to feel phoning my parents is a duty rather than a pleasure.

[TasticFantastic]

I'm the daughter, brother is two years younger.
Grew up with lots of 'my house, my rules' one rule or expectation for girls, another for boys.
Younger brother is definitely golden child to the point we joke about me being No 2.
So teen years pretty grim, couldn't wait to leave home. This is making me a better parent to my own teens
Now in my late 40s
I hate the duty phone call, I hate the parenting advice, the relentless talk about people I haven't met. The bitching about relatives, the adoration of my feckless, lazy brother.
The pity party because she hates not being able to go on expensive cruises, how eating soup from Waitrose is such a chore.
I now minimise the amount of information I give her because it gets spread around the family or totally judged in her standard way. Eg ' interviewed on BBC2, shame it's not on BBC1'

AIBU, tried drinking, tried playing stupid phone farming games, each phone call gets more duty like. I know their past, their background how tough it was for four years in the 70s but I feel their 'respect your parents' has killed any love and I find their small talk really boring.

I’m with you OP except mine is the MIL and not my own DM who expects constant phone calls.

Went over today and discussed how DS is struggling at school and with his MH on a huge scale and is extremely low currently. MIL proceeds to tell me how BILs DS is in top sets for every lesson and is going to go to Uni! How she knows this when she never sees him god only knows but it’s just another way of sticking the knife in. I just felt like saying how fucking wonderful.

I say this kindly, but you could call them?

I keep communication to WhatsApp as much as I can. My mother can use it but not email . I don’t give her any information as it gets broadcasted to other relatives immediately as it makes her feel important. She wants photos of the grandchildren so she can forward them in to people and make herself look like a loving grandmother.
She lacks empathy and talks about herself all the time. I’ve just been away for a week and she sent me WhatsApp messages about people I don’t know and a funeral she’s attending. Never asked once how I was getting on.
I dread speaking to her and have blocked her on my landline after she started calling very early in the morning about nothing. My siblings can do no wrong and I am the Black Sheep.
The sad thing is my daughter rarely calls me and I know she doesn’t relish doing so either. So the pattern continues.

I hear you. I also hate the awkwardness of not knowing how to respond when she says something that's casually racist. Also when she pretends to be stupid when I try to explain how to do something very basic on her computer that would benefit her and that she's more than capable of understanding. I also have very little interest in hearing, second hand, what my older brothers are up to since they never bother to contact me.

The expectation is that I phone her once a week and it's been this way since I left home at 18 (I'm now 38). She has never once phoned me in 20 years, even on my birthday. This resonates with me. My brother emigrated a couple of years after I left home and (when he was still in sporadic contact with me) used to moan that our Mum rarely contacted him since he moved overseas. I repeatedly explained to him that she literally never called me first once in the span of over a decade, so he should feel honoured that he got a weekly skype call from her!

I'm sure all of this weird family dynamic is the main reason I've never felt the desire to have kids of my own!

I don't think I'd want my mum to block me. Part of the reason our relationship is so poor is because she never asks me for any help. She keeps the dynamic of all knowledgeable parent to eight year old child.
So I & DH will make a suggest or offer to build stuff eg. aLoft ladder, railings or new steps. This will be dismissed or fault found. Two years later a friend, my brother or neighbour will suggest it and an extortionate tradesman will be brought in and it will be the best thing every. It's become such a joke I actually suggest they ask a neighbour if I have a very normal idea like online shopping or a regular taxi driver when driving & parking is to much.
So the duty calls are often about the local miracle workers. I also get the life was hard repetition when we worked or you were teenagers despite me being positive about my life. So draining.

Don't do it. Don't phone them. They choose to have children, to treat you and your brother this way. You didn't choose them.
Don't waste your time. Once they are dead, will you regret the many more hours of listening to this rubbish when you could be spending time with your children more productively?

Think you are being a bit mean there.

Could you not try calling more regularly for a shorter time?

My parents (and later my mum after my dad died) use to ring me every Sunday after we moved away from them so for the best part of 20 years, one brother was on a Tuesday, the other on a Thursday. Another brother lived just down the road from them, and they would visit most Saturdays. And they refused to use speaker phone so I had to speak to my mum first, then my dad. Every week was a bit much, dont get my wrong I loved them dearly but every week was a bit much. There was really nothing to say unless something really exciting happened.

So the total demand of what you have to do for your elderly parents is to make a phonecall and feel a bit bored? And you're complaining?
I think you need to have a word with yourself tbh

Spot on. If you find the call so difficult don’t do it, but I agree with this you are hardly being asked to fly to the moon and back. If you think your parents were rubbish don’t do it, but parents are human and although some are truly terrible, most are not. Many of the posters here going don’t bother calling your parents, probably think they are amazing parents themselves and their kids will love calling them- they may be in for a big surprise.

It's a theme running through here...

The parent doesn't take an interest or if they do, they're judgemental.

We don't want to be around people who make us feel bad.
Endlessly, every single time

Sometimes we Just don't get each other.
I got my mum had patience for her..my sister didn't.

I think the key is to remain light hearted, be interested, supportive and interesting.

I ring mine every day cos they’ve got dementia and it helps keep
them grounded. It’s a touch tricky - DF has a compulsive monologuing disorder (yes) at 140dB (it’s a thing) and DM has 0 attention span. Last time I rang I wanted to say hi to their lovely carer.

DM: Neil, it’s Supersimkin for you
Me calling through phone: Hi Neil!
DM: She’s got nothing to say as usual.

Rewarding, the demented.

Exactly! Childhood wasn’t great, she’s the least favourite kid!

they don’t deserve her.

drop the rope @TasticFantastic let golden balls pick it up, or you’ll get lumbered with caring duties…

This is a really sad thread. I'm presuming the pp who find calling a chore now didn't have a good relationship growing up?

I love my mum but honestly, if we weren't related, I probably wouldn't bother.

I used to think this about my mum, but now that my parents have been dead for many years I do miss our trivial little chats. However, my parents weren't toxic, and that makes a big difference, of course.

OP, you say that when you speak to your parents:

I hate the parenting advice, the relentless talk about people I haven't met. The bitching about relatives, the adoration of my feckless, lazy brother.
The pity party because she hates not being able to go on expensive cruises, how eating soup from Waitrose is such a chore.
I now minimise the amount of information I give her because it gets spread around the family or totally judged in her standard way. Eg ' interviewed on BBC2, shame it's not on BBC1.

This does sound like hard work. Could you make these 'duty calls' less often? How do you get on with your brother, even if he is 'feckless' and 'lazy'? Could you talk to him, tell him how you feel, to open his eyes and get him on your side? My younger brother was always the 'golden child', but luckily we have a great relationship - though of course that may not be the case for you. Or are there other family members (aunts, uncles, cousins) who understand how you feel and you can sound off to?

I hope you can find some resolution

Oh bore off

PP who said they won’t be around forever etc - 6 years since my mum went and I don’t miss the phone calls where she would criticise me, complain about everyone and basically not listen to a word I had to say. My dad doesn’t criticise, but calls with him are me listening to the minutiae of his day, then him talking over me if I try to tell him about any news I’ve got. I have developed mental health problems in recent years and haven’t told my dad, he wouldn’t listen, and for my own sanity I screen his calls now as there are some days when I just can’t handle a call. When you’re faced with this sort of behaviour on a near daily basis, it is completely draining.

These comments are really sad. I regularly call mine just to have a chat and update them on things happening. I dread the day I can longer ring up and tell my mum about a new paddling pool I bought the kids.

would the majority of posters who find it a chore say they were close and had a good relationship with their parents when they were younger?

Oh my god OP, are you me?!

I hate this too. It’s the constant drivel about people I don’t know.

”Ooh you know Maureen from down the street?”
”No.”
”You do! Her daughter used to babysit for you when you were about 2!”
”I don’t remember”
”oh you do, Jodie. Jodie with the red hair and green eyes? Has an astigmatism. And feckles.”
”No sorry mum not ringing a bell”
”Honestly you’ve always had a terrible memory! Anyway, Maureen, we’ll I bumped into her in the Co-Op on Tuesday. Or was it Wednesday? No it can’t have been Wednesday because I had the chriopractor and I always go to Tesco afterwards because it’s closer. Anyway, I bumped into her in the Co-Op and her brother in law has been diagnosed with diverticulitis!”
”Oh how awful. Do you know the brother in law?”
”No”

AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH

But I was THIRTY before she told me that my grandad was evacuated from Normandy on D-Day. A really important part of history I could never then ask him about, and she spent decades telling me about Christine’s bunions.

Sorry to be really blunt, but you won't have to put up with it forever. Every cloud and all that

Do the duty call early on in the day.
So that you don’t have time between breakfast & the call to build up any resentment or trepidation.
Set yourself a time limit for the call.
Plan a couple of points to make.
Once the call is over, have a shaking off the stale energy & resentment ritual, have a quick wash or shower to freshen up & go about your day on your terms.

The critical element is to get the call done early so that it doesn’t cast a shadow over your day.

This resonates with me hugely. I, too, dread the weekly phone call. My parents are medical bores - and it's totally wearying. I find I have dealt with & supported them through so many actual crises over the years that now I have an empathy deficit

It makes me sad at times as I don't want things to be like this but this is the hand I was dealt. They're very hard work a lot on the time.

I'm in my 50s, I have teens & a full time job & quite frankly I am tired. So tired some times & they drain the last energy I have.

I do my best to mask it & to listen to them & to visit a as often as the 300km journey allows. But in reality I would love it & often wish my parents could emotionally support me but they can't. When I really needed them following an incredibly traumatic period in mine & dhs life they utterly failed to step up & be there in a way that mattered. And it hardened my heart a lot

I truly hope for a better relationship with my dc but I know there's no guarantees

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem - I could have written a lot of what you said. I’m lucky because my mum has been a great parent (she listens to my ramblings for one thing, unlike many previous posters’ mothers), but that doesn’t stop me finding our conversations beyond dull. We might not ever have been similar, but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve come to dread calls. I find myself thinking twice before dialling as I know I’m getting into another hour plus of fastidiously retold accounts of trips to m&s (in lockdown it was blow-by-blow accounts of placing online orders) and boring stories about people I’ve never met, accompanied by much unnecessary detail about their clothes and backgrounds.

I also just keep on with it and just try to ensure she doesn’t realise what I’m thinking. I mainly find it sad. I want to enjoy my time with her more - even if it’s in companionable silence (on visits, obviously) - rather than listening to all this. I also know that one day I am going to miss her terribly. But that does not stop the here and now being what it is.

@M0rn1ngParkour not everyone has decent functional parents or families of origin

Would you give me the same advice given my parents were abusive/enabling of abuse?!

How often are you speaking to them on the phone and who has determined this?

In your shoes I'd be cutting back at the very least.

I recommend outofthefog.website

And general reading around toxic families