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Tell HN: Call your mom
Programming, gaming, startups, and other nerd activities can get pretty involved, so it's good from time to set aside time for your parents.
Today is Mother's Day in the U.S.
Get out of the zone for a bit. Call your mom.
- peteryarrison 13y agoIt's none of your business whether or not anyone else calls their mother.
- Liesmith 13y agoThis is a ridiculously hostile response.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- WorldWideWayne 13y agoCommanding people to "Call your mom" like that is a ridiculous appeal to authority.
- Liesmith 13y agoNo it isn't, that's not what appeal to authority means. An appeal to authority is using someone's perceived authority to support an argument, i.e. "Actually you're wrong, because Elon Musk says" or "Um, no, do you have a PhD in this, like I do?" or some other attempt to override argument with the trappings of success rather than actual merit. I know this because I have a Masters Degree.
- WorldWideWayne 12y agoYes, it is. The perceived authority here is society. Everyone should call their mom, right? Wrong.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Geekette 13y agoWow, you created an account on the fly just to post this needlessly hostile retort?
- PavlovsCat 13y agoMothers can be horrible monsters, like everyone else. It's not really your call wether this was "needlessly" hostile or simply an outburst against feeling addressed by a simplification that can be very hurtful when you're on the wrong end of it. Someone said above they like when HN gets emotional; well no, when only positive emotions are allowed that's just being soppy. So here's to people with a splinter in their paw, may you find peace. edit: I don't have narcissistic parents, I don't think, I was drawn to this sub because of other people in my life; but it's a very supportive place, one of the parts of reddit that are purely awesome: http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ (notice how Mother's Day is quite the issue for a lot of people)
- jhess2991 13y agoI had no idea it was mothers day, thanks for reminding me. Haven't called my mom in 4 months, but will give here a call today.
- batuhanicoz 13y agoWow. I don't want to say something wrong to you but I can't imagine not seeing my mother for 4 months, let alone not hearing from her. I do live within a 3 hours drive (or 30 minute flight with a helitaxi) from my family though. So it's very easy for me to go see them.
- zemvpferreira 13y agoI live with my mom, ok? It's a very efficient arrangement. Beep boop.
- lucaspiller 13y agoYesterday (and the previous day) I spent my time travelling 13,000km to surprise my mum. It's not Mother's Day here, but who needs an excuse?
- einaros 13y agoMother's day or not, those who can make that call, should. My mother passed away one week ago. I really, really wish I could call her today.
- uptown 13y agoSorry for all you must be going through. Hang in there.
- eric_bullington 13y agoMy sympathies. Take care.
- dombili 13y agoI'm sorry for your loss.
- einaros 13y agoThank you, although I feel much more sorry for her loss, than I do for mine. Cancer stole her life at a time when everything was supposed to be getting better. A brutal reminder for everyone around her to make the most of their time. And to appreciate loved ones while they're there.
- X-Istence 13y agoSorry for your loss. My mom passed away when I was 10, and I still miss her. Wish she was around to talk to!
- einaros 13y agoThank you. I'm very sorry to hear that your mother passed so early. Missing someone, even after many years, is a testimony to the strong bond you shared. The loving memory lives on.
- atmosx 13y agoSorry for your loss. I made the call two hours ago :-) ps. I love when HN gets emotional.
- rasur 13y agoThat's fine, but it presupposes that one actually likes ones Mother (or even "Parents").
- dsirijus 13y agoYou don't have to like to respect.
- philangist 13y agoWell of course some people have a terrible relationship with their parents, but I think it's fairly obvious that OPs post is not addressed at them. If your mom was manipulative or abusive to you as a child, and you don't talk to her anymore, nobody's expecting you to call her today.
- rasur 13y agoYou have my complete agreement on all points.
- flavaflav 13y agoCalled Mum. Asked her about her holiday. Asked her how she was. Talked about family drama [they love that shit]. I told her about my last meeting with a key gatekeeper for our tech start-up [CTO in one of the top 200 companies in Australia]. She told me how her new friend, Susan, is a computer "wiz" that helped her reset her router last week, and that I should present my idea to Susan for feedback. Note: Susan is a customer support officer my mother was connected to when she called the Netgear customer support hotline last week. We confirmed I would pick her up from the airport on Tuesday. Said our farewells, and hung-up the phone. That wasn't so hard at all.
- atmosx 13y agoHahaha awesome :-) I wonder if Knuth was getting the same kind of treatment from his mother ("You know there's is this friend of mine who wrote a program on her computer to keep their grocery store expenses! You should talk to them!"). It's amazing that even at this age she's trying to give an advice :-)
- ihaveajob 13y agoIt reminds me of this classmate of mine in college. His mom would overhear conversations when we were working on some programming assignment and every now and then she'd stop by to comment things like "make sure to check the pointers!" Funny lady.
- dsirijus 13y agoI approve! Five Mother's Days ago, I paid for beverage of their choosing to all local bar patrons who phoned or even just sent SMS to their respective mothers that night. Horrible conversion rate! <20%. People are just silly sometimes.
- rtpg 13y agoDid you try A/B testing your messaging?
- dsirijus 13y agoI tried first plain views (shouted it out really, to anyone), then per install (went from table to table). But no A/B testing, it wasn't a buzzword back then really.
- sergiotapia 13y agoI smell a new industry to disrupt! Let's work on an MVP and beg for seed money.
- morgante 13y agoThat's quite sad. I can't imagine not (at least) calling my mother on Mother's Day.
- reactor 13y agoWhy need a Mother's day for anyone to call their mom?
- rpwverheij 13y agotrue, though now that it's here, moms still like it when you remember and call or visit on that specific day.
- aw3c2 13y agoSo you can sell cards.
- betterunix 13y agoThe history of mother's day is rather informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day_%28United_States%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day_%28United_State...
- rpwverheij 13y agoWish this would have been here early in the morning for the dutch timezone! Now my sister reminded me while standing besides my mom and I told her: ahh! hehe, errr, yes pass the phone then! >.< It takes a bit of effort to remember these kind of things, but I'm starting to appriciate (and actually try to remember) them more and more.
- rehack 13y agoIt was late in the afternoon and we were late. I was thinking to myself ‘Oh God, let today not be the day’. I started to walk faster as I thought this. My wife was accompanying me to the place where my mother was staying. We passed down the corridor and reached the room. I knocked at the door, but there was no response from inside. I moved a bit to the left raising myself on my toes, such that her bed was visible from over the cabin’s wall. I could see her there, ‘Oh God please…’. “Mummy”, I shouted “Mummy uthiye..”. Normally, she would getup at our knocking and move feebly to open the door. After shouting a few times, I got impatient and tried to open the door ourselves. Thankfully it opened. She began to move slowly, as we got in. Thank God she was there! She half rose from her bed, and sat in a confused state. I could see that she had wet her bed. Sad at that, but relieved that she was alive. How she had raised me and my sister so caringly when she was young and had lot of energy. But now she was in her twilight, and had lost control over many of her functions. But she still could recognize us, and so retained the most important part of her brain function. I was filled with emotion and could not breathe properly. There was less air in the room I thought. ‘Oh God, please cure her of this, and I will be nice I promise’, I thought and continued to breath forcefully. … Then I woke up. I had been asleep and it was a dream. Normally, when waking out of a bad dream, one is very thankful. But not today. I was still breathing forcefully. ‘Oh God, please cure her of her ailments and let me see her daily. Let today not be the day, and I will be nice I promise’. (via my blog https://shiningleaf.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-mother-a-dream/ https://shiningleaf.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-mother-a-drea...)
- rehack 13y agoDownvote! Care to explain, why? Its a near true account of my dream, and I thought it could be therapeutic for some people to read who visit this HN page, as people are discussing Mother's day. I won't care about downvotes on another topic. But seriously either you are heartless or out of your mind to downvote me on this. Get a life, Idiot downvoter!! Edit: I see several others have compensated, for that enough. Thanks! Sorry for being harsh. But downvoting this made me angry.
- exodust 13y agoYour first mistake was recounting a dream you had about your "mummy" wetting the bed. There's no depth or anything interesting there, except maybe something about you. The awkward irony is that if your mother had actually passed away and that's why she didn't answer the door, you'd have a stronger piece of writing. Mothers day is meant to be about celebrating the good things about mothers for those who still have them and still get along. Why not write about all the strong and positive things your mother did before?
- pearjuice 13y agoThere is a reason I flagged this thread. This is not your personal Facebook-feed to farm karma by surfing on some novelty holiday solely invented to make you spend money on presents and feed the capitalist-machine.
- icebraining 13y agoOn that note, interesting tidbit from Wikipedia: The modern American holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia. Her campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her beloved mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Anna’s mission was to honor her own mother by continuing work she had started and to set aside a day to honor mothers, "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world." Anna's mother, Ann Jarvis, was a peace activist who had cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. (...) Although Jarvis was successful in founding Mother's Day she soon became resentful of the commercialization and angry that companies would profit from the holiday. By the early 1920's, Hallmark and other companies had started selling Mother's Day cards. Jarvis became so embittered by what she saw as misinterpretation and exploitation that she protested and even tried to rescind Mother's Day. (...) Jarvis organized boycotts and threatened lawsuits to try to stop the commercialization. She crashed a candymakers convention in Philadelphia in 1923. Two years later she protested at a confab of the American War Mothers, which raised money by selling carnations, the flower associated with Mother’s Day, and was arrested for disturbing the peace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day
- gphilip 13y agoSomewhat related, and somewhat more surprising: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/434/is-it-true-thanksgiving-was-invented-by-the-editor-of-em-harpers-bazaar-em http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/434/is-it-true-than...
- bane 13y agoMother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray
- robinh 13y agoI suppose it's an OK sentiment, but I'm not in contact with my parents and on days like these I keep getting reminded of that fact. I was secretly hoping there wouldn't be anything about it on HN, but I guess I'll just have to learn to deal with it. <goes back to reading a book in pyjamas, today is not a very good day. />
- fritz_vd 13y agogood luck today
- robinh 13y agoThank you. :)
- waqf 13y agoI'm sorry that for you reading a book in pyjamas is not a good day. Wait, actually I'm envious of how many days you must have that are even better than reading a book in pyjamas.
- robinh 13y agoHa, fairy nuff. It's what prompts one to have such a day that matters, methinks. ;)
- xarien 13y agoI suppose it's an OK sentiment, but I don't know how to program and on days like these I keep getting reminded of the fact. I was secretly hoping there wouldn't be anything about it on HN, but I guess I'll just have to learn to deal with it. Nothing is easy. Take the first step to remedy the situation before you regret it.
- robinh 13y agoI'm pretty sure that's not even remotely related.
- 13y ago
- computerjunkie 13y agoRather than calling your mother on a specific day of the year, make it a habit to call your mom. Be it daily, weekly or monthly, keep in touch with your mother.(that includes your father) Better yet, visit them, spend time with them regularly. Mothers have done so much to get you to where you are now. They deserve more than a simple phone call.
- exodust 13y agoOk, Norman Bates, thanks for the advice.
- pskittle 13y agoWished my mom,long before i saw this on HN. She was really happy and i could see it in her eyes. However she complained that my brother sent her a text. (he isn't away from home) To all you people, albeit we shouldn't need a day to celebrate her awesomeness but it doesn't hurt to do that esp today.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoConversely, if you have a poor relationship with your mother due to factors outside of your control (she is a narcissist, abusive, etc.), then do not feel pressured to pursue contact with her. She may be your mother, but a blood relation does not mean you should subject yourself to more agony, all because of the cult of personality we have created around the mother as some sacred idol.
- SoftwareMaven 13y agoThere is not a cult of personality around mothers, though I can see how it would feel that way if one had an abusive or neglectful mother. I was in that category, so I get it. However, I also have an amazing wife and kids of my own, and the beauty that can contained in the mother/child relationship is profound. Honestly, since I absolutely do not have that kind of relationship, nor will I ever, sometimes it's hard to watch. It can rip open certain scars that never really healed well.
- denzil_correa 13y agoI see a lot of people posting photos of their moms on Facebook and Twitter. It's good but in addition to that, please ... do call your mom!
- ruda 13y agoIt's Mother's Day in Brazil. Phoned my mom. Feliz Dia das Mães!
- carlosgg 13y agoHappy Mother's Day to moms that read Hacker News! Happy Mother's Day to moms that don't read Hacker News! :-)
- anotherhacker 13y agoHow about calling every day - not just Mothers's Day....
- exodust 13y agoOh sure... that'll work well, great idea.
- runarb 13y agoAnd for all of us that don't celebrate mother's day today[0], you can still call :) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day#Dates_around_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day#Dates_around_the_... ( learn somthig new today. Mother's Day is celebrated on different days in different region of the worlds ).
- pierlux 13y agoTIL there is more than 1 world ;)
- Datsundere 13y agoMother's day or not, you should be thankful for mothers every day. Call them anyday, not just mother's day.
- Nib 13y agoMe and my mom had a fight last night, stop trying to force me to call her!
- danmozgai 13y agoToday I will visit Mom, attempt to remove the viruses installed on her PCs, and remove as much metro-ness from her Windows 8 PC as possible.
- Systemic33 13y agoIs mothers day the results of americans working so much that they never call their parents unless it's a day dedicated to do it? Best Regards from EU.
- spacemanmatt 13y agoNo, it's a day reserved for mothers from a time when could still afford to allocate a whole day to anything. Best regards from TX.
- sunilkumarc 13y agoMother's day special https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB3xM93rXbY
- sidcool 13y agoI live with my mom. I am from India and joint family is not a taboo here as it is in the US. I have never understood why it should be considered a taboo. But that's a difference in cultures. Anyways, I don't just call my mom, I buy her a gift and the entire family goes out for dinner :)
- tuananh 13y agoTwitter posted this last year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGB8SwwhltA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGB8SwwhltA
- Hengjie 13y agoSkype, Viber or any other telecommunications provider should really offer free calls to Mums on this day.
- niels 13y agoSorry, but this is not why I go to HN.
- SloughFeg 13y agoYou don't like your mom? What kind of monster are you?!?
- adnam 13y agoTip: download Upptalk for iOS or Android and call her for free.
- EC1 13y agoGoing to see a Tchaikovsky concert with my Mom and Dad, can't wait :) I don't get to see them very often.
- gphilip 13y agoPerhaps relevant: http://seeyourfolks.com/ http://seeyourfolks.com/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Geekette 13y agoHappy Mother's day to all mothers out there. My condolences to those who recently lost theirs. Correspondingly, my sympathies to those who had/have negative relationships with theirs. Glad to be with mine today.
- softatlas 13y ago"Why you Borklandian yorlix, hasn't everyone been slashed or thwacked with a magic wand or had a morningstar or two broken over their head as a kid? Shit, if that's the worst thing your Mother did, you should consider yourself fate-blessed and smooch the ground she hovers over because you probably deserved it. Fracking wurtbag..." Scrape CL, apply a lexical categorizer (porting Syntactic[0] to Python now), pseudo-randomize, apply Tangle[1] as a front end; allow users to scale between language species-norms over categories and submit their creations, apply a speech-to-text tool, there's a voting board involved. The point here is that I find prescriptive morality to be quite droll. Upon reading this HN title, I immediately dashed over the CL to see if any analogues might exist. The CL in my State took on a characteristic countertone to this HN post. I intuited this immediately. The output post above is a follow-up to the OP [on CL], where the output post is consistent with the HN OP. But there's more hilarity now. Goal: Use "nerd" activities to diffuse prescriptivism. Now I have a port to consider and maintain. — [0]: http://syntactic.omershapira.com/ http://syntactic.omershapira.com/ [1]: http://worrydream.com/Tangle/ http://worrydream.com/Tangle/
- adrianlmm 13y agoI see my mother every weekend, no need for a call, I just when there.
- morganf 13y agoThink up, and think down, the tree: you thank your parents for being awesome by, being awesome parents to your own children. (Think of the last line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 13: "You had a father; let your son say so.") I interviewed my parents, grandparents, and relatives to write a family history for my children. (And my wife's, too.) It was one of the most powerful things I've done, and this process brought our entire family closer together -- and it wasn't easy, there are many tough, painful moments in my parents' and grandparents' lives, including still unresolved fights. I'd strongly urge any fellow hackers to record their parents' stories for posterity.
- mattwritescode 13y agoDon't forget get Dad!!!
- known 13y agoI presented her with diamond ear rings