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Comment by jgilias | Hacker News Reader

When I was around twenty my Mom used to call me every other day or so just to have a chat. One day, after she asked me how my day was, I shot back something along the lines of: "I don't have anything to tell you, really. You're calling so often that nothing new manages to happen in between the calls." So, she stopped calling. I would go home every other week as usual and everything seemed fine. It was only much later that I found out that she basically cried for three days straight after that call.

Some time later there was a period when I would contact my parents every few months or so. Not really on purpose. Simply because other things simply took more of my time and attention, and calling my parents wasn't really high on my list of priorities.

Only when my son was born I started to realize what someone goes through as an individual and as a couple once a child comes into their lives. How it changes things. That not being thrown out of the window at 2 a.m. as an infant is already a blessing. I'm sure that thought has crossed the mind of many a young parent with a screeching infant on their hands in the middle of night. So, I felt ashamed of myself, and grateful to my parents for being there in the first place, and being decent at being parents as well.

Now I've made a point to myself to call them up at least once a week. As in, I have set up a reminder for that. I now know how much they value this. But it's not only for them. I realize very well that one day I will wake up and wish to call my parents to have a chat about something. But there simply won't be anyone to call anymore.

I'm not passing any judgement at all on people who have abusive parents. I have no idea how that feels like. I'm just happy that I didn't end up accidentally getting estranged to the decent parents that I have. At some point it really was going that way.

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When I went to university, my parents simply asked me to call them once a week on Sunday at around 10am, which I did pretyt much every week and carried on doing for the rest of their lives until they died a couple of years ago in their 90s.

The calls were pretty consequential and really not verty long, quite often just 20 minutes but over the years they morphed from the being worried about me, to me being worried about them. My eldest daughter goes to Uni this summer. Despite mobile phones, I might see if she would consider doing the same.

Do it. All the anxieties "Should I call?", "Am I a nuissance", "Am I a burden?" matter not.

I am genuinely curious why "memento mori" never seems to stick. Maybe thats part of it's power.

I'm beginning to think that mobile phones and technology for young people is a horrible experience of being answerable without notice to unlimited opportunities for more powerful people to impose themselves on still incredibly experienced just lately still minors.

because simultaneously adults have been inundated with the news of the world and it isn't good, and as a result we're probably genuinely more anxious about our kids than for several generations (my father would be 114 this year, if he could be alive, and his stories of growing up pre Depression in London still make my hair stand on end and thank god for the mercies we do have. Age has made me sentimental and actually interested in what religion is about. But I also recognised both developments as being a deliberate blurring without any definite refocus, of all the accumulated worries into a indefinite emotional haze. If this is necessary for forbearance when my grandchildren err stupidly yet repairably, I'll take it, religion and all. But I don't remember my father in his nineties getting any fuzzier, only sharper. So I hope to overcome the apparent overload.

Still, whatever the reasons, I think we're letting our children's intelligence become too thinly spread across distractions when we are suffering from similar confusion, and I believe it's our job to clear more of the post modern clutter.

When I left for college, we did a weekly Sunday 30 min Skype call.

I'm the oldest of five. This pattern then continued and now my parents and my siblings and their families have that group call with everyone every week.

It's really helped us stay connected. You can't stay close to someone if you never talk to them. And a live interaction is superior to Facebook, etc

It's much better to communicate that you'd like a routine like this than to try to have irregular contact that you'll both have to think about and plan for. I have a weekly video call for my mom and it's very good for us.

Speak for yourself. My family is busy, and we don't like to plan -- we just decide to do something and do it. So a scheduled routine would feel like a horrible anchor to us.

While I'm definitely not going to say that it would benefit everyone, I think it's almost everyone while the relevant kid is in college. It's a lot easier to plan for a slot in your calendar as "Dad time" than to constantly reevaluate whether Dad is more important than XYZ random thing you have on the docket.

Once it’s a routine you don’t have to plan. And being busy is a good reason to have it as part of your routine.

My son went off to college a few years ago and we've established a pattern of having him call us every Sunday. TBH I don't have a ton to talk about (and am not really a talker), I just want to make sure he's ok and everything else is pretty inconsequential.

I would recommend setting expectations early around weekly calls so they become a habit. Even if you have nothing to talk about you can small talk for a few minutes. I suspect you will have a lot to talk about if your child is starting university.

I had a strange relationship with the keeping-in-touch thing. When I was a kid my parents' generation was scattered all over the world, and long-distance calls were expensive. Plus there were a lot of them, and a lot of kids. So they developed a no-news-is-good-news attitude. You'd get the occasional call for life events, or you'd phone them if you heard there was an earthquake where they lived.

When I moved away from home I kinda thought it would be the same with me. After all, not that much happens during the average working week. I worked, I ate with friends. So why call all the time?

Turns out I think they just missed me. To a degree parents live through their kids. Are you enjoying your work? Have you found a girlfriend? It's like living through that age again.

Technology really helped. The last few years before they died they'd call weekly to check on their grandchildren. Often short calls, but still pretty good. In fact my last contact with my mom was via a video chat.

> To a degree parents live through their kids. Are you enjoying your work? Have you found a girlfriend? It's like living through that age again.

Or maybe they just...you know...cared.

Isn't that the same thing? When you care about someone, don't you put yourself in their shoes?

I imagine most would agree that the phrase "live through their kids" has a negative connotation and "caring about someone" does not.

Fair enough, I'm probably in minority. I don't see anything wrong with living through the kids, for me it's just one way to explore the world.

Imo there is nothing wrong with it, but only if you are truly "exploring the world" in a sense of being an observer and trying to take in what your kid is experiencing, while providing advice and guidance if needed.

Where it starts being wrong is when people take "living through my kids" as "controlling and demanding my kids live the way I imagine I would have wanted to live, if I was in their shoes now".

Note: when I say "kids", I mean someone's children who are already adults and have their own life to live. I am not trying to say that kindergarten-aged children should be given full freedom to make their own life decisions and that any attempt to infringe on that is wrong.

I think a lot of the negative connotation comes from the type of parent that's trying to live out old glory years or missed opportunities through their child by forcing them into a particular sport or activity instead of allowing their child to grow as an individual.

I think that's a very smart way to explore the world, but I think with the premise of "living through your kids", you're forgetting to live yourself.

This is the actual definition of empathy, yes, not the currently trendy use which is much closer to sympathy in the way it is used.

Every once in a while I read something the so obviously resonates with me as how things should be with me, but not how things are, that it's depressing and humbling. That's good though, because that's how change happens. Excuse me, I need to go make some calls and set some alarms now.

Do it. I lost both my parents in my late 20s. I didn't have the level of contact with them the last few years that I wish I had, partially because I assumed I've have time for that when they retired. They didn't make it.

Already did! :) Yeah, way past my 20's, which is all the more reason to make sure I keep in touch. They're both getting up there in age (although admittedly my dad is probably in better shape than me...)

Sorry for your loss. I'm at the age where I've lost a few of my good friends now, and it never feels like you had enough time.

Both of you have me tearing up while reading this. Probably the most humbling feelings I've had in a while.

The love for a child will always be more than the love for a parent. From the day of birth the child detaches himself from the parent. Every day a little more than the day before. This is a good thing and makes live bearable.

> Only when my son was born I started to realize what someone goes through as an individual and as a couple once a child comes into their lives. How it changes things.

Having gone through the same experience, I have to wonder if the simplest explanation for increased estrangement is that people are waiting longer to have children, and having fewer of them, than ever before.

"It was only much later that I found out that she basically cried for three days straight after that call."

That got me crying.

Many people cry, shout or even try to manipulate you when you tell them their behavior (based on excessive attachment or dependency of some kind) is an issue for you. Many of the same people's loved ones realize that and are in a clinch: do I distance myself, hurting them? do I not distance myself, hurting self? It's not something you can just ask about: "I'm not as attached to you as you are to me, what do we do?"

There was no attempt to manipulate here - as the author stated, they didn't find out about the mother's crying for a long time. It was never made known.

I wasn't suggesting OP's mother wanted to manipulate. I wanted to express that it's a very common situation in relationships of all kinds that there's assymetry in desired closeness and it's difficult / non obvious what to do there (i.e. no easy solution).

Yeah it does seem like many of the "no contact" people are themselves childless. I doubt this is a coincidence.

It's definitely not a coincidence, but it is certainly complicated.

Damaged kids become damaged adults, and if they realize it, they may decide that they wouldn't be good parents and rightly opt-out of it.

Children that didn't have the right opportunities, whether that's their parent's fault or not may not have enough achievement as an adult to take on the burden of being a parent. One can argue whether it is harder being young today than it was 20-30 years ago, but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent.

Another layer is that the parents often want grandkids and will use them as an excuse or as leverage to maintain contact despite lack of respect for boundaries or even outright abuse. So there is an element of spite in denying them grandkids, and an element of self-protection in the same.

Long story short, I don’t call my parents precisely because I’m childless. Failing my love life has everything to do with them.

It’s not like I were divorced. I’m precisely never married, never had a long girlfriend, despite not being ugly nor totally stupid, and my loneliness drove me crazy (in the literal sense – since Covid I’ve honestly snapped a few neurons, so it’s quite over for me). But before that, I used to be a fine person, but they didn’t give me any lead on the love life. EVERY father would be happy if the kid plays with girls at school, just not mine because they don’t want me to pump-and-dump - well they don’t have to worry about this for sure. I really don’t get how people succeed at the love life, it’s totally not working for me.

I’m now workaholic and if I stop working, I’ll go insane with ruminations in a few hours only. I’m quite fortunate my worklife offers me the opportunity of working more, I’m a programmer-entrepreneur.

Anyway, if I were successful at life, I’d certainly be happy to call my parents more. It’s just that their opinion led me to a general failure, so I can’t hear more.

At some point, we have to stop looking to our parents, and take responsibility for our own lives.

Until we can do that, we aren't really adults. That's what sets adults and children apart: responsibility. Children are not responsible for their own lives; rather, they live under the guardianship of adults.

Adults are responsible.

And it is a hate crime that we have probably two generations in the West that have been raised to be actively irresponsible: to reject the mantle of responsibility, and instead spend their time loudly blaming... everybody but themselves.

It doesn't matter how well-deserved that blame might be! Blame itself is toxic.

Look, I get it. My parents did a number on me, too. But I also recognize that they too were broken in many ways, and that they did the best they could with what they had.

Yes, that means they gave me a lot of shitty advice. But it was good advice to their younger selves.

That's why I'm not angry with them anymore. Not for the cheating, or the divorce, or any of the rest. Because I am adult enough to take ownership over my own life.

These children, now adults, have stopped looking to their parents. They've estranged them. I'd say in many cases, that's the responsible thing to do.

If a close friend told you that their BF/GF abused them and asked you what was the responsible thing to do, would you not tell them that they should first remove themselves from their abuser? Is it not precisely the responsible and independent choice for a victim to leave their abuser behind and move on?

Blame isn't necessary for estrangement. I broadly agree, blame is often toxic, and it's healthy to have a sense of cosmic empathy towards even people who have wronged you. It's not really clear to me who's ultimately "in the wrong" here, but the person you replied to is clearly taking the reins on their life: evidently, they're now dealing with life without their parents' help.

I agree with you. Abuse is a serious allegation and a traumatic experience.

And yet there are so many levels and shades to abuse. Just like the errors we see in the products and programs we build. We have to ask if it was malicious, neglect or ignorance. The longer we live the more I ask myself whether large swaths of that low level trauma I endured was malicious or their own timeline to grow up, be better, realize their mistakes. Not fair, but also true.

My mother is not the same person she was when I was 12/16/22 and I'm glad we had space, but never truly cut ties despite how painful it was for so many years.

We aren't all afforded the same time, space, community to mature.

- So you are telling me I should take responsibility because no-one in society should have responsibility ;) (half-badly rephrasing with humor). On one side, it burns the claim that it’s a society, it means we’re just independent units with no love for each other; On the other it’s assuming that I didn’t try everything first. I’ve lived in 4 countries, went across the world, participated to a dozen charities (>200hrs each), took my friends out regularly, did sports, I mean I did go around the block and tried everything I knew how to try and took my fair share of ownership.

- But my mother hates dogs because they’re competing with her in terms of affection (or total lack thereof), and relationships don’t click with me, because most parents develop their child’s socialization and mine acted as if socialization wasn’t a subject. In some sense, their education taught me to rely on my skills, not on socialization (independence as a principle, which became loneliness). I have no example in my 38 years where I could rely on others when I was in need.

- It seems I have the face of someone to be stepped upon (I don’t know, some people have a face you want to slap, perhaps I look weak and people instinctively profit from it).

- In any case, they pushed feminism and helped my sisters more, and either you admit that feminism has an impact and gives women a better life than men, especially in terms of confidence in society, either you admit it doesn’t, in which case why doing it. But as it stands, given women’s experience and expectations, it is not possible anymore for me as a beginner to start a relationship. They do expect a set of societal conventions that I don’t know about (from not-breaking-up-by-sms to saying the right thing when it’s time to split or not split the bill, not even talking about in bed).

I’ll just take a dog, but I’m enraged that people talk so much about helping others and can let people down just next to them when they’re were 99% decent humans before. I mean I’ve donated dozens of thousands to charities in the past, and none of them is able to pay it back to lonely men. I was a decent being until I became insane under the lockdowns.

Its a bad look to blame feminism honestly, women are just looking out for themselves and its just healthy in a way. If you're irretrievably redpilled on this then not much I can say there.

2020's pandemic and the associated mess with society is a thing. Just look out for yourself. Therapy is fine, you don't have to broadcast to everyone that you've chatted about issues. I've had a few sessions and to be honest, even those few sessions have given me ways to have internal conversations with myself by just imagining what a therapist would say. Just thought I'd offer that.

Still, take care of yourself, we only have one life here on the planet, plus you can't depend on 100 percent of the folks you run into to be on your side, most of us can be pretty self centered but don't let external insanities live in your head rent free. Humans are just not perfect beings.

Look forward to the future, surprises can and do happen. Cultivate friendships where you can.

I won’t claim to understand your situation but as someone whose parents both died before I hit puberty, I can assure you it’s possible to find love on your own — I say this as someone currently happily married and expecting a child. I wish you the best of luck, you have the power to change your own life :)

It's very possible. You probably won't see how it's possible until you've been to therapy. But you should 100% seek therapy. Your first and last paragraphs imply being a success at life means having children, which points to self-worth issues that HN commenters aren't qualified to address.

I would avoid going straight to damage as a source. I personally am very uncomfortable with some kinds of emotional expression and as a result it's difficult for me to reach out to make small talk. I wouldn't say my upbringing was in any way abusive either - I've lived a quite privileged life. Neurodiversity is I think also a thing you need to take into consideration on this topic.

(this isn't meant to attack you for misclassification - but rather widen the pool of people who fall into this complicated class)

> but you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money

I know enough parents doing fine for their kids without much money and even less time that I’ll have to contradict you. It’s infinitely better to be alive than have stuff or even ample parent time. I can attest to that from personal experience. In the short term it’s certainly convenient to avoid having kids as having kids is hard and requires sacrifices. However, it’s a commonly held myth that for many kids are beyond them due to time and money, presumably as a justification for precluding or severely limiting children. One has the ability to make that decision but one shouldn’t lie about the motivation because for many the choice is made to put themselves first and reject the sacrifices of being parents.

My first thought was to disagree and push the small datapoint thing - but I suppose it varies greatly based upon location in the world, and what the definition of 'fine (for their kids)' is.

In some places kids can play outside and have a village of school connected people / things to get through just fine.

I guess it's also easier to do fine if you have church groups to help, and some places have other community that can help I am guessing. Perhaps that mall in Beverly Hills is a fine babysitter and teacher of life lessons - the malls around other parts of the country stopped being good for that some years ago.

I also feel that fine is also a gamble.

You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not, and if you don't have the time to find out, or the money to change things drastically - you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life.

Again I feel this varies quite a bit from location to location and situation to situation. But I don't feel it is right to suggest the choice is putting themselves first - at least not in all circumstances, and I'd guess it's not the main factor in most of these conscious choices.

> You might get affordable child care that does not abuse your kids and you might get a school system that teaches them life fine.. but you may not

If your response to child abuse, a lack of affordable childcare, and ok schooling is that the children shouldn't exist, you've lost me.

> you are essentially gambling with an innocent's life.

You lose all bets you don't make. Life is a gamble full-stop so you are always gambling when you bring a life into the world. My main point is that there is a whole lot more room to maneuver for many childless couples from a purely practical point of view before it'd be established that having children were irresponsible for them. People have way too high expectations and a lot of ulterior motives that are the real barriers. One way to look at it is, what would you do to help them if you children already existed? Would you move somewhere cheaper/safer/closer to family? Would you sacrifice your career? Would you lower your standard of living? Would you sacrifice your lifestyle? If the answer to any of those is "no" (be honest now) then you've discovered an important part of your true motivations.

> If your response to child abuse, a lack of affordable childcare, and ok schooling is that the children shouldn't exist, you've lost me.

No, the argument is that some children shouldn't exist because some parents cannot afford to be successful parents.

It's odd to see such a pro-gambling position. On any other topic, no one would encourage people to make a risky gamble with someone else's life & happiness as collateral. And by the way, the loss you incur by not making a bet is not even close to the loss you can incur by losing this gamble. Clearly, you've never witnessed fates worse than death. I would never consider a life of misery & abuse preferable to non-existence.

And parental sacrifice is hardly the only factor. We know that children in lower socio-economic groups have significantly worse life outcomes on average. They have lower academic achievement, lower income, higher incarceration and crime rates. Will you pin that all on parenting? Poor parents just don't sacrifice enough? Doesn't matter how much you sacrifice when you can only afford a place in a high crime area and your child runs in with the wrong crowd and begins a generational cycle of incarceration. Doesn't matter how much you love your children when you have to spend most of your time at work away from them to afford basic necessities. Doesn't matter how much you want your child to succeed in school when you have neither the time nor education to even know how to help them. And we haven't even gotten to mental disabilities and neuroses yet. It costs money to manage those issues, more than some parents can possibly afford.

Everyone should have the right to make that choice. Reproductive rights are human rights. But if you believe you lack the basic resources to setup your child for success when the cost of failure literally isn't yours to bear, I could never accept that as an ethical choice. Bad outcomes are always possible regardless of wealth, but your wealth significantly alters risk and the whole equation to the point where one can say "that's a bad/good bet". If you knowingly make a bad bet, that's on you, except now your child has to pay the cost.

You're not exactly wrong, but accepting that some people should simply give up their claimed right to reproduce means you can easily genocide people by not paying them enough.

"that the children shouldn't exist, you've lost me." - I'm not saying children should not exist. I am saying in many locations for many people, I think it's more of a choice against putting children in harms way.

- also 'what themacguffinman said' in this portion of this thread!

"lot more room to maneuver for many childless couples from a purely practical point" - I agree, and some may be on a path to success, for many it's you against the world and the world is really good at keeping you down/in debt / out of safer places, etc.

So I have been helping some children, a couple as official fosters for 6 months or so, and another non-official for 10 years or so. We/they have moved to cheaper which is safer in some regards (better schools) - and less safe in others.

In this process I/we have sacrificed career and portions of career (partially 'for the children') - closer to family would not make any of the things better, but that may change around age 16 - to some degrees.

We have lowered our standard of living and sacrificed a previously really fun lifestyle.

My motivations for children has always been to provide a safe environment where they can learn well. This is much easier if you make 250k / year than if you make 50k.

While I know it's possible to sacrifice and ask for help, and certainly there are safe places to raise cheaper, say some towns in Alabama - but it's hard to figure out all about the schools / towns / pollution / etc etc until you are in it.. and moving is expensive.

I was blessed to be raised in a place that had sidewalks and neighborhoods safe enough to walk / bike / bus anywhere anytime. At that time, in that place, it might have been considered abuse to keep a kid inside.

These days we have places where (I believe it's still the case) that you could be arrested for sending your kid to the park (it's not safe).

Being in a safe place is not just about affording childcare. It's about being able to afford good food, go organic as much as you can, avoid BPA, microwaving plastics and more.

It's about safe streets, safe schools, after school safety, and so much more.

Like I said my original comment - in some places for some people this is no problem, yet in many places in the US 'all the things' are less safe these days, and in many cases quite dangerous/toxic truthfully.

I've heard of some interesting safety nets for challenged children in California, and I've witnessed those heartfelt 'the village / church helped X do Y' - but we don't have the same state-paid-for child help here where I am, you even get kicked off food stamps when you get a raise to 11.30 per hour here.

If I had a new kid today I don't know what I would do. Probably look at going to portugal or something like that (much research would be needed to really pick a place). The days of assuming that staying in the US provides top notch safety and education are long gone imho.

15 - 20 years ago I was still cautious about having kids, not knowing where I could afford a safe growing-up environment. 10 years ago I still believed that the basics like safe water and good educators were guaranteed across the US.

Today I know more, and more of the things I worried about back then are less safe today, and the costs associated with escaping those things are higher than ever.

So I still feel that "I don't feel it is right to suggest the choice is putting themselves first - at least not in all circumstances, and I'd guess it's not the main factor in most of these conscious choices." is true.

Surely there is somewhere in the US where these concerns are not so paramount, and for those that have other circumstances with family/church/etc, different for sure.

I'm in a fairly modern, popular, growing city / burbs, and the basics here are not as safe as they should be - and I don't see much of that changing anytime soon - unless you can afford to get to brentwood/franklin, I think you'd be better off moving much further away for child safety.

Sure you could keep them inside 24/7 - homeschool if you have a partner and things like that, rice and beans etc, if you had to, I get it's possible, and so kids should exist.

I still feel it's easier to make that choice when you either make lots of money or have found a small safe community with options - of which I don't think there really are that many for most people here anymore.

> Damaged kids become damaged adults

I strongly disagree with this overbroad generalization.

> you can't argue that being a parent requires lots of resources in both time and money, and if you don't have both, it's the right choice to not be a parent.

I would be happy to argue this. Raising children is the most essentially human experience one can have. A society with fewer parents is a society well on its way to nihilism and extinction.

Damaged kids become damaged adults which will raise damaged kids. Of course we can add a word to express that this should not be applied to individual but only to a group: like "Majority of damaged kids become ..." and of course it really depends what people mean when they say "damaged".

If that means trauma, then there is this concept of "Transgeneration transmission of trauma" not in terms of epigenetics (as this has not been proven yet), but in terms of behaviour of adults transmits trauma verbally and non-verbally to the child. I think this also applied to a whole range of responses/believes about how we approach life in general which is transmitted from parents to child. Yes, also the child has their own personality and might not be influenced that much, but nurture is pretty powerful especially in the forming years.

Not sure this is a 100% proven mechanisms in psychology (replicated and understood) but I can easily identify in my kid things that I wish I fix for myself and I see this in other parents with kids too.

I also think a child is a very powerful chance to change myself as kids can really be (specially when they are young and copy their parents) mirrors of their parents thus making identifying these mechanisms easily.

I am thankful that I think there are a lot of things that I caught early on, did a lot of work to fix them and managed not to transmit to the child.

Damaged kids grow up to be adults that are fearful of failing as parents.

Though it’s unclear if they are no contact because they have no appreciation for what their parents might be going through (since they don’t yet have kids) or if their parents are just too toxic to deal with at all (perhaps contributing to their not having kids).

I disagree a bit. I trained my parents early to expect a cut, and at 19 I moved with a girlfriend and never looked back.

We have a good relationship and they re good parents but I cut all attempts at having them take more space in my life than the minimum. It's so common in France we call that killing your dad (I googled and it seems to be a Freudian expression we started using to say growing up) and is part of growing up.

I have a kid now, and I want her to get the fuck out at 19, and start a life of her own with as little need for my involvment.

The funny thing is I moved to Hong Kong eventually and couldnt convince my french gf of 7 years to follow me because she couldnt tolerate being so far from her parents. I then met my current chinese wife, born here, who is in a very fusional relationship with her mom, who talks to her for hours everyday, so much she needs to kill her phone at night to stop it. And they live an hour apart...

It s clear to me there's something in Asia that's different because they all seem just as fusional (I find it unhealthy), but it may be also a girl thing more generally ? I have a sample of 2 so it's hard to know.

In any case, my daughter will be encouraged to "kill her dad" and be on her own. Even if her mom might disagree :D

Which do you think is the causal effect: not having children causes it easier to break from the parents, or having terrible parents that cause estrangement makes people less inclined to have their own children?

Why not both? It is much easier to make a case for causation with the former though; an overwhelmingly common experience among new parents is to reconsider past resentments now that they know what their own parents actually went through.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...

“Why do you take us on errands like the bank if mom was home?”

“I just really enjoy your company.”

For years in my teens I was convinced that they didn’t believe my time was as valuable as theirs. Making me wait in a fucking bank.

I have two boys now and I take them shopping even when mom’s home.

I deeply deeply understand my parents so much better now. I’m so thankful for that because I think it lets me love them on a whole different level now. I now understand countless details of why they did what they did.

This made me tear up. I totally understand that sentiment on both sides.

I have a mentor who told me that he was confused when got married, that his wife didn't come with him when he went to the store, to the bank, or on whatever random errand he was going on. Why? Because his parents (both incredibly highly educated and busy doctors) did everything together. If one was going to the store, the other came along, because they just enjoyed each other's company. I thought it was a beautiful depiction of what a familial relationship could, and perhaps should be like.

I still think of calling my sister once in a while, "Oh, I should tell her that", and it's been ten years. And it still hurts.

yeah happens to me too and about 15 years for me. I also get that "but I thought you died" and "I got better" dream. I am thinking that's convenient, but still, something seems wrong.

edit: misunderstanding

From the tone in OP comment, unfortunately I think that this is not possible anymore.

I think it's implied that she passed away.

Much of what seems to have held parents and adult children together used to be grandchildren; with fewer people having children of their own, and waiting until later in life, that might be a lot of cause of the estrangement. Anecdotally, I've noticed a lot of people in their 20s or 30s get much closer to their parents when the first kid arrives.

> Some time later there was a period when I would contact my parents every few months or so.

You post almost made me cry. My father passed away a few years ago and one of the things I regretted the most was that the last time I talked to him was 'a few months ago'. It took me a long time to come to terms with that and to stop beating myself up for it. People, call your parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRHQAtKbRTk

Totally agree. I didn't realize how much my parents loved me until I had kids of my own. Now I get it.

Yea, how much of the article is basically that people are putting off having kids MUCH longer than they used to? I had one in my 40s.

Having your own kid puts into perspective all the failings you thought your parents had.

So when people were having kids at 20 (or earlier), yeah, you don't have two decades of delayed adulthood/extended teenagedom to complain about your parents.

I relate to your story, I definitely got to be that self-centered twenty-something for a good long time. Would love to be able to call my dad right now.

I realize very well that one day I will wake up and wish to call my parents to have a chat about something. But there simply won't be anyone to call anymore.

This made me tear up. My dad had a stroke a couple of years ago and my mom is taking care of him. I dont call them nearly as often as I should. Thank you for the reminder.

...I've long since retired, my son's moved away I called him up just the other day I said, I'd like to see you if you don't mind He said, I'd love to, dad, if I can find the time You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kids have the flu But it's sure nice talking to you, dad It's been sure nice talking to you And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me He'd grown up just like me My boy was just like me...

The Cat's In The Cradle Harry Chapin 1974

When my son was born I finally realized that my dad is just a bad person and he won’t change. I used to try to rationalize the things he did. My mom refuses to leave or do anything that might cause trouble. I decided to just cut the relationship to my parents off. For me, at best, family are just people I happened to know when I was younger.

Maybe its just me...I have been staying away from my parents in a different country since the last 13 years. With a wife and a toddler, I still feel uneasy if I don't speak to my parents twice a day. Even though we don't have much to talk about every day, it's just the feeling of seeing them and hearing their voice which calms me down.

Twice a day wow, I text them twice a week and I can go a month without anything.

I ve been abroad 7 years myself and I could not survive with such a need for contact. Did you follow someone ?

Not sure what you mean by follow someone. Everyone is different though. I am very close to my parents and now since they are getting old, I feel I should at least talk to them every day if not meet them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUNZMiYo_4s

possibly the typical reaction of the mothers I know to their son reacting defensively to their calling, would be petrified what horrors are going on bad enough to make their precious child and light of their lives not want their mother to hear.

I know that it's never anything like that, but I have really toned down my vignette of a maternal reaction. You just never know how important you are - you said this yourself I only can't emphasise it enough. Emotional telepresence as once advertising had it, belongs to a boomer utopia, in my opinion.

My parents...are a mixed bag. They weren't or aren't abusive. At least, not physically or sexually or anything like that. Emotionally...that depends on how you want to interpret events and what your perspective is.

But.... there's a gigantic cultural (rural vs suburban), generational (Xenial/Milennial vs Boomer), political (die hard Republicans vs Greenwald-esque progressives) and religious (baptist vs atheist) divide between us.

To complicate matters - they, especially my mother who's suffering depression from chronic illness, can be quite toxic and stress-inducing at times. They're judgemental, my mother can be a tad manipulative - nothing is every enough. I could call every day, i could see them once a week, they freaking moved within a 20 min jog of my house ffs. They're pushy.

To quote Kill Bill Vol 2: "Because he's a very very very old man. And like all rotten bastards, when they get old, they become lonely. Not that that has any effect on their disposition. But they do learn the value of company."

And that's the conundrum of them. They are characters and they are a lot to take in and a lot to ask my wife to habitually tolerate.

But on the flip side, they're incredibly thoughtful, giving, will stop anything at the drop of a hat to help with problems big and small, physical, financial, you name it. (though i never take them up on the $$). They... were incredibly flawed parents and i didn't walk out of childhood without issues.

But man, does being a parent change things. It makes me hypersensitive to just how i'm going to fuck up my kid, what kind of an annoyance i will be to him. The bond i have with my child is already something i can't explain to people who don't have kids and even to a few who do. And the idea that one day he'll just be too busy for me, or even being a teenager and being too cool for me.. it depresses me.

I didn't have him to burden him with me. but it's a relationship that i value higher than anything else.

i'm getting older - i've had medical ordeals, watching my mom suffer medical problems and it's just hit me how short and temporary all this is.

And i dunno. I understand a bit more now, and am tolerant a bit more now. I'm more grateful for what was done for me and less judgmental about differences. Life is hard, life is fragile, relationships are hard but... they're worth the extra effort (on both sides).

I don't have a lot of friends. I just never fit in anywhere. But whether i did or didn't, it really strikes to the core of just how important family is, looking down and up generationally. No one wants to die alone.

No one wants to pour all that effort, love, attention, money, heart-ache, struggle to doing the best you can for a kid, just for that kid to be like "fuck off" (for whatever reason, sans abuse). To dedicate 18-25, sometimes more, of your life to someone and them to just ...be too good for you now?

I was that kid at 25. At 40 with a 5 year old, i am not. And i will not be.

The aversion to mental health care in the older generations is really tiresome. My mom has pathological anxiety and probably depression, but has never gotten any sort of treatment for it. It radiates out and affects everyone around her.

And of course, since she didn't recognize mental illness in herself, she also couldn't see in her children. So we never got care that we needed and are various degrees of fucked up now. We were just force-fed religion instead. We're all atheists now, but those scars never heal, and I'll never forgive my parents for putting us through that.

> I'll never forgive my parents for putting us through that.

Maybe worth keeping in mind that they were probably doing what they were force fed to believe was the right thing to do. Everyone is just trying their best (usually, and even if they aren’t, it is generally better for your own mental health to go through life assuming they are).

side topic: the funny part about going through anxiety myself, as an atheist, is it really made me appreciate certain aspects of religion - from the comfort and wisdom people get from faith in something bigger than themselves, to even appreciating services from organized religion itself, therapy services for those who can't afford therapy otherwise, to the mental benefits of social/communal gatherings and belonging.

i'm no less an atheist than i was before anxiety,but i'm certainly less of an asshole about it.

It's the contract between generations. I make sure my son hugs his grandmother when he visits her, because my wife is owed a lot of hugs from her grandchildren one day and I'm going to make damn sure she gets them.

> So, I felt [...] grateful to my parents for being there in the first place

I'm going to say something controversial. Not everyone is grateful for their life. I've talked to multiple people who preferred to never be born. And event the best parents I know couldn't offer much more honest reason for having children than "we wanted to" which is basically ultimate selfishness.

> [...] and being decent at being parents as well.

That's way more universally good reason for treating your parents well.

> > So, I felt [...] grateful to my parents for being there in the first place

> I'm going to say something controversial. Not everyone is grateful for their life. I've talked to multiple people who preferred to never be born. And event the best parents I know couldn't offer much more honest reason for having children than "we wanted to" which is basically ultimate selfishness.

> > [...] and being decent at being parents as well.

> That's way more universally good reason for treating your parents well.

I can verify this. I very much wish I wasn't tasked with being alive. Depending on your metaphysical beliefs, I feel like I'm wasting another soul's place in the world. I don't want to be here, maybe if another soul was in this body then it would put it to better use and be happy and fulfilled and desire this life. I have people who want me to be here and for their sake I continue onwards, always wondering why, and always wishing I didn't have to. I used to make the mistake of thinking I could confide in them these feelings I have, but eventually I realized that I cannot. Rather, I should not. My parents wanted to be parents, and they began preparing for me as soon as they found out I was on my way. They kept me from falling off of tall things or licking wall sockets or drinking cleaning fluid as a baby. No matter how you word it, there's no way to explain that you don't want to exist that doesn't tell a parent "everything you defined yourself by for the last few decades is a farce, the thing that you made doesn't want to exist." I am not grateful my parents made me, but I don't hate them so much as to want to hurt them by telling them that.

Hey, in case you aren't aware, it sounds like you might be depressed. I highly recommend finding a therapist, or if you can't, consider what would need to change in your life for you to feel more active and engaged. Are you eating/sleeping/exercising too little or too much? Is your job/commute/locale draining you? Do you feel like you just need to find a direction/purpose? There's no other soul out there that would take your spot, and even if one could they'd face the same challenges as you.

There's such thing as dysthymia (persistent depressive disorder). About 1.5% of people have it. Treatment is supposedly as effective as treatment for depression (it's the same treatment). You have to feel like that for at least 2 years to get a diagnosis. Since it's not severely handicapping people suffering from it, it may go undiagnosed for decades and even after diagnosis people might choose to forgo treatment because of its hit and miss nature and side effects.

> I know couldn't offer much more honest reason for having children than "we wanted to" which is basically ultimate selfishness.

I really don't think that's at all objectionable or selfish to be honest. Couples that don't have children exist and bless them for deciding to go with their gut and not feel compelled by society into having a child. A child being born has absolutely no say in the matter - it's solely a decision of the parents and it should be one driven by whether the parents want and can care for a child.

The question of being grateful for life - that's a pretty complex philosophical subject. At the end of the day life is all you've got as an organism, you will experience pain from time to time but without life you simply would not exist. To those who go through severe trauma and pain, my heart goes out to you and I thankfully can't relate to that utter helplessness - but for most people existence is all we've got and if you run across someone that genuinely prefers they were never born I'd hope you can direct them to some therapists to work through their issues with, that can't be a healthy place to be.

I've lived about as good a life as it is possible to live, and I still totally understand someone who prefers the void. Sometimes I prefer the void, especially when I contemplate what is likely to transpire in the next few decades given current trends, particularly with respect to climate change.

But the void isn't peace or existence - it's just nothingness. You are able to, at least, helplessly curse the world you see in front of you - without life there is absolutely nothing, there is no you to contemplate the changes or appreciate the peace of not living through them.

You simply are not.

(and sorry if this is a bit deep or morose)

Yes, I get that. We all know what the void is like: it's the state we were all in before we were born. It's not at all clear to me that that will be worse than witnessing the collapse of civilization, which is not at all unlikely to happen in the lifetime of many of the people hanging out here on HN.

Our culture offers very little in the way of making life meaningful, especially for those who suffer. I don't diminish the suffering of the people who's life no longer feels worth it. In fact, many people's lives are truly unhappy. But an unhappy life can still be a meaningful one.

Further I would argue the antihuman sentiment offer by your argument that giving life is selfish only further contributes to the problem.

> ultimate selfishness

You can't really blame them. It's a consequence of evolution. Genes that make brains that want to have children tend to reproduce better than genes that make brains that don't.

No you can't. But you don't have to be grateful for what you never wanted just because you got it.

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