6 ms·
Is it a cultural thing Americans are so detached? Its usual here to call your family 2 to 4 times a week
by popotamonga 6y ago
Is it a cultural thing Americans are so detached? Its usual here to call your family 2 to 4 times a week
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dorkwood 6y agoWhere are you?
- popotamonga 6y agoportugal
- serkandurusoy 6y agoWhere are you? I am 43, Turkish, call mom twice a week and feel bad about it because it's not nearly enough.
- 101008 6y agoI was going to ask the same. In some countries, Mother's Day is so important that you organize it a few days before, you meet for lunch (or dinner), and you buy a present (like another birthday). Of cousre, during this pandemic we cannot meet, but are there some people who don't call?
- gambiting 6y agoI call my mum nearly every day. I'm Polish but I live abroad. Also Mother's day is on the 26th of May for us.
- liquidise 6y agoIt’s highly dependent on the family. I call/FaceTime family weekly while friends, who have good relationships with their family, call maybe once a quarter. Anecdotally, my international friends on average put family calls in a higher regard than my American friends.
- kjsthree 6y ago3—5 calls per year seems great. I don’t feel detached. Or maybe I am and that’s how I like it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Still love my mom though. Will call her in a bit.
- xoxoy 6y agoYes we were sold on the nuclear family that has turned out quite disastrously
- vinay427 6y agoIt's rather natural in most of the highly developed countries where people can afford to live separately from non-immediate generations. It's virtually the same in the European country I live in, and in both places elders often treasure the independence that they can have because they've grown up valuing a greater degree of individualism. I'm curious why you think nuclear families have turned out disastrously.
- xoxoy 6y agoI found myself nodding throughout this piece https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuc... Perhaps it a western thing not just American.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoYour question is whether this correlates with nationality. Sincere question: why did you focus on that attribute instead of some other? Is calling your mother several times per week typical on your country?
- xoxoy 6y agoEven if you think it’s more cultural there’s no denying that immigrating to a new country at least partially conforms you to new cultural norms specific to that country.
- normalguy222 6y ago> Is calling your mother several times per week typical on your country? Yes :-) My family is half European half South American. I call them almost every other day. On a busy week, perhaps I'll only call during the weekend. My Taiwanese wife calls her mom every day.
- airstrike 6y agoI'm not American and I call my parents maybe once a quarter other than birthdays and days like today. Your point?
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI didn't have a specific point to make, I'm just trying to understand the world around me better.
- msaharia 6y agoI talk to my (Indian) parents every day, even if it is a 1-min courtesy call. Started when I went off to college in a different city. And it's also a rather common thing among everyone I know regardless of social status. So, I guess what is typical is dependent on country or culture.
- tozeur 6y agoLiving overseas I noticed that other countries are much more family oriented. Here in the states (at least on East/west coasts) people seem to prioritize work and career more.
- bnjms 6y agoYes. We’ve done some weird things to the culture we don’t really understand. And on top of that we mock those parts of society that still have a culture and claim things like “white people have no culture”. But then what are rednecks and Southern Baptists or Mormons if not distinct sub-cultures.
- 0_____0 6y ago'white people have no culture' sounds a lot like californians thinking they don't have an accent.
- IAmGraydon 6y agoI'm 38 and in the US and I talk to my parents almost every day. I call them on the way to work or randomly on the weekends. We also have a big get-together for mother's day, but of course this year is a little different. I don't think it's that unusual here in the US.
- jasonv 6y agoMy parents are east European immigrants to the US. They’ve had a hard life, never adjusted well. Calls to mom last about 20 seconds before she hands the phone off to my father, who will recount the mistakes and sufferings of his life. They’re broken. I call every other week but sometimes if I call more they’ll not answer the phone. I call, either way. There won’t be anything more, previous efforts to repair or resolve or lift any of this have always returned things to the current condition. It always rests here. So I’ll call, but yes, this is how it is. I wish they had considered going back decades ago. Or hadn’t crumpled under the strain of their efforts. These holidays are a reminder of what we can’t have.
- jnbiche 6y ago> I wish they had considered going back decades ago Considered what? You've said they had a hard life. Edit: Oh, I misread that (parsed it as "considered, going back decades ago", thinking you were implying you wish they had considered the effect of their actions). Yeah, I think for many older immigrants who were forced to emigrate from their homeland because of warfare or economic collapse, going back makes sense if conditions have improved. They don't want to go back now? Or too old?
- ptero 6y agoConsidered going back to Eastern Europe I think.
- jasonv 6y agoThey're too old now, health issues keep them house bound. There was a time where they had the money and vitality to tackle the things that kept them out of their comfort zone. They were forced out of their country by a military invasion, and so in their mind, the country as it turned out wasn't theirs anymore either. But they meet up with others who left under the same circumstances.. there's a shared culture, but it's all stopped in time. Frozen.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Its usual here to call your family 2 to 4 times a week Yes like many things it varies culturally. Calling family 2-4 times a week seems extraordinarily excessive to me. What possibly changes that often that you have anything to tell them about on a call that frequent? I don't think I call my wife that often when I'm working away. And I'm British so it's not just Americans.
- oefrha 6y agoHow’s it going? Everything good? Health’s good? Sleeping well? Wearing masks when going out (recent addition)? Done in three to five minutes if there’s nothing else to complain about. I don’t call 4 times a week, but twice aren’t awkward, and once is a given.
- popotamonga 6y agoYes, short talks (well now that there are 2 toddlers, video calls can take half an hour while they talk to them)
- johnydepp 6y agoI dont wanna be rude. But if you cant find words to talk for 2 minutes every 2 days, you are very disconnected.
- exolymph 6y agowtf is the point of a two-minute call? text me
- wuunderbar 6y agoMaybe the other person enjoys being on the phone and hearing your voice.
- InafuSabi 6y agophone calls (POTS voice) are better than text, thats not only my opinion, but also for those on the receiving end of the call
- pks016 6y agoSame. I call her almost everyday. Sometimes we even talk for hours. Btw I'm in abroad. She doesn't believe/like in celebration/days like this, same applies for me.
- happytoexplain 6y agoI think there's a huge gulf of space between being "so detached" and calling 2-4 times a week.
- normalguy222 6y agoNot sure why I was downvoted. I'm simply relaying my perspective. > Is calling your mother several times per week typical on your country? Yes :-) My family is half European half South American. I call them almost every other day. On a busy week, perhaps I'll only call during the weekend. My Taiwanese wife calls her mom every day.
- aidenn0 6y agoIt varies among Americans. I talked to my mom about every other month or so prior to getting married, and a bit more often now just because my wife talks to her every week. My wife used to talk to her mom every day, but is down to a couple times a week now.
- Igelau 6y agoIt varies depending on region, family history, and dynamics. Like so many things, it doesn't make sense to talk about "American culture" in a broad sense on this topic.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- williamdclt 6y agoWhat is "here"? Even for a given culture it varies wildly: my uncle has a call with each of his 5 kids every other day, while I talk to any of my dad, my mom, my grandparents every other month.
- fsloth 6y agoI don't think this is about cultural geography as much as about particular family dynamics. Not all are happy families, not all people need the same cadence of communication to maintain a relationship, etc.
- ken 6y agoMu. America doesn't have the cultural uniformity that other countries do. (In my experience, though, more than once/week seems excessive. Do you not have other family/friends to catch up with, too? Do you spend an hour on the phone every day?)
- meddlepal 6y agoIt varies... My family is extremely detached and impersonal but we do really love each other. I occasionally speak to my parents or siblings. Gifts between family are usually small amounts of money. We are not big on parties, gifts, or celebrations. We will eat dinner with each other occasionally but we try to avoid talking too much about our lives. Yet I know if one of us needed something we are there for each other. That's never been a concern. Even amongst my other American friends they think we're pretty far towards the extreme end of detached. I suspect most people have much more personal relationships with their family than mine but just providing an anecdotal data point.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago> Is it a cultural thing Americans are so detached? I suspect so. Every inch of our culture pushes 18yo's away from siblings and parents. Some families overcome that and some don't. Through most of human history, families were physically close enough that parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles became interchangeable & elderly parents didn't have to die alone in nursing homes.
- vinay427 6y agoIt is a cultural thing (as is living with and maintaining strong ties with extended family), but it's far from a uniquely American thing. Consider that with respect to individualist norms, in many of the most developed countries people choose to take advantage of the option to live separately because they can afford to comfortably do so. People generally don't like dying alone in my experience, but some (in the US/Canada, much of NW Europe, etc.) don't like being suffocated either.
- silentsea90 6y agoI'm Indian living in the USA and my parents and I talk everyday. It could be a quick 2-5 min chat for the most part, or a 30 min - 1 hour long conversation at times. Does not hurt either way. Never really understood the American detachment.
- rootusrootus 6y agoNope, this is just another case of overgeneralizing a nation of 325 million people.
- InafuSabi 6y agoOver here having contact with mom, evern briefly, every day is quite normal
- ksd482 6y agoI think it is a cultural thing. I am Indian living in US. 32 years old, married and my wife and I live with my parents and we couldn’t be happier. I will always live with my parents. Now this of course varies from culture to culture and household to household. We are very very happy and our kids always have grandparents around in the same house (big house - it matters). We get unsolicited advice and counseling from our parents ALL the time. Sometimes we hate it and sometimes we appreciate it. We disagree over many things and don’t see eye to eye on many small issues. But on a macro level, we are aligned. Now that we are all working from home, my favorite part of the day is the morning where we all sit down and have a cup of chai made by whoever happens to be in the mood of making that day. We are a solid team and we all play a part in making each others’ lives better. I have always wondered about how our kids will be when they grow up. I am not going to expect them to live with us and I am going to prepare myself mentally for that. But by God, it would be a blessing if my kids and my wife and I live together forever just like I am with my parents. Nothing would make me happier to live my life in a smooth continuous gradual way, rather than big disparate phases where kids move out, we live alone, we get very old, someone takes us in and take care of us until we die. I am scared of that.