Tell HN: Call Mom
I remembered this post from six years ago, and thought it would be good to have a post like it on HN today. It's especially important to call important people in your life today with the pandemic, both for the caller and the person (or people) being called. It may also be worth setting up a Zoom (or Jitsi Meet, or Google Hangouts, or Facebook, or another group video call service) gathering. I joined one for my little brother's birthday late last month, and it was really good for feeling connected.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 81.0 ms ] threadDont be like me. Call her.
I wish I would’ve encouraged her more to stop smoking and maybe not go to the crappy suburban hospital she was insisting on going to. That’s probably my only regret with the whole thing.
A few weeks earlier: My older siblings and I sent a bright, aware, career budget analyst into cancer surgery. The hospital returned a woman who no longer recognized us or even where she was. We were sent home and some home health aides helped us get her settled & setup care routines.
After some time my sister went back to her life (she & mom didn't get on). Then my brother drove back to his home two states away and it was just me and mom & feeding her & helping to the bathroom & cleaning up when she didn't make it.
Some days or weeks later, I had a phone call w/ mom's sister and that aunt drove down & took over whatever it was I handed to her. As a guy who struggles to keep the dishes washed, I imagine it wasn't great.
The last few months of mom's life proceeded in a more orderly manner. Mom turned 64. I turned 22 & three weeks later she died.
In case anyone is tempted to lionize the kid in the above picture, let me complete the picture. If I could have slipped away and let someone take point, I would have. In this thing, my siblings & I were my dad's kids (tho he was gone & dead, many years). As I was living with mom already, I was the one left holding the colostomy bag.
So I wasn't really responsible but I was lucky. Taking care of an ailing parent for 6 months can be a privilege (as opposed to, say, 6 years). I'm grateful to have escaped the guilt that I suspect my siblings have. I also learned I might not be terrible at other big life challenges, like being a parent (I was anyway but not forever).
However, for anyone beating themselves up this Mother's Day, let it go. We are what we are until we aren't & the weightiest factor that changes that are the circumstances beyond our control.
'Will' is critical but I've found it's a poor tool for making deep, lasting, healthy changes - unless supportive environments are also present.
Details aside (because OPSEC) I'll be dealing with something like that for (ideally) years. With luck, perhaps for the rest of my life. It is quite the privilege, as difficult as it may be sometimes. And we have many friends to share the work. Which is fortunate, because I'd otherwise be overwhelmed.
I guess due to all the COVID-19 news I somehow escaped the usual media barrage of Mothers' Day fanfare that is usually on the television/radio/net.
While I was never distant with my mother, and we had a friendly/healthy rapport, I still regret not being able to call her now. I called her when I should, and generally treated her well -- but not being able to call and talk to her any day, but most especially today, is still a regret.
Whenever a project goes well, or I unexpectedly did better at something, or something fantastic or terrible happens to me -- there's a moment still , internally, where I think to myself "I can't wait to tell her.", usually followed by sadness during the realization that my idea is fantasy, she's long gone and I had forgotten in that brief part of time.
So, I share your sentiment for those out there that shared the same kind of relationship with their mother that I got to experience -- call your mom. One day you won't have the option to do so, and it's tough once you're unable to fulfill that desire.
I try to explain that to my sons when they ignore their Mom, that one day she won't be there, but its very hard for teens to imagine.
I will try to stay conscious of this. Thank you for your kind comment.
Im doing pretty well and have supportive friends and family.
Are you a counsellor or generally like helping people through issues? I've always felt like I wanted to do that, though I'm not sure I have the right skills.
I just wanted to make sure you had someone, anyone, in case the opposite was true.
Glad you have a support network my friend. Good luck.
Anecdotally, my international friends on average put family calls in a higher regard than my American friends.
Still love my mom though. Will call her in a bit.
Perhaps it a western thing not just American.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I don’t call 4 times a week, but twice aren’t awkward, and once is a given.
there's a lot of value in being fully present for a social interaction: when you're on the phone and paying attention, it's typically a lot more engaging than the other person watching a video, texting 4 other people at the same time, or whatever else people do in between texts.
To me a strong relationship is one that lasts across time and physical distance without constant attention. Obviously within limits. But if my wife expected me to call her everyday, or vice versa, I could only assume that there was an insecurity/neediness that hadn't been appropriately handled.
If you're away from home on work, you only call your wife 2-4 times a week? Note I'm not saying this is "wrong" or something, I am just very curious about it. I can't imagine not calling at least once a day.
I noted that you referred to the idea of "what could have changed that much, that often," but for me the purpose of these calls is not to exchange information but instead to express affection, feel affection in return, and to simply be in the other's presence (if virtually) for a short time. Mainly I just plumb miss her. This also holds true for the reasons I call my parents, but I tend to only do that once per week.
Having typed out that mini-screed, maybe you were just making a point, in which case carry on.
When the cadence is so high I don't think it's so much about getting updated information as much as just seeking their company ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> 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.
My wife used to talk to her mom every day, but is down to a couple times a week now.
(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?)
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.
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.
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.
To others like me who may have a gaslighting c* * * of a mother, don't be bullied by societal norms into feeling like a bad person just because you don't want to connect with an abuser. It's perfectly fine to not call your mother on mother's day if you don't have the kind of relationship that will benefit from it.
Right - boggles my mind that people think they should be telling anyone to call anyone on a site like this.
(Not a comment on my mother - just the idea that everyone has the same relationships as you do and should do things the way you do them.)
It's a nice reminder, don't see the OP post as "reconnect with your abusive parent" more like "today might be a good day to call your mother"
The OP doesn't qualify their premise with 'might'. ('May' only applied to video chat, specifically). The title is imperative, and there is a general claim of importance.
I'm not bothered personally, I just agree with chriseatons assessment of the tone.
It's a little reminder for the oblivious and workaholics among us. Nobody is suggesting anyone call their mom if they hate her guts.
The sad fact is that since that relationship is so special, the callous negligence and other pathologies parted by the mother into the relationship are so many times more destructive.
And this is not about the stereotypical sitcom mom who is overbearing or judgemental.
Think about substance abuse, suicide attempts and the like.
Nothing gives you a jolt like finding your mom in her bed OD's with sleeping pills and plastic bags wrapped under her bottom not to soil the sheets. Even though if the mom survives something will be irreparably broken inside the child.
Don't push people about their relationships to their parents. There are lots of sad, sad stories there.
I don't think this is true. The cultural presumption is that you love your mom and that she was basically a pretty good mom. In that assumed case, not calling makes you a callous bastard. And of course there are people who will badger you to reconcile with estranged parents, but are they the majority? Most people understand that abusive or otherwise shitty parents exist, they just (correctly) assume that it's not the default.
Edit: Expanding some, since brevity gives too much room for ambiguity: cultural norms for some can be a point of pain for others because of forces we as observers to the experiences of others may never have to contend with; assumptions in the face of these norms can sometimes box a person into the same feelings of anxiety and distress because of said norms and how they have affected such individual in ways unique to them that we could be completely blind to. Familial relations are sometimes an especially sore area in this specific regard.
It’s was a cautionary remark, not an assertive one. Looking back on the post, maybe I should have said “Herein lies the basic problem with assuming of such intimate matters”.
May healing find them.
Not to an addict and certainly not to their loved ones. See, you are on the one hand saying the addict is fine doing whatever it is they are, and on the other hand you are shaming the loved ones of the addict into a position of never giving up on him/her.
All of that will just make things worse for all parties. You see, the addict, after a point, does not really want love anymore. They want the substance. They may use love as a tool to live and continue their addiction but they are not in a condition to provide a reciprocal relationship. They have become, in a way, narsistic in the sense that other people are above all enabling agents to get their high, and beyond this utility are worthless to them.
So you see how just being ready to love another through whatever is not actually a great plan when heavy addiction steps into play?
First rule of all human relationships: You are not responsible for another person - their happiness, their addiction or what ever.
Some relationships can be actively harmful. Especially with addictive substances the other party gets easily damaged through co-dependency.
I understand why you would find this callous. On the other hand, knowing far too well what I'm talking about, I find your approach potentially very harmful.
It sounds like you think I'm coming to this from a moral or religious high ground. I'm not. I have far better understanding of relationship dynamics with an addict than I would ever want.
"But please don't go about preaching addicts don't need love"
Of course not, that would be de-humanizing. But similarly no single person should feel obligated to love an addict.
Let me explain where I'm coming from. My mom was a heavy drinker and that affected all aspects of her life for decades. My father spent most of his good years living with her, but after my mother died, I realized staying with my mom had been a mistake from his part.
His mood brightened remarkably and he found a new person to share his life with. Sadly, he died in a few years as well.
Had he not spent his life with my mom I'm fairly sure he would have been a lot happier. I mean, sure, it's a roll of the die but surely staying with my mom was close to snake-eyes in terms of what sort of relationship you can end in.
Especially in the later years my moms behaviour changed and she turned partly a different person.
You love who you choose to love. But you are not obliged to love anybody and most certainly you are not responsible for anyone elses happiness.
Nobody should feel obligated to show love to anyone else except your child, and should be ok to take distance and gauge their options - especially with an addict.
Addicts can recover, and sometimes cannot.
You can't force an addict to recover. And more importantly, you can't heal an addict. The addict needs to take the responsibility for their own condition.
Taking distance can be part of the addicts journey to a non-addicted way of living. But you can't push nor pull them.
Not everything that works for oneself will "vastly improve" the lives of others.
Anger and sadness are both very helpful, understandable and ok emotions. There is nothing wrong or dysfunctional about either of those feelings.
I think the cultural norm that certain emotions are “bad” and that we can “change” our emotions is extremely destructive for many people.
We can control (and our responsible for) our thoughts and actions.
I don’t think people can actually control their emotions however and making people feel ashamed or unhealthy because of their emotional reactions is unfair. This is actually one of the symptoms of abusive parent-child relationships that I think many people have unavoidably internalized.
A lot of people have experienced serious emotional trauma due to cultural norms and an unhealthy value system about how parents treat their children (as well as by being parented by traumatized people who have grown up in similar circumstances)
There are a lot of good books about it if you search for Complex PTSD. One that I think covers a lot of information holistically is “Healing Developmental Trauma” by Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre
It's still really tough to know where to go from here. I feel like I've learned from his mistakes, but is the same true for him? Why hasn't he tried to change, is it the society/culture he grew up in? How much is his fault? Still figuring out how to deal with these questions. But I can be angry, and have pity too.
The Fox, the Crow and the Cookie is still one of my favorite songs.
I give them targetted praise whenever they do something I want. Give treats for wrong decisions but drilling what they did was wrong. Make them feel important and special. Let them feel guilty for not being able to live up to the expectations you build around them. Let them see the perfect human you see them as. Use metrics and numbers that are easy to parse, use social signaling. Instead of giving your opinion about something, point towards someone they might be interested to hear about or care to change them.
Say you love them the way they are but point towards changing societal expectations.
Again, you aren't the bad guy who wants them to change. It's the society or someone else. It is easier to get through the head.
Push them into groups with opposite view to them. People behave differently under group pressure compared to when you are talking to them one on one.
Whenever they come across material that re-enforces their existing belief, try to distract them. Change their environment. Offer to clean their room and remove harmful material. Change places that remind them of their previously held beliefs.
Sorry to hear that you've had that kind of experience!
I feel such a strong aversion to acknowledge almost every holiday, especially marketing-driven ones like Mother’s Day. Frankly saying “happy Mother’s Day” feels like I’m defiling myself and mindlessly buying into propaganda.
Isn’t it enough to treat mothers/fathers/etc well on a regular basis? Doesn’t that mean more than a call/card once a year?
I don’t want to be this way. Help me.
It's not about you, it's about her. If your mother would appreciate a call on this day, call her.
The "official" holiday is just an organized opportunity for you to say thanks. Of course, you can send her flowers and call her any day of the year, but most people don't. Having a set date gives you a reason. If she's anything like my mother, she'll be happy you thought of her. It's a gesture, not an announcement that you will from now until the end of times surrender to the marketing of flower shops. It's not about you, it's about her.
It is kind of sad that I get to see her maybe once a year, due to my visa situation. But, I talk to her almost everyday. We don't talk about much, mostly small talk, and I do try to make her birthday special.
But, yeah, mother's day seems to be more like a threat than a celebration. Like, " Wish your mom and buy our gifts, because we have artificially raised expectations about a completely arbitrary day, and set her up for disappointment in case you don't."
I totally agree. Just talk to them regularly. If anything, just sending a card and calling on their special days is kind of insulting. Like, "the only time I can bear to talk to you, is when society shames me into it."
After my mother is gone, and I can't call her and say, "Happy Mother's day, Mom! I know we talked two days ago, but I just wanted to say I love you and appreciate you! Did you have a good brunch?"
how would I feel about not doing that today because of my hate of consumerism? Will I feel really good about myself, that I've lived my values and not bought into to some stupid fake holiday meant to sell greeting cards? Or will I be filled with regret that I didn't take every opportunity to tell the woman who selflessly raised me, who gave up the prime of her life to set me on a course that has led to a lot of happiness and fulfillment, that I love and appreciate her?
When I frame it like that, my values always seem kind of shallow and solipsistic. The point of this isn't for me to feel good about my strong values. It's to let my mother feel good and appreciated for everything she did for me.
Just for context: I text my mom a few times a week and we FaceTime at leat once every two weeks, and I usually let her know how much I appreciate her when we chat, so it's not like I'm using only Mother's Day to express myself.
You're not supposed to spend any extra money necessarily, you're just supposed to some time today with your mother (and presumably the rest of the family), and maybe think about her a little more than you would any other day.
You're not buying into propaganda. If it makes you feel like that, you're the one imbuing the day with that particular quality.
“The modern Mother's Day began in the United States, at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century. The U.S.-derived modern version of Mother's Day has been criticized for having become too commercialized. Founder Jarvis herself regretted this commercialism and expressed views on how that was never her intention.
Although Jarvis was successful in founding Mother's Day, she became resentful of the commercialization of the holiday. By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother's Day cards. Jarvis believed that the companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother's Day and that the emphasis of the holiday was on sentiment, not profit. As a result, she organized boycotts of Mother's Day, and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved. Jarvis argued that people should appreciate and honor their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their love and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-made cards.”
You can simply ignore the modern version of Mother’s Day and do something more aligned with the original intention.
Scroll down to "Really Long Distance".
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/702/one-last-thing-before-i...
Everything we do for the dead is a ritual for the living.
I'm not sure if my mom would have liked that much either. She didn't want us focusing on things like that after she was gone. She didn't want to be buried so we wouldn't waste time going to a grave stone.
>Everything we do for the dead is a ritual for the living.
Yup, that it is. To help people come to terms with loss and generally confront the idea of mortality. Personally, i've gone through lots of different feelings towards it over the years. I'm not sure if it's something you ever really deal with, you just learn different ways of thinking about it over the years, and it's not always a steady progression of, feeling bad-being ok or something like that. Sometimes I feel like I dealt with it better when I was younger than I do now.
For the people in this thread saying they call their parents every second day, is it because you genuinely like talking to them, or is it more out of a sense of obligation? Do I still have a duty to call my parents multiple times a week, despite us never having anything to talk about?
I don't think it's anyone else's place to decide what your duties are, here. On the one hand, feelings of duty can cause us to try too hard to do something which doesn't bring any goodness to anyone involved. On the other hand, cultivating emotional generosity is often deeply satisfying, and this could be (or not) an opportunity to place someone else happiness above your own interests. Every situation is different.
No, of course not.
P.S. Talking about politics is a recipe for disaster. There’s always something to disagree on, and in an unrestrained environment like between me and my parents it could easily escalate. I hardly ever came out of such a conversation unscathed.
you mention that your father is the polar opposite of you politically. Well, so is my mum and she is my best friend for sure. She's ardently pro-brexit and I think it's stupid, we've even argued about it heatedly. (although often it can be quite "nice" to get an outside opinion, I am very aware of my own bubble and how the world has become this horrible polarising assortment of echo-chambers)
you mention that you have no shared hobbies, but that's not a dealbreaker either, I also don't have any hobbies shared with my mum.
The major difference might be that I have always had a "I trust you more than I trust myself" mentality, and I feel like I can tell her anything and not be judged. She doesn't have to give me solutions to every little problem but she will listen.
The other thing is I generally enjoy being in her presence, yes, she's overly tightly wound, she yells and gets aggravated to an unusually high degree, but she's a decent person and wants everyone to be happy, and that goes a long way.
What I'm trying to convey is that those things you mentioned don't matter as much as you might think they do, what matters is the kind of trust and enjoyment you both get out of each other generally.
I'm very bad at keeping in touch with people so I'm the wrong person to say that society expects you to call your parents. I don't think anyone outside cares if you do or not- it's about you and how much you want them in your life.
When I said "best friend relationship", this is what I was referring to. My real-life best friends don't share all of my interests or politics, so I know that's not the dealbreaker I may have made it out to be in my original post. The difference is that I can share my thoughts and feelings openly with my friends without feeling like they're going to share what I said with other people, or judge me, or take it upon themselves to fix my situation -- and I can't say the same for my parents.
I'm glad you're grateful for and recognise the special relationship you have with your Mother, as I think it's more rare than you may realize.
It's often worthwhile to have family that you stick together with. Partly to maintain some connection to where you come from but also because sometimes life throws some real nasty stuff at you, and it's good if someone has your back. I think we humans are wired for this to some extent, and it can often be beneficial.
If so, then it's worth some effort to maintain that family relationship. So I think there's a third option, which is to call them not because you're best buds or because you're supposed to but because you've decided maintaining that family relationship is important to you.
Can you have both a friend relationship and a family relationship with one person? Yes. It's great when people have that. But it's not a given, and if you can't (or don't, or don't yet), that doesn't necessarily prevent the family relationship from being there.
Personally I think calling multiple times a week is probably only natural if you have the friends type of relationship with them. If you don't, I wouldn't feel bad about not forcing it that way.
Do it for yourself. Your parents are a huge part of your psyche: they made you--100% in a genetic sense, and in most cases they made a lot of your personality traits by the way they raised you. And they made you in their image, because they could only give you what they had. In a sense, making peace with your parents is making peace with yourself. It's not comfortable but many things that are worthwhile aren't.
Maybe set a boundary where you don't talk about politics. Or do talk about politics if you can keep it polite and productive: it's pretty fucked up that so many people just write off people because they hold radical political views. One of the most effective ways to change the political landscape is for people to talk to radicals and explain to them patiently why their views are wrong. And that's most effective when coming from loved ones, I think. Don't try to do it if you can't do it in a healthy way, but it's certainly a worthwhile endeavor if you can do it.
Good luck with that. Best I think is reasonable to hope for with that much of a gulf is to model the attitudes you believe in, and hope the other person eventually comes around. Don't think anyone with radical views has ever been convinced by someone explaining - calmly or otherwise - why they're wrong.
As to the OP's question of whether he's obligated to talk to his father, with whom he shares no interests and disagrees on strongly-held beliefs, multiple times per week. My answer would be a hard no, but that's far from cutting him out of his life.
I agree with you that it's emotionally beneficial to have a connection with your parents where possible, and that OP could try to have contact with his dad. But forcing it on a very regular basis when it's unpleasant and uncomfortable seems counter-productive.
Well, I can disprove that: me. I grew up with some pretty homophobic views, and due to some very patient people in my life, I realized I was wrong. And I've had similar conversations with other people and seen their views change over time.
> As to the OP's question of whether he's obligated to talk to his father, with whom he shares no interests and disagrees on strongly-held beliefs, multiple times per week. My answer would be a hard no, but that's far from cutting him out of his life.
I don't think there's any obligation.
> I agree with you that it's emotionally beneficial to have a connection with your parents where possible, and that OP could try to have contact with his dad. But forcing it on a very regular basis when it's unpleasant and uncomfortable seems counter-productive.
There's a range of unpleasantness and discomfort, and I think some level of both is a necessary part of growth. If every conversation turns into a screaming match--sure that's counterproductive. But if you're at a point in your life when you can handle disagreement in a healthy way, disagreement doesn't need to be avoided.
Underrated piece of advice right there. I see a doctor who I explained this problem to (I have diametrically opposed views from my parents, and feel compelled to un-brainwash them, in spite of the obvious fact that it never works...)
She is not a psychologist or psychiatrist, or GP, for that matter, just someone who sees a lot of people, and her advice for me was "sometimes it's better if you just don't talk about certain things with certain people."
My parents have some stupid-ass opinions, and I'll be the first to tell you! But they worked in health care for 30 years and they respect doctors, so when I told them "it was my doctor's advice that we just don't talk about this stuff anymore" for the third or fourth time, (it took at least that many times for me to be sure they heard it) each time before and after that, we just had better feelings everyone.
I'm not going to say I don't get shitpost emails from my Dad anymore but I try to listen to my doctors, and reinforce the advice, and especially ignoring the messaging that triggers me, rather than repeating myself, and it works! I feel like we have a healthy relationship, and they are not afraid to share real meaningful important advice when I actually may need it. You can be clear about your views without rubbing anyone's noses in it, and you may catch more flies with honey (in spite of what I've often heard to the contrary).
As I understand it, the most common reason to cut your parents out of your life for "political differences" is when those "differences" are beliefs of theirs that lead to them considering categories of people that you are or care about to be less-than. That crosses a line from "politics" to "bigotry".
The next major chunk I'm aware of it is correlative rather than causative; certain political stances (ex: conspiratorial bent) seem to correlate with toxic relationships.
So yes, AFAIK, it's better to have a healthy relationship with your parents. But, if they don't want to have a healthy relationship with you - which AFAIK can happen due to "political differences" - gonna be hard to make that happen.
So yes, AFAIK, the culture that brought deplatforming and cancelling also brought cutting out your parents... as a subset of "cutting toxic people out of your life".
Totes agree with the rest of your post tho.
Yeah, but bigots are still people. And I have faith in people. Bigots can and do become not-bigots.
So it isn't about the latest and greatest techniques of Public discourse. This is has been going on forever.
Sure, disagreements over values aren't new. But ostracizing your parents because of those disagreements has certainly increased due to modern political strategy.
It's extremely reasonable actually.
You made your statement here, you can defend your statement here.
I seriously doubt that you are unfamiliar with how people respond to sea lions, but you should get used to it. You are not entitled to my or anyone's response.
I don't explain why others are wrong. I just have conversations. And I'm always willing to change my opinion.
If you don't actually enjoy talking to them, I wouldn't frame it as an "obligation" or "duty", but whether you care about them.
Especially as they get older, they may need someone to look out for them. For example, I had to call my parents almost every day for two weeks to convince them to take COVID-19 seriously. Normally I call about once per week.
Also, try putting yourself in their shoes and imagine what it's like to raise a child you love more than anything in the world, and have that child grow apart from you and want nothing to do you with you. I imagine it can be heartbreaking.
Not all parents feel like that though. I have very little in common with my children and can't wait to have my own life back. Once they've flown the nest I doubt I'd appreciate them hassling me on Hallmark days.
[EDIT] I'd forgotten how poorly humor fares on HN.
Ergo mom(False, True, True)
See the wiki page for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother%27s_Day
The second place goes to March 8th (International Women’s Day) which has 20 countries.
My 40+ countries came from the same page, not sure why it says 40+.
Some of those people make a friend or two who had a different experience and at least develop a little empathy. I don't expect you to understand, but I hope you can at least understand that many people lashing out in this thread are projecting a diminished form of the horrors done to them. It's not meant to be personal.
Here's how it's different for me: I'm a practising Muslim and there's strong exhortation in the religion to be kind and respectful to your parents, no matter how they are (e.g. "and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], "uff," and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word.") Note it doesn't say you have to love them, because you can't really control that. My learned experience (I'm 41 now) has shown me that on the whole, this approach and advice has been immensely helpful. I feel that despite the worse that's been dished out to me and my siblings, by controlling how I choose to react is very empowering. Plus it sets up a good example to our kids (my mom lives with us since my dad passed a few years back) on how to deal with difficult people.
Different women deal with it differently. The glorification of motherhood and the enormous pressure on ‘being a good mom’ and creating gods from mere mortals is only making things worse.
Women would benefit enormously physically and mentally and spiritually if..as a society..we stop gaslighting half the human species into believing that what women have to go through physically is ‘normal’ and glorious because honestly that’s the only way they’d continue to keep getting pregnant and having more babies. Of course, physically, hormones also conspire against them creating an addiction with happy chemicals and endorphins and oxytocin and dopamine etc. But that’s nature. But nature doesn’t have Hallmark moments. It’s evolution.
I am not a feminist in the traditional sense. I dont think women are ‘equal’ to men due to evolution. Our collective biological evolution has made the female of our species superior due to their higher ability to perpetuate humanity as a species, but it has also made one gender biologically weak and vulnerable. Fix that. A true feminist would want to fix that and hack biology and evolution so we are truly equal. Everything else is fluff.
Having said all that..it is always a good thing to respect and love your elders and parents. After all, they are you and you are them. If you are your DNA, an unbroken chain of code...your source code must be treasured and thanked. It’s not going to be perfect but it’s key to understanding yourself and especially when you want to replicate that code.
But it doesn’t have to a mass ‘celebration’ of one day in a year that has become a caricature of sorts rather than anything meaningful.
Having said that, I am in favour of genetically engineering the human species. If we are to be a space faring species, we will most certainly have to genetically alter the genome.
I don’t know if we can erase sexes. However, there will be a greater degree of feminization. The default gender is female. Y is a ..how you say..I want to call it a mutation.
Patriarchy..as the feminists call it..is just the mutation gone rogue.
Won’t people who already want to do this do this without prompting? Will people who don’t want to suddenly change their mind because they were prompted?
What is the intended goal of this post, benatkin? Do you wish for people who don’t want to speak to their mothers to do so anyway, because you told them to do so? Are you worried that people who do wish to do so will forget?
In either case, these sorts of societal nudging always struck me personally as really quite rude, the sort of thing that might warrant a “mind your own mother” sort of reply.
It seems to me that it warrants a reminder that your cultural norms and values and priorities need not be the same cultural norms and values and priorities of those around you, and those others are not wrong for diverging from your own views.
For those on the fence, I would like to nudge some of them, but not all of them, to call at least one mother figure in their life. For those who were going to call a mother figure, but were going to wait until the last moment, I would like them to call earlier. Mother's Day is traditionally celebrated in the morning, after all. I also had in mind people who were going to forget.
My views have been shaped in part by self-help books I've read, as well as what I've learned by taking yoga, improv, and meditation classes. I think it's better for most people to remove any protective shell they have around them, if they can find a safe way to do so. "The Untethered Self" by Michael Singer [1] gave me a lot of insight into it. When I'm aware, I try to let thoughts come and let them pass. I find I have an easier time doing this when I have good habits (including yoga, improv, meditation, running, and music). Sometimes I do build up a shell around myself, but I eventually open back up again.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Singer/dp/1572245379