Lockdown Zoom catch up dilemma

[OkZoomer]

A large group of us in my family started having weekly Zoom calls last year, during the first lockdown, and we still do them now.

I do enjoy catching up with my family, but I also find the frequency of the calls a bit much, especially as we’ve now done them for almost a year, and they’re always based around one activity. Many of the calls also feel quite one-sided, with just a few family members monopolising the conversation, and not really letting anyone else contribute.

I think it would be really nice to vary the calls a bit, either by us doing a different activity or by us having less frequent calls. I tried to gently suggest this, but no one seemed keen.

I don’t want to push it by asking again, and equally don’t want to risk offending anyone by stopping going to the calls with no reason.

Any suggestions on how to approach this? Thanks!

Maybe a quiz? Take turns to organise? This is what we did.

However, we also had another wider family general chat and it was painful. Awful. A couple dominated and we just started saying we weren't available and had things with friends on zoom etc. It fizzled out

find an excuse to be busy at that time and miss a few

If no one is ready to change their activity, not much else you can do if you already make different suggestions.

You can pretend to start a class, have to work, plenty of excuses

This would do my head in. I'd have to be busy this week I'm afraid.

I can only say no one has taken offence at people dropping out of ours, and dropping down from weekly to once every 2 or 3 weeks. Anyone who's doing online working or learning will understand, and those who aren't, should.

I think I'd aim for fortnightly. Be busy for the first couple you miss, then maybe say you're struggling with zoom on top of the working week/supervising homeschool and you'll stick to fortnightly from noe on.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone.

I think you just need to be a bit more selfish tbh. Do every other call to show willing but don’t get locked into something that makes you miserable and eats up time.

Family life is always a bit of a trade off between supporting others without being a martyr and just because you are online only doesn’t mean you can’t have boundaries.

Thanks @thepeopleversuswork - good suggestion! I think I’ll just dial into the calls every couple of weeks instead, as that seems to be the solution least likely to cause an issue with everyone.

I’ve found it quite hard to approach this because I do enjoy spending time with my family, but this does feel a bit too much! Pre-lockdown, we would all get together about once or twice a year, which was lovely, and then smaller groups of us would get together independently.

Seeing each other face to face meant we could just enjoy each other’s company in a low-key way.

With the Zoom catch ups though, it’s now led to several family members dominating the conversation and lots of competitiveness about who’s done what and what everyone’s been up to in the lockdown (normally I could live with that, but it’s just felt too much too bear at points during the endless lockdowns we’ve been having)!

Having all of us on a call weekly has definitely been too much, but I’ve been so preoccupied in not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings and thinking my suggestion of less frequent call won’t be taken seriously that I haven’t brought it up again since first mentioning it.

*too much to bear

We have a weekly meeting too. It's becoming a bit soul crushing but it's for shielding relatives so we just suck it up. It wont last forever.

OKZoomer yes I totally get it: the fact that there's no physical contact sort of ups the ante and it ends up like a video version of those awful round robin letters at Xmas with everyone showing off about how successful their families are etc.

I'm sure you have tons of other stuff to get done so its perfectly reasonable to cry off every now and then saying you have something else to do. You need to keep up some degree of contact but this isn't work... it needs to fit with your life and not become a huge burden on you.

Can’t you do something on thr calls, like move it to a quiz? We do a quiz, everyone has a few drinks and we have a laugh, so no one is dominating it.

Ha exactly @thepeopleversuswork! At points, it does feel like a weekly version of braggy round robin letters 😂 my parents still get round robins every Christmas, and I’m always relieved I’ve never had to write or receive one!

@Bluntness100 we actually already do a quiz in these weekly calls. The quiz part is enjoyable, although because we’ve done it for so long, it’s getting a bit same-y as a format. I have suggested doing something else instead of a quiz, although the family member who initially suggested doing these catch ups really enjoys quizzes, and also none of the other family members in the catch up seemed to want to do anything else other than a quiz.

We also catch up during the calls, but the catch-up element is mostly a couple of family members updating us on their lockdown achievements, which I have started to find quite one-sided and irritating.