ive spent nearly 20 years in your position.
Granted, internet and FaceTime etc.. didn’t exist at the time so it was only very expensive phone calls.
But a once a week call was plenty to stay in touch and keep our relationship going.
Actually now that my parents have moved near me, I still dint talk to them everyday.

The ‘if she was dead’ comment is totally unhelpful. Distance doesn’t allow family/parents to act like this.

I think you need to set clearer boundaries.
Tell her that younreally enjoy your chats together.
Tell her that as much as possible you would like to talk to her everyday (if you ARE happy theth that!)
But that you also have som much to do that you can’t always answer text/FaceTime straight away. Tell her it makes you feel under pressure and quite bad.
Ask her if she could help you on that matter and how you organise the daily contact in a way that is also leaving you space to do all the things ou need to do.

With my parents we have a clear organisation whereby we were ringing each other in x day at y time.
Maybe a clearer structure would help you both. You would know when you will speak to her so will be free to rest of the time. She will have the assurance you will speak with her.
Unfortunately you cant have the same spontaneity than whe. You are in the same country. (but then that behaviour would drive me mad anyway!!)

neonpink · 14/12/2017 12:43

mine is not quite the same, but similar in that she calls me every single day. I think it's because she worries about me, as a LP. Sometimes I just find it too much, I have something to do all day every day, then the phone rings just as I am getting some peace!! It's hard to talk all the time and a bit annoying, but on the difficult days it's nice to chat.

I've been having the same dilemma in terms of asking if she could phone a bit less often. But also feeling guilty!

I sometimes ignore her calls, if I am super busy or whatever. Maybe once or twice a week I don't pick up....

HermioneAndTheSniffle · 14/12/2017 12:43

Sorry Xpost. I’m too slow typing!

What is your mum doing here she is? Is she working, does she have friends?
It sounds like she is leaning on you excessively to break some loneliness tbh.

nokidshere · 14/12/2017 12:44

I can never understand what the problem is really with texts and/or messages. My phone goes off fairly regularly throughout the day, sometimes I get more than one text from the same person. I don’t always want or have time to answer immediately so I just ignore. When I call later I dont mention it I just call and speak as normal.

Why are you allowing yourself to be bothered by it?

Frederickvonhefferneffer · 14/12/2017 12:46

I understand your frustration, my mam does something similar, we both live rurally and pgone signal has always been iffy. Whilst we are talking we regularly get cut off, so when I call her back she says, what happened there? I don’t know what happened there? Did we get cut off? Oh I don’t understand what happened! Etc etc for a good 5 minutes before our conversation can resume. It’s tiresome, it used to annoy the hell out of me but I’ve tried to change my perception of it, and now I smile and think it’s amusing.

Viviennemary · 14/12/2017 12:58

Every day is ridiculous IMHO. Set a time once or twice a week and talk then. I don't see it is necessary to talk everyday unless we're talking about a very sick housebound parent.

DiegoMadonna · 14/12/2017 13:02

Leave your phone on silent? If it's only 10-15 minutes, is it really that big a deal? Your phone is not literally "blowing up", after all.

Motoko · 14/12/2017 13:09

Ignore the shitty comments about if she was dead. Trying to guilt trip someone is a nasty thing to do. And saying that they changed your nappy etc, so basically you owe them is bollocks. Your parents chose to have you, so that's down to them.

My mum's 30 years older than yours, with a life limiting illness, and I have terminal cancer, so we're both very aware of our mortality, yet we only speak twice a week, at around the same time on the same days.
I speak to my adult kids a lot less, as they have busy lives.

Your mum is far too needy, especially at only 45. You need to speak to her and say something along the lines that other posters have suggested. If she gets upset or huffy, that's for her to deal with.

madcatwoman61 · 14/12/2017 13:38

I am much older than your mum and retired. I have 4 adult children all over the place, one with severe anxiety - I do not speak to any of them daily, let alone twice a day, it would drive us all mad! I have other things to do and so do they, and I generally assume things are ok unless notified otherwise. I would worry about your mother’s state of mind being this needy

Original poster

VegasWithRadishes · 14/12/2017 15:55

I really don't mind how much we talk - just pointing out that I haven't left her in a corner and forgotten about her....
Its not a problem for me, so please don't fixate on that.
My problem is the constant texting or phoning if I don't immediately respond.
I think several missed calls and texts in 15 minutes is a problem tbh and would class that as "blowing up". If I'm trying to deal with my child, or I'm away from my phone, it's irritating. I can't put my phone on silent, either. Different reason for that though.

She has a job albeit part time, a handful of friends. Not particularly social but never really has been....
I think this has gone a bit off track;
I have no problem with speaking to her daily. My problem is her thinking that if I don't answer the first message she should send me another 6 and try calling me 3 or 4 times in 10-15 minutes. It's irritating, it pisses me off. I wouldn't take it off anyone else either, if I try to challenge her she doesn't get the point. Eg
"Mum, I was trying to deal with ds when you phoned. I couldn't come to the phone. Next time please just message me once and I'll get back to you when I'm able to"
"God sorry I didn't know! Did you think I was psychic? I didn't know you were dealing with ds... " she misses the point.... I snapped earlier time will tell if it makes a difference I suppose.
Sorry if I don't make much sense it's early hours here and I'm very much sleep deprived.

OP posts:

ptumbi · 14/12/2017 16:23

Ok - well, then you always leave the texts for 15 minutes. Every.Single.Time.

She'll soon get the message that you only respond after 15mins. (might take a while)

Then you up it to 20 minutes. Then 30.

Turn the ringtone right down.

Honestly, this is ridiculous. No-one needs to be in contact several times a day, unless in an emergency.

waxy1 · 14/12/2017 18:18

Sometimes people have to be told.

“Message once, then wait.”

Intercom · 14/12/2017 18:56

Does your mum get fixed on other things in your the same way? Does the repetitive narrow focus on a particular task show up in other parts of her life?

BrokenBattleDroid · 14/12/2017 19:15

"Hi mum, just thinking about the times that I'm not available straight away when you message/ring. I always hear the phone but sometimes can't get to it for a few mins (toilet/changing ds/shower etc). Would you mind sending one message only as it can be a bit much hearing my phone chiming endlessly while my hands are tied. Not your fault at all, I know you have no idea what I'm up to, but as I can't leave my phone on silent when I'm busy it would be really helpful if you could help me out in that way. I will always get back to you as quick as I can as I love our talks. Lots of love xxxx"

Would that work? Or too patronising?

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