Do your parents actually help you/give advice/listen to you?

[Cloudsonthehorizon]

Parents just been to stay, we’re going through a very difficult time, bereavement in Dh’s family, Dd ill and very challenging behaviour and money difficulties. Parents kindly lent a bit of money, which is very appreciated and I told mum lots of things, she didn’t really offer any advice but did listen (I think!)
Theyve now returned home and dad sent a text showing me his writing/poetry and asking my opinion and mum sent text asking how things were, I replied about feeling down etc and she replied about the weather where they are.
Find it insane that they don’t notice how utterly depressed we are at the moment or even seem to care
Are your parents like this?

Mine came to stay after my baby daughter had finally come home after being in hospital for the best part of a year . My dad mentioned via my brother that they hadn’t felt very welcome, I felt almost completely broken at the time and also had a 2 year old , I was barely holding on . 🙁.
I suppose yours are trying to keep things light for you, and maybe don’t know what to say but jeez a bit of compassion doesn’t go amiss.
Mine are adults now and I hope I’m ok with them, if in doubt I give them a giant hug and say yes, that’s shit isn’t it .

No, my mum was but my dad will do anything for me
I got covid (immunocompromised) and he appeared with a huge food shop. If there's a DIY emergency or I rang him at 3am and said "help" he would drop everything to come over

No my parents are only interested in themselves unfortunately, even if I massively hinted they would make lots of noises but wouldn't do anything productive, like provide childcare, money, food or otherwise. They would stretch to a lift in the car somewhere though if my car wasn't working etc

They were probably trying to “keep your mind off it”.

Not giving advice is quite tactful. Look at all the threads where all DM/MIL has actually done is give advice.

My DS and DD are only teenagers. I've got wise to asking them if they want to share with advice or share with NO advice.

They choose the latter option more often.

Perhaps your parents thought you needed to get it out with no advice given?

I just feel like it’s bizarre my dad would text me things about himself, when we have so many worries and so much going on in our lives

It could be this some people are loathe to give advice unless specifically asked and would try to take your mind off your troubles. What are they like when they have problems themselves? Would they want advice and lots of talking it over or would they want to try to keep things cheerful and as normal as possible?

My dad was like this. Absolutely terrible at reading people and incredibly tone deaf. I remember numerous occasions when I was in my late teens/early 20s when I would be in tears about something at their home having come home specifically for support and he would walk in, see me crying and cut in with appallingly ill timed comments about something to do with his career (which is the only thing he was interested in). As if he hadn’t seen me.

Looking back I am pretty sure he had undiagnosed neurodiversity (super bright academically but utterly emotionally incompetent), so I don’t know if he could help it but it really hurt. He just couldn’t understand why.

But I think a lot of that generation (my parents were born in the 30s and 40s), really struggled to understand how to deal with emotions. They were the children of early 20th century parents for whom talking about emotions was considered either weak or rude and it stressed them out to have to put effort into this.