The amount of time it takes me to generate a desire to talk to them on the phone is so long that they will have called me three or four times in that interval, thus eliminating the need for me to call them…
I love my parents but I don’t like them very much so I call them once a week. I also occasionally send postcards.
I know that sounds weird, but my reasoning is that it is much easier to be cordial for 20 minutes once a week and keep them up to date on stuff this way (I’m alive, I got promoted, etc.) than it is to talk to them once every couple of months and then have them get a hair up their butts about having not seen me in a while and decide to visit for a week or something. They are coming tomorrow to visit for the weekend and we have spent weeks cleaning, organizing, buying artwork so we don’t look like we live in a mental institution, etc. and then we will still have to spend spend several days pretending like my family and I don’t horrify each other. It’s better that we only see one another once every few years and the best way I’ve found to do that is to contact them fairly consistently.
I talk to my Mom once a day pretty much because it’s easy to do and makes her happy. My Dad, maybe once a week. Maybe less. I don’t have to talk to him, Mom relays any news either of us need to know.
They live about a 2 minute drive away so we see them pretty often too.
I have no problem with this; they’re fun people and I genuinely like them. Except when I don’t. All of you with parents know what I mean.
I talk to Mom several times a week, but not quite daily. I speak to my Dad much less often - we’re not close. Every couple of months, I guess. I averaged it out and chose weekly in the poll.
There wasn’t an option that really fit.
Mom - I haven’t talked to her in a couple years so she would qualify for Never.
Dad - we’re both terrible about keeping in touch but we’re also both very forgiving of it and love to hear from each other when we connect. We can go several months between calls.
Kids - My kids qualify to be respondents and they either call or text me every couple of weeks. I exert no maternal guilt about this, in fact they are better about keeping in touch than I am.
I never call either one of my parents. I visit my dad once or twice a month but sometimes go months without. He lives 20 minutes from me.
I don’t visit my mom, we keep up with each other through my wife. My mom calls and texts my wife all the time even though she doesn’t like her. Last year, after years of being made to feel like a horrible person by my coworkers, I decided I’d give her a call once a week. It felt awkward and forced so I stopped.
With the advent of email and texts, there’s no need to call unless it’s a special occasion (her or my birthday, mother’s day) or unless I’m driving to her house and need to talk to her for whatever reason. My mom is tech savvy, so we do most of our communication through the internet.
And I work in a call center, so I never feel like talking to anybody on the phone.
I don’t call my dad, but get the stupid text forwards from him about twice a year. Generally right after a holiday where we’ve seen each other.
I call my mom about once every couple of months, or she’ll call me.
I try and write a letter to my grandmother (only surviving family member of that generation) about that often also.
We’re not so good on the whole staying in touch thing. and I’m much better than my husband!
More often than once a week: if I don’t call my mother pretty frequently, she’ll keep calling me, and then I’ll have to deal with that can of worms. It’s OK, she’s a neat lady, though – once you get used to her own style of informal logic. My father is not a big phone-talker, but I’ll call him at work if I have a question about something, maybe once every month or two, or to invite him to a concert or something. They’re in their late fifties or maybe early sixties, not too sure. I think 59 and 58. I did text my father a bin Laden joke, the one about Michelle Obama’s vag being scared of the onslaught of the Presidential Schlong, but either didn’t get it, or think it was funny, so that’ll be the last thing I text him, unless I land in jail and need some bail money.
I call my mom…when I need to. I talk to her over email most days. We aren’t big on being on the phone so our conversations are typically one of:
- When are you coming over?
- Are you free to babysit on such and such a date?
- Can I borrow your obscure tool that it would be silly for me to buy (this goes in both directions)?
- How do I clean this thing (my mom is a master stain remover)?
These typically last less than two minutes.
I talk to Mom most weekdays, because we sorta kinda work for the same company. It’s a lot easier to give her a call when the alternative is to just go on working!
I call my parents every Sunday afternoon to catch up and occasionally more often if there’s some sort of small disaster (car broke down, cooking gone badly). Before we got into that routine, I would get a lot of e-mails from my mom that I never replied to.
I think we’re both generally satisfied with once a week.
For the hell of it I put for the holidys and bail money.
My mom has alzheimers, so we visit one weekend a month, and on the monday previous I send her flowers with the card letting her know when we will be there, and also the card is usually for whichever holiday is that month, or her birthday for Feb.
My brother puts the card net to her chair, and the flowers on the table that is in her field of view next to this large format clock with calendar we bought her for this past christmas so she can track what the day and date is as well as time/.
I talk to my mom at least once a day and often more than that. She’s making a big move soon, and I think she’s anxious about that, so she calls me more often. But if I don’t hear from her, I always call her.
I don’t talk to my dad at all though.
karol
Glad to see I’m not too terrible of a daughter and that others fall into my once-a-month category.
Both of my parents are still alive but getting up there in years. I call them about once a month, but maybe more if I have a reason to. I don’t call anyone just to talk. If my parents texted or used email, I’d communicate with them more, but they’re tied to the phone, so they don’t hear from me often.
Now, my mom calls me about once a week, and they live maybe 30 miles away, so I see them once a month or so. But to answer the poll, I probably pick up the phone and call them about once a month. And I’m not as close to my mom as she’d like me to be–but there’s a reason for that. An unexpressed-to-her reason, but a good reason.
I live in the city and my parents live in the suburbs about a 30 minute drive away. I see them about once a week, on the weekends. Usually on Fridays, I give my mom a call at work to confirm that I’m going to their place sometime that weekend. Or the call is “cancelling” our roughly scheduled face time. If I don’t call, my mom assumes I’m not going over that weekend. When I first moved out, I talked to them about once every three months… usually when I needed to borrow my mom’s car.
I call mine roughly once a month. I am in somewhat frequent contact with my dad through email, though. My mom and I usually only communicate when I call or she does. I love them both to death and I like talking with them, but I’m just not much of a phone guy.
And to be fair, they don’t really call me all that often, either.
I don’t talk to my parents once a day EVERY day, but often - especially now that they’ve got my brother’s kids, I’m there a lot.
I talk to my parents a few times a week, usually. They rarely call me, and sometimes if I go too long without calling, my mom chides me for not talking to her in a while. I tell her, “you know, you could always call ME,” and she just mutters under her breath. I get along fine with both of them.
My parents are divorced; I call my dad every week same day and time. My mom and I call each other on no set pattern. Some weeks we’ll talk 6 or 8 times, some weeks once or not at all.