To not respond to DFs messages?

[nancywhitehead]

My dad's in his 60's, has a mental illness and lives on his own 200 miles away from me. He has some family support nearby from my aunt and uncle, and I visit when I can (although not recently due to Covid). I know that he's lonely though and I make an effort to talk to him every weekend for an hour or two especially since Covid.

Anyway, he has a really daft sense of humour. Like really "dad jokes". But also sometimes sexist and cringey. He's recently got WhatsApp, which is a nightmare as he has been sending me loads of memes and youtube videos. They are meant to be funny but I just don't find them funny... they're either slapstick (like a dog falling off a couch)... or sexist humour like a man complaining about his wife.... or just jokes about alcohol etc. The kind of stuff you might see on greetings cards.

So when he first started doing this I would just respond with "lol" or something, even though I didn't find them funny. The problem is if I do that, as soon as he sees my response he will send 5 more! They're endless.

How would you deal with this situation? I know I could confront him but I just worry that he will feel rejected (he gets very depressed and often feels like he has not been a good father for various reasons, even though he has, it's part of his illness). I don't know whether to just stop responding? AIBU?

This isn’t a big enough deal to warrant ‘confrontation’. Not all discussions or disagreements have to be hostile. Can’t you just talk to him? ‘Dad, please don’t be offended if I don’t reply to all your messages - I’m really busy and don’t always have time, but I love hearing from you and keeping in touch. Mind you, that last one was pretty sexist/crass/offensive - I’m not really keen on seeing more memes like that one. How’s your garden looking/what’s the cat up to/seen anything good on your walk lately? I’d much rather see your photos than someone else’s internet stuff.’

He’s a long way away and trying to keep in touch with his child. Absolutely you should challenge him if his content is unacceptable, but otherwise can’t you just reply every so often? It sounds as though you value his contact enough not to upset him so it seems to matter that you have him in your life.

My mother used to send me what she called “funnies”. They weren’t. I just scrolled on.

Ask him to stop sending picture and video memes as they are eating up your data and costing you a lot. That will probably reduce the spam by three quarters

Just reply with something completely off topic like “how’s the weather there today?” Or say “God Dad that’s awful 🤦‍♀️“

I would just respond once a day via a wattsapp message. It will take seconds , just a general comment so he has had some contact back. Hopefully things will open up soon.

Not everything needs to be a confrontation. Whatever happened to having a normal conversation and just telling him you don’t find it funny....

Eye roll 🙄 emoji or 👍. I like thumbs up as it just doesn’t invite further conversation but you can’t be accused of being rude. If he responds with several more straight away then just don’t reply to those.

@ChancesWhatChances

Not everything needs to be a confrontation. Whatever happened to having a normal conversation and just telling him you don’t find it funny....

Thanks for the suggestions, like the thumbs up idea, that's what I have often done tbh 👍 and am looking forward to lockdown being eased for sure.

Whatever happened to having a normal conversation and just telling him you don’t find it funny....

That's fine for when you're talking about people who are "normal" i.e. not suffering from severe mental illness/ paranoia etc. "Normal" conversations aren't always easy in this case due to the way he processes things and responds.

But yeah confrontation was too strong a word, I couldn't think of the right word at the time of posting but I guess I just meant raising it directly.

Could you tell him your phone's memory is jammed because of all the videos and can he not send them?

Generational thing.

Many of those in their 60s find things funny that our generation find offensive.

I’ll be honest. I find a lot of them funny too, but would never never never ever ever ever repeat them.

I know that means I’m probably going to hell for admitting that, but how does one remove thought crime from one’s brain? Can anyone recommend a course?

I rue the day my dm learnt how to forward Facebook rubbish. Endless videos.
As she has no idea whether they're 'phishing' links I asked her not to send them as I wouldn't open them.
Unsurprisingly she's ignored me, so I don't respond to any meme, video etc and just message normally other times.

My older brother (37) is like this. Didn't matter how many times I asked him to stop and he didn't so I took to ignoring all of those messages but answering others

Thumbs up makes it seem like you agree it like the message. A thumbs down would indicate you didn't like it.

I'd just delete the memes and not respond.

The approach I'm taking in a similar scenario is not responding to the memes/ making a face or a thumbs down when something is in bad taste, and instead proactively sending nice messages regularly NOT in response to forwarded rubbish.

I wonder if your dad is craving brief more regular human contact - even just a texted hello - as well well as your longer weekend chats.

Just ignore and put the mute feature on WhatsApp. From my experience with mentally ill relatives is that any confrontation will be taken badly and very personally (they'll keep thinking on and on about what you said) and you have to tread sensitively around them. It can be exhausting, I know.