I was in blackout and parents haven’t even texted me

[Stopeatingcrispsanddips]

I live in one of the countries where there was a power cut, it was frightening at the time and still feels a bit unsettling. My parents haven’t even WhatsApped us to see how we are (they still live in the U.K.)

Is this normal?

Unless you happened to be hooked up to a life support machine at the time I don’t see why they’d be concerned about a power cut

We were told they were planned black outs that were happening. Told days ago.

I agree. Power cuts of this scale are completely unnerving. It’s courtesy to check in with a loved one that they’re ok.
However, as your parents are quite old, I wouldn’t read too much into it, they may have missed it on the news or not fully comprehended the scale and gravity. They may be poorly?
I’d just ring them and check they’re okay.
Hope things are back to normal now and government fully get to the bottom of why it happened ,

What a ridiculous comment.

Maybe they thought you didn't have any charge on your phones and might want to save it for emergencies? From the news here it looked like a very big widespread powercut. If I were your parents I would be interested in your experience but not particularly concerned about your wellbeing (because it looked inconvenient rather than dangerous, not because I wouldn't care).

@FlakyCritic don’t know what you were reading but this wasn’t planned, experts are still trying to decide why it happened. Do you honestly believe there would be a planned outage that would impact over 50 million people at the same time

We get them all the time out where I live, not just to do with storms.

But I do conceed, if the power goes off unexpectedly, I do freeze for a split moment. Then I just get annoyed it's happening yet again.

@Stopeatingcrispsanddips I have a lot of sympathy for you. I think to not understand why all the power has gone in your country and how long it’s going to last would be very unnerving.
Has there been any comment about what caused it?

Maybe text them to say you are ok

yes it must have been scary to not know what was happening

yes on news here but tbh it did go over their heads

ive been without power for 15/18hrs once during a storm

I don't know why, probably because they assumed you were with your dp and the two of you would be ok? I'm happy you were not alone during it.

We lost power in an ice storm and kept phoning grandad, who lived alone an hour away. After a day of not getting through our dc drove to him and found him in the dark wrapped in a blanket sitting in front a stump of a candle! They packed him up and brought him to us and he stayed here. (Not really relevant I guess).
I do think your parents could have contacted you, even if they felt confident you'd be fine. Nice to feel cared about!

What on earth has happened to people? Where is the empathy gone?
I'm reading more & more threads like this & honestly I'm finding it unnerving to see it laid bare just how little sympathy or just humanity there seems to be left.

So many people are so brittle & dismissive.

What happened in Spain & Portugal is unprecedented & still unexplained & had affected upwards of 60 million people simultaneously. It was not caused by any discernable cause that would help contextualise it, such as forecasted severe weather preceding a power cut.

I have no idea OP why people are literally tripping over themselves to minimise your experience? It's v odd.

I'm in ireland & it's been ALL OVER our news here. Is this an example of European news not being highlighted in the UK? Otherwise it's v hard to understand why people are failing to grasp the magnitude of it?

I think it must have been a deeply unsettling & disconcerting thing to experience & i hope that's the end of it & they figure out what actually happened

It's poor form on your family's behalf not to have checked in with you. Hope you & your family there are all OK now

You’re getting annoyed at people down playing it as not that scary etc but doesn’t that show that whilst it was on the news the seriousness/scariness of it didn’t come across. Which is probably why your family didn’t see the need to message.
either that or they didn’t know in the first place , it was on the news but I could also see bowing could pass someone by.

It's a power cut! Less than a day! That happens to us most winters. What did you want them to do? They can't help, and sending you text messages was only going to waste your phone battery.

Go home, read a book, take the opportunity to sleep. Play with your DC's. Use it as chill out time.

Wait… if you were a child in the 70’s how are you not idamn close to your 50’s?

I’m also a child of the 70’s

I’m not in my 50’s

ok I was born mid 70’s and not quite yet in in my 50’s but yeah I’ll never count myself as a credible witness to the 70’s 😜

Honestly yes it was a big event for you, it to get mad that your parents didn’t text you. I’ll say it .. that seems like an overreaction.

I would have assumed that you were fine but I still would have texted you to make sure.

I don't really understand this thread- you must be close to your 50s, and you parents in their 70s. You must know what they are like by now, and my experience with similar age parents is they aren't going to change (well apart from getting stranger tbh). If you want to talk to them about you experience then call them.

OP, why not put your original question to your DPs? Only they know the answer really.

FWIW, in one stint of living abroad my otherwise loving DM didn't call me for over 10 years, terrorist attack or not. Some people are just not communicative / proactive in that way.

It may be a generational thing . To some older people a 12 hour blackout may not seem to bad.
Also I watch the news ot check it alot and although I'm such it was awful. The news i saw just played it down a lot as a power cut and didn't go into to it to much. And although 12 hours to you must have been very long and scary not knowing what was going on.
Here I'm sure your parents just got on with their normal routine and it didn't seem that long .

Completely agree. The number of "What, you had a power cut?" comments - I don't know if PPs are being deliberately disingenuous, have no empathy or honestly never heard about it. Pretty eye-opening whichever it was. And I'm in the UK, it definitely was all over the news yesterday.

@Starlight7080 may be right about the generational thing. As a 60yo, a 12 hour black out wouldn't cause more than a raised eyebrow.

But I have enough food in for a couple of weeks, am not permanently attached to the internet or social media, always keep some cash in the house, have solid fuel heating, have friends to talk to next door or in the local pub, and, having lived through power cuts that have lasted much longer, would just see it as akin to a snow day, a mild inconvenience but also a break from routine and a chance to relax.

If my world was based on the internet, instant food deliveries, ApplePay, and my social life was on-line, I can see how it would feel much more unsettling.

Were you on your own?

You've answered your own question.
They did not go through it so they didn't understand the effect it was having on you.

Yes it was

I was. Not sure why you’re still ‘unsettled’ ?
Ours was off 15.5 hours.

It was not “all over” the British news at all. Don’t be disingenuous. It was certainly mentioned, for sure, it was on the news. But it wasn’t a leading headline.

OP, your folks could’ve missed it. Sounds like a backstory here. If I was in that situation, and my parents didn’t contact me, then I’d contact them to tell them so they could be kept updated. Seems very odd that you’re sitting waiting for them to contact you and getting annoyed about it. Are you normally such a drama lama?