HN Explorer

Tell HN: Call your mom

555 points by DanielBMarkham ↗ HN
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.

114 comments

[ 7.9 ms ] story [ 1978 ms ] thread
peteryarrison
It's none of your business whether or not anyone else calls their mother.
Liesmith
This is a ridiculously hostile response.
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WorldWideWayne
Commanding people to "Call your mom" like that is a ridiculous appeal to authority.
Liesmith
No 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
Yes, it is. The perceived authority here is society. Everyone should call their mom, right? Wrong.
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Geekette
Wow, you created an account on the fly just to post this needlessly hostile retort?
PavlovsCat
Mothers 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/ (notice how Mother's Day is quite the issue for a lot of people)

jhess2991
I 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
Wow. 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
I live with my mom, ok? It's a very efficient arrangement. Beep boop.
lucaspiller
Yesterday (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
Mother'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
Sorry for all you must be going through. Hang in there.
dombili
I'm sorry for your loss.
einaros
Thank 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
Sorry for your loss. My mom passed away when I was 10, and I still miss her. Wish she was around to talk to!
einaros
Thank 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
Sorry for your loss. I made the call two hours ago :-)

ps. I love when HN gets emotional.

jevinskie
You have my condolences. Losing a parent must be devastating. My grandmother passed away last weekend so I am making sure that my mother feels special today. The way my mother cared for her own mom in her final days taught me a lot about what it means to be a truly good person.
davidjhall
Heartfelt condolences. I lost my mother 5 years ago; my father 27 years ago. The worst pain is now with the firsts (first Mother's Day without her, first birthday without her, first child, etc) so please hang in there.
luckyb1
you have no idea how lucky you are.
einaros
Not entirely sure what you mean by that. But I realised some time ago how lucky, and extremely privileged, I was to grow up with the unconditional support my mother gave me.

And I wasn't the only one to get her support. She was a social worker who dealt with the very heaviest of drug users. She worked tirelessly to help them get a grip on their lives, and often spent her spare time following up on their troubles.

She, and others like her, contribute actual good to this world. I, with all of my inhibitive worries and hollow ambitions, admire them infinitely for that.

dang
What a remarkable example of the principle of charity you've given us with this comment. You could have reacted to that as a troll, but instead responded with something beautiful. I admire that very much.

My condolences. A week is nothing after so deep a loss, so I hope you're ok.

weissensteiner
My condolences. My mom passed away in September. I know it's really rough, but it does get better over time.
nickthemagicman
My mom died a few years ago. It sucks. Try to find a proxy mom or aunt if possible. It sort of helps.
mattcaldwell
So sorry to hear this. This is one of my greatest fears, yet I know it will happen to me one day. My heart-felt condolences...
mst
Be aware: You don't properly mourn the death of the first parent to die until the other one does as well.

My father died less than a year after my mother did, and it was far worse even though I was arguably closer to her.

I know this is not a particularly good time to be warning you about this but I wish somebody'd warned me and I probably won't get another reminder to do so. So, um, sorry, but I hope I'm right that it was worth saying.

kartman
I lost my mom when I was younger. I have started realizing the point you are making more as time has passed and try a bit harder to keep things happy for my dad. It was good to hear your advice.
rasur
That's fine, but it presupposes that one actually likes ones Mother (or even "Parents").
dsirijus
You don't have to like to respect.
rasur
And, parents being human, sometimes even respect can be lacking.
mratzloff
And you don't have to be familiar with a situation at all to give advice on the Internet!
philangist
Well 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
You have my complete agreement on all points.
flavaflav
Called 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
Hahaha 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
It 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
I 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
Did you try A/B testing your messaging?
dsirijus
I 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
I smell a new industry to disrupt! Let's work on an MVP and beg for seed money.
morgante
That's quite sad. I can't imagine not (at least) calling my mother on Mother's Day.
rpwverheij
Wish 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
It 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-drea...)

rehack
Downvote! 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
Your 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?

rehack
Now, now. Don't get preaching to me, on what I should be writing on. This was a very impact full dream to me. And I wrote it then (more than an year back), with no intention that time of putting on HN one day.

And why do you have such a narrow idea of expressing one's love - either totally tragic or a "strong and positive". The present frailty could remind one of the earlier strength in a loved one. Also that, that we still cherish the life that we have although dimming away. Meaning, in that dream I was cherishing that she still remembers that I am her son. Although she is too frail, and wets her bed. And I was so sad for her, that I felt breathlessness.

And again, just like that other insensitive person, you also make the same mistake as the other person by putting mummy in quotes. My friend, this is the way so many people address their mothers across the Indian sub-continent. Its sort of a hybrid word evolved out of the British Raj here, and the Indian way of addressing. And that is true for so many words.

At the same time, I admit, that I could have worked on that story a bit more, to convey its general significance to others. But as I said, earlier, I wrote it an year back. And today, I just thought some people could enjoy reading it, by being thankful that they have their mothers around (close or remote, or even in their memories).

I must say, that some guys have been very insensitive today. At the same time, I am happy, that few others got something from that crude text. So be it. Peace.

dang
Please don't complain about being downvoted on HN. As the guidelines say, it never helps and is always off-topic.
rehack
No, I don't agree, as I am not in the wrong here. I know you are the admin. You should see all my messages. Also you must investigate, if a single hostile user downvoted me from mutiple accounts earlier. I made one mistake of calling him "idiot downvoter" (for which I expressed my regret), perhaps it made him angry. And that comment of mine was rightly downvoted. But in all the other comments I have been perfectly civil, in fact couple of replies have been insulting.

I want this account to be deleted. I know this feature is not there yet. But please do it, as and when you add the delete feature. Or manually if possible.

rehack
Can somebody please explain. Why is the parent comment short story inappropriate, as a top level comment on this page?

Also it seems to trigger a reaction. I have seen it go upto +6 points and now it is at 0. Means people either like it or hate it. I don't get it, whats in that that people have to react strongly to it.

I would really like to understand.

edit: minor

JohnTinerton
People find their own dreams very interesting. Most people find most other people's dreams very uninteresting.

You say it's a "near true account of my dream". Well I could give you a near true account of the shit I had this morning, but you wouldn't be interested.

Plus the extreme offence you seem to be taking to people saying they're not interested in what you're saying is making me dislike you even more. You come across as one of those people who thinks they're really profound, but they're not.

Finally what is "uthiye", and what grown person calls their mother "mummy"?

rehack
'Uthiye' means 'get up' in hindi.

>what grown person calls their mother "mummy"?

I do. You display your prejudice by asking the question in such a way. Also your total ignorance about other cultures.

>You say it's a "near true account of my dream". Well I could give you a near true account of the shit I had this morning, but you wouldn't be interested.

You also can, if what you share is in context of the discussion. If you care to note, I wrote this piece more than an year back. And seeing the topic here, thought it may be relevant. And it sure is, as more number of people seem to like it. Then those that don't.

Even if you don't like it. Can't you just ignore it. I would expect trolling or something off topic or irrelevant to be typically down-voted.

In any case, thanks, for replying. Even though, it took a throw away account for you to explain it, and then attack me back again, by commenting on the way, I address my mother.

dionidium
Since you asked honestly, I'll answer honestly: it's hackneyed and poorly written and I don't think the dream's personal significance translates to a general audience.
rehack
Thanks! Respect you for using your routine account and giving a reason.

I personally rarely use down-votes, and would just ignore a comment, if I sense that its written in an earnest way, even though bad in quality. I agree its not very high quality writing. But I believe, that it does hit its mark with many people. Many more people upvoted it, than those that down voted it.

jevinskie
That is a touching piece, thank you for sharing it.
rehack
Welcome, friend! Glad to see some people liking it :-)
pearjuice
There 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
On 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
bane
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

~William Makepeace Thackeray

1ces1
Ha - thank you! I had no idea that was a real quote. As soon as I read that I was taken back to the scene where Brandon Lee said this in The Crow. Learn something new every day..
jd75
Which is a lot of pressure. ~A mom
robinh
I 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. />

waqf
I'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
Ha, fairy nuff. It's what prompts one to have such a day that matters, methinks. ;)
xarien
I 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
I'm pretty sure that's not even remotely related.
azth
Woah, what's with all the downvotes here?
mscarborough
It was a 'clever' snarky post equating 'not seeing programming' on HN vs 'not seeing "call your mother"' on HN, which we can reasonably expect to not see.

In the rush to be clever, we got a really snarky post from someone who has no knowledge of the parent comment's context.

Not everyone has a great relationship with their parents, that doesn't make it the child's fault like super-counselor above likes to think.

gregd
It is an OK sentiment but not all of us have fond memories of our mothers. Mother's Day for me, only serves as a reminder of just how shitty my own mom was...
robinh
Best of luck to you today, too.
computerjunkie
Rather 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
Ok, Norman Bates, thanks for the advice.
pskittle
Wished 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
Conversely, 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
There 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
I 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
It's Mother's Day in Brazil. Phoned my mom. Feliz Dia das Mães!
carlosgg
Happy Mother's Day to moms that read Hacker News! Happy Mother's Day to moms that don't read Hacker News! :-)
anotherhacker
How about calling every day - not just Mothers's Day....
exodust
Oh sure... that'll work well, great idea.
Datsundere
Mother's day or not, you should be thankful for mothers every day. Call them anyday, not just mother's day.
Nib
Me and my mom had a fight last night, stop trying to force me to call her!
danmozgai
Today 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.