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Comment by quercus | Hacker News Reader

I am a workaholic who also loves his mother and has tormented himself with guilt for not calling her enough. Now 42, I've sort of come to terms with that guilt and realized there's a reason I keep mom at a distance. Talking to her is like groundhog's day, the same conversation every time. I do not look back and wish I had been having that conversation once per day instead of once per month.

I'm pretty sure on my deathbed I'm going to be glad I spent so much time working, because that's what makes me happy. When I look back on my life now, my most cherished memories are of times spent on my computer enthralled by a challenging project. Most of my memories involving family involve feeling bored and/or trapped, even though I do love them and have a good relationship with them.

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I talked a lot with my mother, and as a result we could talk about pretty much anything, including stupid prototypes ^^ I think if I had only talked to her once or twice a year, she wouldn't have become as much of a friend and confidant as she was. If either of us repeated themselves a lot, the other would simply call them out on it.

Don't take this as me guilt tripping you though. People are different, and I'm not saying it's your fault that your family made you feel trapped. But where you can, be generous and patient. We'll all get old and find out why old people repeat themselves so much, if we get lucky.

Do you ever stop to consider what those conversations mean to her? I'm 43 and only started calling my parents more than once every couple weeks in the last 2 years. They tell me the same stories but that doesnt matter; their happiness is rooted in us sharing time together. I imagine they tell the same stories because as they are older they have fewer new things to share and they dont want our conversations to end. So they repeat something we talked about the week before.

But hey, if your feelings about your time and what's important to you trump having perspective on how someone else feels...

Would you be shocked to hear that I do stop to consider what the conversations meant to her? They mean she gets to vent about all the problems in her life she's had decades to fix, but has chosen not to, because it feels so much better to just complain about them to anyone who will listen. If you want to let your parents bring you down out of some sense of cultural obligation, good for you. I don't regret my choice to stop their cascade of misery before it reaches me.

The number of times you say "I" and "me" in this sentence tells me all I need to know about you and your priorities. Maybe think about your mother more than once a month.

If my comment implies I only think of my mother once a month, then I certain failed in writing it. I think of her constantly - I spent decades trying and failing to be a positive influence on her life, at great emotional cost to myself. It reached a point where I concluded I could not help her, and trying was self-destructive, so now I keep her at a distance. I've seen far too many people failing to thrive because they are chained to an obligation of selflessness. Given the spiteful tone of your comment, I sense you have probably left a lot of happiness on the table and wish to guilt others into doing the same. Sounds like my mother!

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