It made me sad because it makes me realize I have no control over the fact that they are growing old.
Instead, what would be nice is if provided information such as: ask your father to go for a prostrate exam, ask your mother to run these other tests, and so on - based on the country, age and perhaps race data (which is not collected right now).
Makes me sad because I don't have much control over living in the same city as them.
I have a theory that much of the high rates of depression and unhappiness in the US can be attributed to the large size of the country combined with our mobility within it. Childhood friends always move far away, families separate, your schoolmates drift away. You need 2-5 hour flights to see anyone. Take for example a Brit or a German. The people you grow up with and your families might move to another city, but they are always just a reasonable train ride or drive away. It's quite isolating when you realize everyone you're close with is spread across a continent.
"Take for example a Brit or a German. The people you grow up with and your families might move to another city, but they are always just a reasonable train ride or drive away."
Not that reasonable.
I'm a Brit, living in Scotland. Many, many of my friends live either 5-and-a-bit hours' train ride away (London) or 7-8 hours by train or car away (Bristol).
Contrast that with the distance between Southern California and Maine... a day-trip by land for you would be a multi-day monstrosity for an American. :(
I was contrasting with the parent comment, which was lamenting 2-5 hour flights - almost exactly the same travel time that I'll need to see my more distant friends.
I do agree that I wouldn't want to do a US-style road trip to visit people!
> Take for example a Brit or a German. The people you grow up with and your families might move to another city, but they are always just a reasonable train ride or drive away.
UK - I don't know anyone with friends in a different city who frequently sees the people they grew up with, (or their parents for that matter.)
I am not sure I appreciate this kind of thing but it is interesting nevertheless. My folks have lived 4.5 years beyond the expected life expectancy for my country! By the way, the app needs to handle this case gracefully: I am a foreigner in the US so I see my folks less than once a year. I tried putting in 1/3 but looks like the lowest number it can handle is 1.
> I tried putting in 1/3 but looks like the lowest number it can handle is 1.
It also fails to handle the case where your parents don't live together and therefore you see them at different intervals, or are already dead. But obviously this is a throwaway thing and doesn't really merit overthinking.
We also live in an age of visas, rogue governments holding your (expir{ing|ed}) passport for ransom for stupid things like compulsory military service. Not everybody can change that part of the situation.
The situation may be horrible, in which case this site may be an unwelcome reminder of the horribleness of the situation. But this site doesn't make anything worse or tell you anything you didn't already know.
Some will never see their parents again. For some of us, even when we see our parents they are too far lost in dementia to realize it. Some will lose their parents tragically early. Some will get far more time with their parents than expected. Some will become their parents' or in-laws' primary caretakers and privately sometimes wish in their hearts of hearts they saw their parents less.
None of that changes the message of this site. We have a finite amount of time on this earth. We could do worse than to spend some of it with those we love.
I'm glad there's at least one person who doesn't immediately get all profound over the oft-trotted theme of 'spend time with the loved ones'. I'm also glad it isn't everyone; but I am glad there is one.
The rest of you: yes, it's also very nice that you're all nice, soft humans with good families.
Damn, my dad had a stroke on Saturday night. Thankfully he got very prompt and first class medical treatment (Thanks NHS. Socialised medicine FTW) so the damage is fortunately very limited. I'm actually on my way to the hospital to see him now.
This is a great reminder to pick up the phone and tell your folks or anyone that matters to you that you love them. Everyone reading this should do that now if they can. You never know when it will be too late and you don't want those regrets.
So true. My wife's dad passed away when she was in college. No one knows how long their parents will be around.
I'm very lucky, my dad is 83 years old and doing great. The past few times I've gone to visit my parents, I've made a conscious effort to ask them a lot of questions about their life, and it's been incredibly rewarding.
One thing led to another and now helping people record their family stories is what I do for a living (http://www.storyworth.com if you want to check it out).
Yeah, if you put in an age older than 81, it just says how much over that limit they are living. It would be more impactful to see a tiny number of visits remaining.
Yes, I came here to say the same thing. They tried to correct for it by stating how far past life expectancy they are if you enter an age older that life expectancy at birth, but if you enter, say, one year less than life expectancy, you get an estimate of one year's worth of visits, which is not correct (or even close, really).
One of the great things about working remotely is the ability to spend time with folks. I moved out to SF to be where the sun shines but recently my father became ill. I'm now spending lots and lots of time in a small town in the Midwest sharing moments with my father, which is the most important thing to me at this moment.
I was going to say.. the website says I'll see my parents close to 1300 times... however, I believe that unless I make drastic life changes, my father will outlive me - I'm overweight and have heart risk and have a relatively low salary and long working hours, while he's extremely fit and lean and very well off, and only 18 years older than me.
I'm treating the money and job ones first, after that I'll tackle my weight (I did manage to lose 40 pounds a few years ago, but got them back compensating for the shitty job and money troubles).
Calorie & weight awareness. It's really the simple guaranteed key to keeping weight off and losing it. More than exercise, more than ketogenic diets and a billion bits of contradictory information, being aware of how many calories you eat is really the key to not being overweight.
You can lose weight even with really busy schedules under $10/day with a combination of liquid egg whites with salsa, carrot stick snacks and subway/chipolte for example. Just eat at the -1.5lbs/week calorie level to lose weight with a calorie calculator[1]. Remember to recalculate every 5lbs or so of weight loss.
Also record your weight at least weekly with something like myfitnesspal or a wifi weight scale (like the fitbit aria) to snip weight gain trends in the bud. I once gained 30 lbs over a period of 5 months without realizing it due to not tracking my weight, stress and my exGF getting into baking. %70 of americans are overweight, your not alone.
I'll second what mahyarm said about being aware of calories.
Download Myfitnesspal (or bookmark the website) and use it for one week.
I'll disagree with mahyarm about needing anything fancly like liquid egg whites. For most people substituting water for softdrinks will make a substantial difference to the calories. Carrot sticks do make a good snack though (they have a high satability index). Pears are also good if you prefer something sweeter.
It would be nice if you could incorporate expectation of years of life left at given age instead of defaulting to state the years lived past their expected life. Does the WHO data have this? For example, see rightmost column here http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/Revised_Tables_2008.pdf .
This is great, regardless of whether the math is correct. I don’t share much on Facebook, but this, this I shared. It may seem sappy to some, but I find it to be a community service.
My situation: I’m 33 years old and I live in the same city as my parents do. My mom is 65 years old, my dad is 69 years old. I visit my parents about once a week.
According to this test, I can expect to see my parents another 700 times before they pass. That may look like a large number, for me it is sobering. My dad has heart problems (he had an angioplasty and a stent placed last year, some incidents after, and he had a pace maker installed this year). I’m not sure whether I get to see him another 700 times at the rate that I visit him now. I will certainly increase the rate of my visits.
I'm 32 and live in a different province from my family and I only see them for a week or so a year (this past year I got to see them three times :). Seeing 28.5 show up on there was painful.
I'm in the same situation, I live in San Francisco and my parents are in France. I see my parents a couple of times a year.
You might be interested in trying my service http://www.StoryWorth.com. It helps people record their family stories, and we often end up talking about my parents' stories during our weekly phone calls.
194 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadInstead, what would be nice is if provided information such as: ask your father to go for a prostrate exam, ask your mother to run these other tests, and so on - based on the country, age and perhaps race data (which is not collected right now).
The website is nice and intuitive.
I have a theory that much of the high rates of depression and unhappiness in the US can be attributed to the large size of the country combined with our mobility within it. Childhood friends always move far away, families separate, your schoolmates drift away. You need 2-5 hour flights to see anyone. Take for example a Brit or a German. The people you grow up with and your families might move to another city, but they are always just a reasonable train ride or drive away. It's quite isolating when you realize everyone you're close with is spread across a continent.
Not that reasonable.
I'm a Brit, living in Scotland. Many, many of my friends live either 5-and-a-bit hours' train ride away (London) or 7-8 hours by train or car away (Bristol).
I do agree that I wouldn't want to do a US-style road trip to visit people!
UK - I don't know anyone with friends in a different city who frequently sees the people they grew up with, (or their parents for that matter.)
I think I'd prefer not to have checked this out.
It also fails to handle the case where your parents don't live together and therefore you see them at different intervals, or are already dead. But obviously this is a throwaway thing and doesn't really merit overthinking.
The situation may be horrible, in which case this site may be an unwelcome reminder of the horribleness of the situation. But this site doesn't make anything worse or tell you anything you didn't already know.
Some will never see their parents again. For some of us, even when we see our parents they are too far lost in dementia to realize it. Some will lose their parents tragically early. Some will get far more time with their parents than expected. Some will become their parents' or in-laws' primary caretakers and privately sometimes wish in their hearts of hearts they saw their parents less.
None of that changes the message of this site. We have a finite amount of time on this earth. We could do worse than to spend some of it with those we love.
The rest of you: yes, it's also very nice that you're all nice, soft humans with good families.
This is a great reminder to pick up the phone and tell your folks or anyone that matters to you that you love them. Everyone reading this should do that now if they can. You never know when it will be too late and you don't want those regrets.
If you can, you should say to the people you care about how much you love them. Time is limited, memories stay forever.
I'm very lucky, my dad is 83 years old and doing great. The past few times I've gone to visit my parents, I've made a conscious effort to ask them a lot of questions about their life, and it's been incredibly rewarding.
One thing led to another and now helping people record their family stories is what I do for a living (http://www.storyworth.com if you want to check it out).
[edited to linkify]
"Where do your in-laws live?"
"On average how many times do you see your in-laws a year?"
/jk
If my parents are 80, I don't expect them to die in 1 year just because life expectancy at birth is 81. I expect them to live about another 8 years.
Use a table like http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Though that's really the current life expectancy, no one actually knows future life expectancy, which depends on future technology.
or if you've had children who can read english and can access the internet
http://www.motivation123.com/news108.txt
http://i.imgur.com/MA3YeuX.jpg
I'm treating the money and job ones first, after that I'll tackle my weight (I did manage to lose 40 pounds a few years ago, but got them back compensating for the shitty job and money troubles).
Thanks for the prod :)
You can lose weight even with really busy schedules under $10/day with a combination of liquid egg whites with salsa, carrot stick snacks and subway/chipolte for example. Just eat at the -1.5lbs/week calorie level to lose weight with a calorie calculator[1]. Remember to recalculate every 5lbs or so of weight loss.
Also record your weight at least weekly with something like myfitnesspal or a wifi weight scale (like the fitbit aria) to snip weight gain trends in the bud. I once gained 30 lbs over a period of 5 months without realizing it due to not tracking my weight, stress and my exGF getting into baking. %70 of americans are overweight, your not alone.
[1] http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
Download Myfitnesspal (or bookmark the website) and use it for one week.
I'll disagree with mahyarm about needing anything fancly like liquid egg whites. For most people substituting water for softdrinks will make a substantial difference to the calories. Carrot sticks do make a good snack though (they have a high satability index). Pears are also good if you prefer something sweeter.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3568125/clock.html
But now that I think of it, I would probably have to count pixels to tell if I switched month and day. The effect of seeing that is still neat.
Never mind, I'll just head for the Carrousel.
My situation: I’m 33 years old and I live in the same city as my parents do. My mom is 65 years old, my dad is 69 years old. I visit my parents about once a week.
According to this test, I can expect to see my parents another 700 times before they pass. That may look like a large number, for me it is sobering. My dad has heart problems (he had an angioplasty and a stent placed last year, some incidents after, and he had a pace maker installed this year). I’m not sure whether I get to see him another 700 times at the rate that I visit him now. I will certainly increase the rate of my visits.
I hope we both get to surpass these numbers :)
You might be interested in trying my service http://www.StoryWorth.com. It helps people record their family stories, and we often end up talking about my parents' stories during our weekly phone calls.
[edited to linkify]
http://blog.xkcd.com/2012/07/12/a-morbid-python-script/