8 ms·

After 4 Years of Silence, a Call to Mom on Mother’s Day

56 points by danso 6y ago

ascendantlogic 6y ago
I had a relatively good relationship with my mother but in my 20's and 30's I had a bad habit of being too busy for her. Either working or playing I was off doing things and not returning her calls. I lost her about 18 months ago and now I beat myself up for it. I'm posting this here because this site caters to a crowd of people who tend to be workaholics. I've read comments here from people saying their mothers came to see them but they were too busy working to spend any time with them. At the end of your time on this planet it won't be the code you wrote or the marketing materials you worked on that you will remember. It will be the family and friends you spent time with.
- danieldk 6y ago
  I lost her about 18 months ago and now I beat myself up for it. I am sorry to hear that :(. The thing with parents is that they were always there (maybe not always there for you, but I mean present in your world) since your birth. For a long time in my life I didn't even consider that there would be a time without my parents. Obviously, you know rationally. But it does not feel that way. Both my parents have now passed 65 (which was traditionally the retirement age in my country, and therefore sort of a milestone) and I have recently really started pondering that statistically they will only live for another 13-18 years. We have been abroad for 5 years, but the age of our parents has been one of the important reasons to move close to our families again. We now see my parents weekly again (which our 6yo daughter also thoroughly enjoys) and my father in law every 1-2 months (outside COVID-19 times, because he lives across the border). I am very happy that we made this choice regardless of what happens, so far we have had 1.5 years of much more regular visits and doing things together.
- umvi 6y ago
  > At the end of your time on this planet it won't be the code you wrote or the marketing materials you worked on that you will remember. It will be the family and friends you spent time with. But that's exactly why I'm working so hard on my side projects. I want desperately to be free from my 9-5 so I can have my 40 hours per week back...
  - Kalium 6y ago
    And you might get it! At the same time, being free later won't give you back the time you don't have today. Neither my friends nor my parents will last forever. A few things have driven that home for me recently. The world won't hold still while I try to change my life. And I have to work with that limitation, rather than race against it.
    - filoleg 6y ago
      This. It is all about the right balance. Here is a good analogy that makes sense to me. Going full-on penny pinching in the first half of your life, hoping to enjoy it later, is going to rob you of a ton of experiences that you won’t be able to experience later in life. On the other end of this spectrum, throwing money around and living just for today, without long-term plans and savings, will rob you of a ton of experiences in the second half of your life. Mind you, very different experiences than the ones you were missing out on in the penny-pinching scenario. So it all boils down to a solution that sounds really simple, which is what makes it really difficult to act on and execute. You just gotta balance those two approaches in such a way, that your experiences are maximized across the board. But saying that isn’t really solving the problem for anyone, as that’s akin to the famous joke tutorial on how to draw an owl. Saying “just gotta balance is right” is like saying “ Step 1: draw 3 circles. Step 2: draw the rest of the owl.” So in the end, there is no real concrete solution. The best we can get is a solid guideline of “balance things in order to maximize your overall experiences”, but the actual answer to how to properly balance things is different for every individual and is left for self-discovery.
    - acdha 6y ago
      Seconding this - I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how they were going to be financially independent early. I think it’s worked for exactly one of them and even they didn’t get that missed time back.
  - eanzenberg 6y ago
    Please don’t work countless hours so you’ll get some free time later in life. Work hard for today for a vision you truly believe in.
- Swizec 6y ago
  There’s a good story about the jar and the sand out there. Fill the jar with sand and it’s full. No room for rocks and gravel. But fill the jar with rocks and it’s full, yet you can still pour the gravel. It goes into tiny holes between the rocks. The now even fuller jar still has room for the sand finding those tiny crevices between the gravel and the rocks. The rocks are your family and your health. The gravel is your job and other pursuits. The sand is social media and netflix. Now here’s the kicker: You can still go and pour a glass of beer in the jar. It saturates the sand and gravel and finds room. Because there’s always time for a beer with friends.
- quercus 6y ago
  I am a workaholic who also loves his mother and has tormented himself with guilt for not calling her enough. Now 42, I've sort of come to terms with that guilt and realized there's a reason I keep mom at a distance. Talking to her is like groundhog's day, the same conversation every time. I do not look back and wish I had been having that conversation once per day instead of once per month. I'm pretty sure on my deathbed I'm going to be glad I spent so much time working, because that's what makes me happy. When I look back on my life now, my most cherished memories are of times spent on my computer enthralled by a challenging project. Most of my memories involving family involve feeling bored and/or trapped, even though I do love them and have a good relationship with them.
  - goatherders 6y ago
    Do you ever stop to consider what those conversations mean to her? I'm 43 and only started calling my parents more than once every couple weeks in the last 2 years. They tell me the same stories but that doesnt matter; their happiness is rooted in us sharing time together. I imagine they tell the same stories because as they are older they have fewer new things to share and they dont want our conversations to end. So they repeat something we talked about the week before. But hey, if your feelings about your time and what's important to you trump having perspective on how someone else feels...
    - quercus 6y ago
      Would you be shocked to hear that I do stop to consider what the conversations meant to her? They mean she gets to vent about all the problems in her life she's had decades to fix, but has chosen not to, because it feels so much better to just complain about them to anyone who will listen. If you want to let your parents bring you down out of some sense of cultural obligation, good for you. I don't regret my choice to stop their cascade of misery before it reaches me.
  - mellow2020 6y ago
    I talked a lot with my mother, and as a result we could talk about pretty much anything, including stupid prototypes ^^ I think if I had only talked to her once or twice a year, she wouldn't have become as much of a friend and confidant as she was. If either of us repeated themselves a lot, the other would simply call them out on it. Don't take this as me guilt tripping you though. People are different, and I'm not saying it's your fault that your family made you feel trapped. But where you can, be generous and patient. We'll all get old and find out why old people repeat themselves so much, if we get lucky.
crimsonalucard 6y ago
You know they say that if you go to prison the longer you stay... more and more people start abandoning you just because of time. I'm talking about over a period of 10-20 years. Eventually contact is lost because everyone moves on. First your girlfriend stops visiting, then your wife, then your kids. They say the one connection that stays constant are your parents. If you're in jail for 20 years your parents will love you till the day you die and that love never fades. No one will ever love you as much as your parents. The connection is one way unfortunately. Children will never love their parents as much as their parents love them. As bad as your relationship is with your parents. Once they're gone, you're pretty much alone.
- soulofmischief 6y ago
  You obviously haven't met my mother. Every time I see my mom these days she's asking for money for drugs or is too busy wrapped in her phone to have a conversation. And I know plenty other people whose love for their parents far outweighs the love their parents show in return. Mother's Day is always a slog for me as I internally sort my desire for respect and sense of humanitarian duty.
  - pupppet 6y ago
    Oof that's harsh, sorry you got a dud.
  - tw04 6y ago
    Indeed. There are absolutely parents who match his description but to say that's every parent is more than a bit of a stretch.
    - crimsonalucard 6y ago
      It's definitely not every parent nor is it even almost every parent. I would say it's the majority though, as in over 50% for sure.
  - crimsonalucard 6y ago
    Of course there are exceptions. But the general rule stands. I say the above from anecdotal experience from my parents and other parents I know, and from quotations I hear from people actually living in prison. I guess drugs throw off all the priorities, because in the end the actual mechanism that triggers love is in itself a chemical/drug as well.
lostgame 6y ago
Talk to your Mother before it’s too late. I lost mine last summer and today is heartbreaking. All of the times I could’ve spoken to her, or made a difference in her life, are flashing before my eyes today, and it’s a sad go. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
- proximitysauce 6y ago
  If you have a good relationship with your mother. If she was/is abusive and you're not comfortable talking to her, feel absolutely no guilt today.
- pivo 6y ago
  My biological mother died yesterday. I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked to because I found her only three years ago, but I loved her, and now I wish I’d called her much more often than I actually did. I thought I’d have many years to get to know her but I was wrong.
Klinky 6y ago
Pretty sure my mother has Borderline Personality Disorder, which causes a lot of strain when talking with her. A lot of projected anger and manipulation. There are very justifiable reasons to refrain from contact with your parents, so do not let a holiday endanger your mental well-being.
- iscrewyou 6y ago
  But also do your part for the long run. You don’t want to regret talking to your mother when she has passed. That’s also bad for a lot people’s mental health. It’s important to find that balance.
  - proximitysauce 6y ago
    You don't have to "do your part". Your part is living a healthy life. Take whatever steps necessary to make that happen, even if that means cutting contact with your parents.
    - twomoretime 6y ago
      This is such a toxic, selfish modern view. For most people, even with shitty parents, your still parents sacrificed for you and raised you. A loyal human would not abandon them without great reason. Cutting contact should be a last resort, even if that means slightly worse mental health for yourself. Yes, you do owe them some minimum of respect and kindness if they showed you the same in raising you. That leads to better outcomes for society.
      - damnyou 6y ago
        This is such a toxic, selfish traditional view. Your highest duty is to your own self and the people you care about. That may or may not include the people who raised you. You can define and be loyal to family that you choose.
      - backprojection 6y ago
        I’m up voting because I want to hear this side of the argument. I guess your point is that most people’s experience isn’t that bad, and they owe their parents. Sure, so it can just be a matter of balancing how they treat you and your family vs basic decency and the benefit of merely maintaining contact and having them around as grandparents for your kids. Everyone’s experience and tolerance is different. I don’t think we necessarily owe our parents. They made the conscious decision to have us and raise us, that ought to be a reward in it self. I certainly will the best I can for my kids, but I don’t want them to think they owe me anything. This is especially true if I am (unknowingly or unconsciously) treating them or their family very badly.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
Friends come and go, family is forever :)
- filoleg 6y ago
  Depends on your definition of “family”, I guess, so I wouldn’t throw this around as a universal wisdom. For a lot of people, their family is something that, indeed, is the closest relationship they will ever have. For others, their family is simply the environment and people they grew up with, and that doesn’t always mean it was pleasant or relevant as an adult. Those people just make “adoptive families” with closest friends, but that isn’t typically referred to as “families” of any kind. And i am not talking only about scenarios where the actual families were abusive or anything like that. Here goes a personal example of the latter that, I believe, is pretty common. I grew up fine. My parents cared for me, provided for me as a kid. They weren’t “abusive” or anything like that. I really appreciated all the care, despite a lot of their failings as parents. I have zero hatred, anger, or any other ill feelings towards my family. We have always been on really good terms. Just mentioning that, so it is clear i am not making my point from an edge case position of someone who was abused by their actual family and now despises them. But as i grew up, i realized that people in my family were just not pleasant or reasonable adults to be around (and no, i am not talking in terms of political opinions or some other typical stuff teenagers on reddit tend to whine about). I still visit them, i still spend time with them. But it is more of a sign of appreciation, gratitude, and respect, at this point. I do not enjoy spending prolonged periods of time with them, i cannot share my deepest secrets with them, i cannot hope for them to be understanding of a lot of things and decisions in my life, and i cannot get any good advice from them either. And mind you, i am not even in a situation where i need to “come out” to my parents (or anything like that), we are talking about much more insignificant things. However, I do have a few extremely close friends who have persisted in my life for a really long time, and with them, I can absolutely share all those things and receive a useful advice. And they count on me to provide the same for them. Our relationship with each other is way more than the “respectful sign of appreciation” kind of a relationship i have with my actual family. But to me, those few extremely close friends are what i would count as the kind of people who are my family. And in that sense, they are there for me in all the ways that my actual family is not. TL;DR: while your actual family can be what the family is supposed to be about, this is far from being always the case, and your few very close friends can fulfill that role for each other in ways that your actual family failed to.

56 points by danso 6y ago

I had a relatively good relationship with my mother but in my 20's and 30's I had a bad habit of being too busy for her. Either working or playing I was off doing things and not returning her calls. I lost her about 18 months ago and now I beat myself up for it. I'm posting this here because this site caters to a crowd of people who tend to be workaholics. I've read comments here from people saying their mothers came to see them but they were too busy working to spend any time with them. At the end of your time on this planet it won't be the code you wrote or the marketing materials you worked on that you will remember. It will be the family and friends you spent time with.

danieldk 6y ago
I lost her about 18 months ago and now I beat myself up for it. I am sorry to hear that :(. The thing with parents is that they were always there (maybe not always there for you, but I mean present in your world) since your birth. For a long time in my life I didn't even consider that there would be a time without my parents. Obviously, you know rationally. But it does not feel that way. Both my parents have now passed 65 (which was traditionally the retirement age in my country, and therefore sort of a milestone) and I have recently really started pondering that statistically they will only live for another 13-18 years. We have been abroad for 5 years, but the age of our parents has been one of the important reasons to move close to our families again. We now see my parents weekly again (which our 6yo daughter also thoroughly enjoys) and my father in law every 1-2 months (outside COVID-19 times, because he lives across the border). I am very happy that we made this choice regardless of what happens, so far we have had 1.5 years of much more regular visits and doing things together.
umvi 6y ago
> At the end of your time on this planet it won't be the code you wrote or the marketing materials you worked on that you will remember. It will be the family and friends you spent time with. But that's exactly why I'm working so hard on my side projects. I want desperately to be free from my 9-5 so I can have my 40 hours per week back...
- Kalium 6y ago
  And you might get it! At the same time, being free later won't give you back the time you don't have today. Neither my friends nor my parents will last forever. A few things have driven that home for me recently. The world won't hold still while I try to change my life. And I have to work with that limitation, rather than race against it.
  - filoleg 6y ago
    This. It is all about the right balance. Here is a good analogy that makes sense to me. Going full-on penny pinching in the first half of your life, hoping to enjoy it later, is going to rob you of a ton of experiences that you won’t be able to experience later in life. On the other end of this spectrum, throwing money around and living just for today, without long-term plans and savings, will rob you of a ton of experiences in the second half of your life. Mind you, very different experiences than the ones you were missing out on in the penny-pinching scenario. So it all boils down to a solution that sounds really simple, which is what makes it really difficult to act on and execute. You just gotta balance those two approaches in such a way, that your experiences are maximized across the board. But saying that isn’t really solving the problem for anyone, as that’s akin to the famous joke tutorial on how to draw an owl. Saying “just gotta balance is right” is like saying “ Step 1: draw 3 circles. Step 2: draw the rest of the owl.” So in the end, there is no real concrete solution. The best we can get is a solid guideline of “balance things in order to maximize your overall experiences”, but the actual answer to how to properly balance things is different for every individual and is left for self-discovery.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Seconding this - I’ve heard plenty of people talk about how they were going to be financially independent early. I think it’s worked for exactly one of them and even they didn’t get that missed time back.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Please don’t work countless hours so you’ll get some free time later in life. Work hard for today for a vision you truly believe in.
Swizec 6y ago
There’s a good story about the jar and the sand out there. Fill the jar with sand and it’s full. No room for rocks and gravel. But fill the jar with rocks and it’s full, yet you can still pour the gravel. It goes into tiny holes between the rocks. The now even fuller jar still has room for the sand finding those tiny crevices between the gravel and the rocks. The rocks are your family and your health. The gravel is your job and other pursuits. The sand is social media and netflix. Now here’s the kicker: You can still go and pour a glass of beer in the jar. It saturates the sand and gravel and finds room. Because there’s always time for a beer with friends.
quercus 6y ago
I am a workaholic who also loves his mother and has tormented himself with guilt for not calling her enough. Now 42, I've sort of come to terms with that guilt and realized there's a reason I keep mom at a distance. Talking to her is like groundhog's day, the same conversation every time. I do not look back and wish I had been having that conversation once per day instead of once per month. I'm pretty sure on my deathbed I'm going to be glad I spent so much time working, because that's what makes me happy. When I look back on my life now, my most cherished memories are of times spent on my computer enthralled by a challenging project. Most of my memories involving family involve feeling bored and/or trapped, even though I do love them and have a good relationship with them.
- goatherders 6y ago
  Do you ever stop to consider what those conversations mean to her? I'm 43 and only started calling my parents more than once every couple weeks in the last 2 years. They tell me the same stories but that doesnt matter; their happiness is rooted in us sharing time together. I imagine they tell the same stories because as they are older they have fewer new things to share and they dont want our conversations to end. So they repeat something we talked about the week before. But hey, if your feelings about your time and what's important to you trump having perspective on how someone else feels...
  - quercus 6y ago
    Would you be shocked to hear that I do stop to consider what the conversations meant to her? They mean she gets to vent about all the problems in her life she's had decades to fix, but has chosen not to, because it feels so much better to just complain about them to anyone who will listen. If you want to let your parents bring you down out of some sense of cultural obligation, good for you. I don't regret my choice to stop their cascade of misery before it reaches me.
- mellow2020 6y ago
  I talked a lot with my mother, and as a result we could talk about pretty much anything, including stupid prototypes ^^ I think if I had only talked to her once or twice a year, she wouldn't have become as much of a friend and confidant as she was. If either of us repeated themselves a lot, the other would simply call them out on it. Don't take this as me guilt tripping you though. People are different, and I'm not saying it's your fault that your family made you feel trapped. But where you can, be generous and patient. We'll all get old and find out why old people repeat themselves so much, if we get lucky.

crimsonalucard 6y ago

You know they say that if you go to prison the longer you stay... more and more people start abandoning you just because of time. I'm talking about over a period of 10-20 years. Eventually contact is lost because everyone moves on. First your girlfriend stops visiting, then your wife, then your kids. They say the one connection that stays constant are your parents. If you're in jail for 20 years your parents will love you till the day you die and that love never fades. No one will ever love you as much as your parents. The connection is one way unfortunately. Children will never love their parents as much as their parents love them. As bad as your relationship is with your parents. Once they're gone, you're pretty much alone.

soulofmischief 6y ago
You obviously haven't met my mother. Every time I see my mom these days she's asking for money for drugs or is too busy wrapped in her phone to have a conversation. And I know plenty other people whose love for their parents far outweighs the love their parents show in return. Mother's Day is always a slog for me as I internally sort my desire for respect and sense of humanitarian duty.
- pupppet 6y ago
  Oof that's harsh, sorry you got a dud.
- tw04 6y ago
  Indeed. There are absolutely parents who match his description but to say that's every parent is more than a bit of a stretch.
  - crimsonalucard 6y ago
    It's definitely not every parent nor is it even almost every parent. I would say it's the majority though, as in over 50% for sure.
- crimsonalucard 6y ago
  Of course there are exceptions. But the general rule stands. I say the above from anecdotal experience from my parents and other parents I know, and from quotations I hear from people actually living in prison. I guess drugs throw off all the priorities, because in the end the actual mechanism that triggers love is in itself a chemical/drug as well.

lostgame 6y ago

Talk to your Mother before it’s too late. I lost mine last summer and today is heartbreaking. All of the times I could’ve spoken to her, or made a difference in her life, are flashing before my eyes today, and it’s a sad go. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

proximitysauce 6y ago
If you have a good relationship with your mother. If she was/is abusive and you're not comfortable talking to her, feel absolutely no guilt today.
pivo 6y ago
My biological mother died yesterday. I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked to because I found her only three years ago, but I loved her, and now I wish I’d called her much more often than I actually did. I thought I’d have many years to get to know her but I was wrong.

Klinky 6y ago

Pretty sure my mother has Borderline Personality Disorder, which causes a lot of strain when talking with her. A lot of projected anger and manipulation. There are very justifiable reasons to refrain from contact with your parents, so do not let a holiday endanger your mental well-being.

iscrewyou 6y ago
But also do your part for the long run. You don’t want to regret talking to your mother when she has passed. That’s also bad for a lot people’s mental health. It’s important to find that balance.
- proximitysauce 6y ago
  You don't have to "do your part". Your part is living a healthy life. Take whatever steps necessary to make that happen, even if that means cutting contact with your parents.
  - twomoretime 6y ago
    This is such a toxic, selfish modern view. For most people, even with shitty parents, your still parents sacrificed for you and raised you. A loyal human would not abandon them without great reason. Cutting contact should be a last resort, even if that means slightly worse mental health for yourself. Yes, you do owe them some minimum of respect and kindness if they showed you the same in raising you. That leads to better outcomes for society.
    - damnyou 6y ago
      This is such a toxic, selfish traditional view. Your highest duty is to your own self and the people you care about. That may or may not include the people who raised you. You can define and be loyal to family that you choose.
    - backprojection 6y ago
      I’m up voting because I want to hear this side of the argument. I guess your point is that most people’s experience isn’t that bad, and they owe their parents. Sure, so it can just be a matter of balancing how they treat you and your family vs basic decency and the benefit of merely maintaining contact and having them around as grandparents for your kids. Everyone’s experience and tolerance is different. I don’t think we necessarily owe our parents. They made the conscious decision to have us and raise us, that ought to be a reward in it self. I certainly will the best I can for my kids, but I don’t want them to think they owe me anything. This is especially true if I am (unknowingly or unconsciously) treating them or their family very badly.

NicoJuicy 6y ago

Friends come and go, family is forever :)

filoleg 6y ago
Depends on your definition of “family”, I guess, so I wouldn’t throw this around as a universal wisdom. For a lot of people, their family is something that, indeed, is the closest relationship they will ever have. For others, their family is simply the environment and people they grew up with, and that doesn’t always mean it was pleasant or relevant as an adult. Those people just make “adoptive families” with closest friends, but that isn’t typically referred to as “families” of any kind. And i am not talking only about scenarios where the actual families were abusive or anything like that. Here goes a personal example of the latter that, I believe, is pretty common. I grew up fine. My parents cared for me, provided for me as a kid. They weren’t “abusive” or anything like that. I really appreciated all the care, despite a lot of their failings as parents. I have zero hatred, anger, or any other ill feelings towards my family. We have always been on really good terms. Just mentioning that, so it is clear i am not making my point from an edge case position of someone who was abused by their actual family and now despises them. But as i grew up, i realized that people in my family were just not pleasant or reasonable adults to be around (and no, i am not talking in terms of political opinions or some other typical stuff teenagers on reddit tend to whine about). I still visit them, i still spend time with them. But it is more of a sign of appreciation, gratitude, and respect, at this point. I do not enjoy spending prolonged periods of time with them, i cannot share my deepest secrets with them, i cannot hope for them to be understanding of a lot of things and decisions in my life, and i cannot get any good advice from them either. And mind you, i am not even in a situation where i need to “come out” to my parents (or anything like that), we are talking about much more insignificant things. However, I do have a few extremely close friends who have persisted in my life for a really long time, and with them, I can absolutely share all those things and receive a useful advice. And they count on me to provide the same for them. Our relationship with each other is way more than the “respectful sign of appreciation” kind of a relationship i have with my actual family. But to me, those few extremely close friends are what i would count as the kind of people who are my family. And in that sense, they are there for me in all the ways that my actual family is not. TL;DR: while your actual family can be what the family is supposed to be about, this is far from being always the case, and your few very close friends can fulfill that role for each other in ways that your actual family failed to.