I dread phone calls with my deep thinking daughter

[Isthatmyleopard]

My daughter is in her mid-20s and an incredibly deep thinker, she studied philosophy, religion and ethics and a MA in philosophy, she is considering a PhD. She was baptised/first communion as a child but we've had little engagement with the church lately, she however has returned, goes to mass often but not weekly. She is incredible, and I am very proud of her, but she never seems to be able to approach a topic lightly. It makes me dread phone calls as seemingly the most basic conversation can be turned into philosophy, theology or sociology. She isn't forcing a belief on me at all more so she is inquisitive, the adult version of a toddler who can't stop asking why and loves to play devils advocate, or have deep conversations about a totally abstract topic. In particular she loves to discuss how different philosophical schools of thought intertwine or compete with religion, the theology of various Christian denominations and the roots of breakaway churches/schisms. I often ask for a lighter phone call just about her life as she has friends and is social and sporty, but after a brief overview it always goes into ... and we spoke about this, followed by her asking questions on my thoughts on the topic. Even discussions about books go far deeper than I can handle. She also does it with sport, we both enjoy tennis but I can never just comment on a match without it turning into a conversation on the sociology of women in sports, the psychology of competition etc.
All that's to say I find it exhausting, if she were just sharing her thoughts I wouldn't mind so much, but it often comes with lots of questions such as what are your thoughts? Why do you think that?

Today we met for lunch and she told me it makes her sad I don't show the same interest in her interests as I do her brothers or call her as often, I explained why and that her brothers are more content with small talk so I find calling them requires less mental energy, she apologised and said she doesn't know how to turn off the deep thinking. She has a long term boyfriend who seems to be interested in the intellectual sparring so I'm not sure why she is so keen to get it from me.

AIBU to find this exhausting? How do I handle it before it damages our relationship?

See my dm was like this.

I found intrusive, invasive and suffocating. I hated it.

I have some intelligent, deep thinking friends. Fortunately, they know to talk to other friends and colleagues rather than me about the big issues. Hopefully your DD will learn to pick her audience as she matures. I’m not stupid bu----t I’m not really a deep thinker, or tend to do my thinking on the inside rather than vocalize it.

I think you have offered a courteous explanation to your DD. Suggest you see how she responds, hopefully recognising your view.

Your DM was like what? Wanted to know about you? Fair enough if you hated that - but not all people are the same.

I think it's really impressive that you were able to have such an honest conversation about it without either of you stropping off. You have great communication about your relationship, so you can absolutely sort this out.

She needs to understand that we all go to different people for different outlets, and one human (parent, partner, best friend) cannot be all things to anyone. So she needs to make sure she has a place to share all of these thoughts and not expect you to step up to the intellectual sparring when you don't have the energy - any more than she would expect you to marathon train with her when you're only interested in a nice walk.

Would a "code word" be useful here - a single word of phrase you can say that you both know means "Enough now - this is getting too abstract, come back down to earth." If it can be funny / absurd or an in-joke, that's even better - so it diffuses any tension around it.

She sounds awesome. Hope she manages to find a career that lets her scratch this intellectual itch.

Well it was and it wasn't - as I then felt socially constrained to put the book away and hang around being bored some more.

God I don't miss those pre schooler days! Hours of hanging out with women you've nothing in common with apart from the birth date of your children.

Your daughter needs to find some friends.

My partner is incapable of any deep conversation.

The one time we almost had a conversation he got angry and aggressive because I knew more than him about the subject.

I think your daughter must be so isolated that she’s trying to have a conversation with you but you are incapable of contributing in any meaningful way.

Intelligence is incredibly lonely.

What a harsh comment! I'm sure OP is not stupid, or incapable of making a meaningful contribution. She just doesn't want to expend her mental energy on philosophical sparring in every phone call.

To quote the OP's original post: "she has friends and is social and sporty... She has a long term boyfriend who seems to be interested in the intellectual sparring so I'm not sure why she is so keen to get it from me."

If your reading comprehension is anything to go by, and your theory is correct - you must be surrounded by friends.

I'm the same as your daughter. I dread the people who go off on ' let me tell you about my neighbour's party, then the aunt of this neighbour comes into the conversation, and another 30 mins of inane talk about the aunt of the neighbour then the film that this aunt saw and what happened in the film, another deadly boring half an hour - no this is not for me. Give me an interesting exchange of ideas about something of real interest.

There are some very snobby attitudes to small talk and some posters seem to think that conversation doesn't have any scale between small talk and deep conversations. I work in academia, where pretty much everyone except me has a PhD and many of my colleagues are professors. When we socialise conversation covers a range of topics from pets to funny anecdotes and general getting to know you conversation with newer colleagues. Any topic of conversation can be boring if we aren't interested in it, I'm equally uninterested in discussing Love Island, football, theoretical physics or 15th century Russian poetry.

Op, while I think you should take an interest in your daughters interests to a certain extent she should be meeting you halfway. It's not polite to try and steer every conversation with someone onto subjects that only she's interested in. It might be good to mention to your daughter that there are many interesting people who have had interesting lives and have different interests that they are passionate about and it might be time to use some conversations to listen to what other people are interested in talking about.

I have ADHD, I would not be able to cope with your daughter. I think she is being selfish, she is an adult now, not a child.

My family have sent me videos/pictures of my face at family events when people talk at me, I look glazed.

I would love to have more people in my life to have deep, philosophical conversations with. At present there is only one RL friend like this in my life, and I treasure her.

It was kind of her. I’m confused why you’d make a hypothetical comparison with ‘a bunch of intellectuals’, as if that’s a homogenous group in itself and ‘intellectuals’ never do small talk or notice others. People are just people, some are kind and thoughtful and some are not. Their choice of conversation topic doesn’t drive that, and these kinds of posts are in my view contributing to an ‘us and them’ which doesn’t really help the OP. Lots of very intolerant views here on both sides.

She is your CHILD, OP! You should be happy to listen to her talk all day long (and all night long too if she wanted)

t I’m not really a deep thinker, or tend to do my thinking on the inside rather than vocalize it.
discussing out point of view with others, allows us to see other points of view and understand where others are coming from - all good and interesting, and is what brings us forward as a society.

My DH is a bit like this! I usually just say something like, enough of that, what will we cook, or whatever. To be fair I like a bit of deep talk, but just not to the same degree as him.

What rubbish is this!!

Eldest DD was very academic and when she was home from uni I was forever saying the wrong thing. Luckily she is also super social and fun loving so it was balanced and I like a deeper conversation too. She studied Anthropology and I found her studies fascinating. It can be hard when your children are more academic and move in different circles to their parents.

Yeah right!

Well, l think l’m pretty intelligent. I’m not lonely. I have friends and family to chat to.

I think you mean selfishness is pretty lonely. Who wants to hear someone banging on about philosophy all the time?

The ability to avoid ‘deep’ conversations does not signify lack of intelligence.

Only being able to converse on highbrow topics is not the flex that some of the self-appointed arbiters of what is or isn’t ‘boring’ seem to think it is.

I'd be honest when on phone call. Gently pull her up 'dd it's getting a bit deep for me, I'd love to hear about what your doing this week'

reminds me of many years ago when my 3 children were small , I read them a sad story about a little boy that did something very wrong. I asked them afterwards what they thought of the story and what they thought should happen to the little boy. They each had a very a different take on the situation. It was an indication to me of their individual characters which has proved to be more or less consistent to this day.

Wanting to know me. Wanting to discuss everything.

I loathed it.

Surely there’s an in between though? I love an in depth conversation and an exchange of views but sometimes you don’t have the mental energy for it.

Not every conversation has to be deep and meaningful the same as not every conversation has to be light and mundane.