Do you contact your parents or do they contact you?

[Tiredofbeingtiredtoday]

Or a bit of both?

Have realised if I don’t contact them every week, then it’s around two weeks until mum will eventually message to see how we are

Is this normal?

My mother has openly said that she considers it our responsibility to get in touch with her once we left home and became independent, and definitely after marriage. Which actually worked surprisingly well, as it allowed all of us to have the level of relationship we wanted. I think the longest I ever went without contact with her was about 9 months, and there were good reasons for it, more related to my father.

Now he is dead, I see her most weeks, text every couple of days. And she has started contacting me instead of waiting for me.

I genuinely think that they just don’t give it a thought but the big question is, do they care?

We live on different continents. My dad sends me memes every day. I ring him once a week or so, he never rings me.

I do see contacting parents and doing things for them to be the responsibility of adult DC, though. They’ve done their bit.

I ring my mum every day, no if I didn’t ring she wouldn’t for weeks but that’s because she doesn’t know what days I’m working, when I’m in the car or with the kids etc. I enjoy chatting to her and tbh if she rang I probably would say ‘oh sorry I’ll have to ring you back’ a lot of the time!!

My mum never rings (like, once in the last ten years) however she frequently complains how long it is since I have rung her :-/

her logic is that if she rings it is often not a convenient time for me to talk (this is true as I have young kids and work full time).

However she won’t even ring if something happens like injuring herself, which means i end up feeling guilty if that happens and I don’t hear for a couple of days because I haven’t happened to ring her.

she also doesn’t message to ask if things went ok (eg when dc had surgery). Again I think she just thinks I should call her.

I always contacted mine, if I went a couple of weeks without contacting them mum would phone to check I was “still alive”.

On reflection it was because they didn’t want to interrupt our busy lives, were letting us be our own people, which I appreciate and respect, but whenever we phoned or visited we always felt very welcome.

As an isolated question that is the main thing, feeling welcomed , surely not who phones first? Why are you asking the question, are there other issue with the relationship or do you feel you need them to phone you to validate something?

No, my parents only contacted me when they wanted something. My mum even said "I'll ring you if I want something" when I'd phoned her and she didn't want to talk to me; also "I don't ring you, you ring me". I think it was a controlling thing, among other things.

After mum died, me and sister phoned dad every day (taking turns, dad asked us to phone him). After lots of selfishness on his part, we suggested he could ring us occasionally instead; so now he rings me only when he wants something, sometimes we don't hear from him for a week or 10 days. He has a busy social life and no time for his family, unless he gets ill, when he expects instant attention from us. I've taken a step back due to his nastiness.

Me and my Mum contact each other, but going two weeks without speaking wouldn’t be that unusual for us (although once a week is more typical). I nearly always initiate with my Dad and it is often months between us talking.

I always used to phone at least weekly, but they didn't contact me.

Then Dad retired and he used to phone a lot. Not sure if Mum knew how to dial a call tbh - she would never call any of us.

Me and my son send eachother memes and news almost daily, and he phones/facetimes weekly - but we arrange the timing between us. If something exciting happens, I phone him any old time, and vice versa.

I do understand what you are saying but I think the least my DPs could do is ring or even send a card on birthdays etc. With my late teen kids (both live at home but sometimes don't see them for days or weeks with them staying at partners and work etc) I just send a "you ok?' "are you still alive?" message and mostly I get nothing more than a thumbs up but I think at least that way they know I care, I would hate them to ever think I stopped thinking about them.

My mother contacts me every two or three months, usually to arrange a meet up. Lives half an hour away. I wouldn’t want a higher level of interaction, this is about right for me.

Pretty much always me who calls. My mum will message if something specific she needs to know, such as what my girls want for their birthday. She always says 'I don't call as I know you are always busy, you call me when you can as I'm not busy and mostly home'. I try to call once a week but sometimes time goes so quick and I forget and might be a couple weeks.

They live about 2 hours from us, I try to take my girls to visit every couple months for a weekend, they come to us at Christmas or other special events.

DS rings us about every 3 or 4 weeks for a catchup, he always rings us as he is much busier with work and everything, we are retired. In between this we just text if we need to.

Both. I will speak to my parents and mil every week. If I don't call them they will call me. It's called conversation. We also message several time throughout the week both on the family group and individually and send photos etc.

It's hard to imagine isn't it when you spend so much time with your kids when they are children. I can't ever imagine not being in contact with mine. My 18 year old went away for two weeks and we messaged constantly and she rang me a few times too, I'd never be able to not contact them for so long.

But the thing is, just because they're your kids, it doesn't mean they would choose to spend time with you if you weren't related. Same with siblings. And some people just don't really communicate.

My dad would probably be astounded to see how much room he takes up in my head, in relation to the time i actually spend communicating with him. But I have a habit of feeling like I'm connected to someone if I've been thinking about them. I don't need to actually do it.

I suspect I won't see ds for dust when he leaves home. Dd currently wants to live near me and reckons I'll be looking after her kids (she can dream on).This is a bit of a family trait though. I have similar cousins.

Our DD just ignores all calls, only answered if she wanted something. Married to a narc and has never been the same since he groomed her. Given her so much and after 15 years of trying to communicate I’ve given up. It’s what she wants. She has never wanted us in her or our granddaughters lives since she met him. I would text and she’d ignore that too.

Reading all the answers, it seems many people see contact with parents as transactional, not relational. Expectations of both method & frequency of contact vary not just across generations but across individuals. My generation (74) usually have an expectation that messages are replied to or at least acknowledged. My children’s expectation is that unless it’s urgent there’s no need to respond. So many in this thread are reading extra meaning into things.
A few years ago, one of my DC was going through a very bad time & I got into the habit of texting them 1st thing every day, not expecting a reply. They several times told me it helped. So I carried on. Then I was told (by someone else) that they stopped reading my texts because I sent too many. The frequency had not changed, nor had they asked me to send fewer.
Time goes quickly as you age. I often think “I must text/phone so & so, it’s been at least a week” I’ll check back & realise it was 3 or 4 weeks. Luckily my friends don’t read deeper meanings into that.

When my mum was alive we didn’t go a day without some form of contact and if we hadn’t spoken all day she would always text me telling me she loved me. Miss her madly the realisation no one will ever love me as deeply is sad but I also understand it now as I have my own babies x

Not necessarily true I am 60 DM is 83. She is bad at replying to my texts, picks and choose whether or not to answer her landline or mobile and if I didn’t phone her she would never phone me. She has got into the habit of expecting everyone around her to do the running. I am sure often she does this so we will worry about her more and end up visiting as we aren’t far away to check up on her.

I speak with my Mum and Stepmum about 3/4 times a week phone and texts - i contact them and they contact me. My dad probably less but I know my stepmum lets him know I’m fine, but I would still say I speak directly to my dad once a week. I text with my sister most days and I’d say I text with my brothers maybe once a week.

I think it all depends on the relationship you have with family, although it does sadden me that so many of you have parents that just wont contact you. My Nana is nearly 90 and she facetimes and whatsapps regularly!

Glad it's not just me! It drives me up the wall.

I contact mine, they never call me. We sometimes text, send photos or whatever and that is both ways but she never actually calls.

I brought up just last week that they can call me, every time I get "I just never know if you're busy". And yes sometimes I forget to call, as I am busy, but if someone calls me, I always call them back if I miss it.

I chat to my dad most days via WhatsApp and I always ring him; I think he worries I’ll be at work or busy so it’s sort of a mutual agreement that I’ll ring him.

No idea, that’s probably normal for busy grown ups with healthy non co-dependant relationships who get on well.

My parents died in my 20s, but back then it was a bit of both. We spoke by phone at least several times a week, wrote letters (they didn’t have email and I’d o my just got it). I went home every uni holiday apart from if I was travelling, which I did a lot, and odd weekends here and there (it was about a 2.5 hour drive).

in a happy, healthy relationship you’d expect it to be initiated by both sides, but not always at same amount. If they left it months or years with no contact the. That would be a bad sign.

My Mum, bit of both and varies in frequency. I’m youngest by far and she always says she knows I’m busy. Elder sibling calls her every day and updates me.
in laws are NC for 3 years now. Fell out over contact - DH would call when he could but if it wasn’t frequent enough for MIL, she would be shitty on the phone. More to it than that, but long story short etc