Basically what the title asks. Whether you are the parent of an adult child, or an adult child, how often do you see or speak with each other?
Our youngest of 3 graduated from college. Our eldest lives 10 minutes away - we see and speak with her pretty regularly. Our middle will be moving about 1000 miles away, and our youngest will be moving about 2000 miles away. While our youngest 2 seem to be happy to speak when we call them, they seldom call us unless they have some problem or some specific question. My middle child sends texts pretty regularly - either asking specific questions or just informing us of something. Neither of them e-mails. We’ve considered the possibility of starting phoning them somewhat regularly - maybe every weekend, or every other weekend.
I live in England, my parents live in New Zealand. There is a 12 hour time difference which means we can only call mornings/evenings. You’d think that would be quite easy, but it’s often a pain because you realise it will be too early/too late for the receiver.
However, we email each other several times a week and share most of our news that way. The important stuff gets a call - birthdays, mother’s/father’s day, etc.
My daughter’s 31. She lives with us. We talk to her several times every day, and she and Madame Pepperwinkle text each other frequently from different rooms of the house.
I call my mom once a week on Sunday. Our kids (post college) will let two or three weeks pass, then call us, then we will call back and forth a few times if we hae anything interesting going on, then we will let a few weeks go by again. I’m of the “if someone wants to talk to me, they know where to find me” school. My wife worries if she doesn’t hear from someone for a while - then worries even more when she calls and doesn’t get an immediate response.
It depends on the parent and child, really. My husband and daughter usually talk to each other for over half an hour each weekday, and for five or ten minutes on weekends, and he gets worried if she doesn’t call. Fortunately, we’ve got unlimited cell minutes within the company. On the other hand, I will talk to our daughter every couple of weeks, and usually not all that long. I talk to her quite a bit while we’re visiting, it’s just that I have problems hearing over a cell phone, especially if she’s using her Bluetooth.
I used to call my mother on landline a couple of times a week, before her Alzheimer’s got too bad. Occasionally I could talk to my father, as well, but he was deaf as a post near the end. It’s one of the things that I miss.
I talk to my mom almost every day. Largely because I like to, but also largely because I don’t feel I have much choice. She’s a little…overbearing?
I talk to my dad almost never. And my stepdad, when I’m at their house or when he’s helping me move or something. We don’t call each other to chat on the phone, but we talk through my mom when he’s in the room when she’s on the phone with me. Total guess, but I think if my mom wasn’t there we’d talk every couple weeks or so.
I am 60 and both of my parents are still alive, if I type fast enough. They live several hours away. I talk to them once every week or 2 and see them a few times a year. When I was younger and married with kids it varied; sometimes more often, sometimes less according to commitments and the state of technology at the time.
I have 2 adult sons. One I get together with every couple of weeks, usually we go out and see a movie and eat. The other I see once every few years if I happen to bump into him. Other than that I don’t think he has ever initiated any contact with me in the 13 years since his mother and I separated. I’m happy to see him when I do but have given up on trying to make regular contact.
I’m 40 years old, and I live a little less than 300 miles from my geezer-ish parents. I talk to them once or twice a week on the phone, and we go visit 4-6 times a year, depending on what’s going on, etc…
We also email some as well- primarily my mother and I, but Dad does occasionally email me to ask me stuff.
My mother lives within five miles of me, and I talk on the phone weekly/bi-weekly, unless there’s something specific that I’m calling for. We also see each other once a month or so.
My dad is out of state, and I talk to him on the phone only slightly less frequently. When he first moved I rarely called (not out of spite, just because, well, I never ‘phoned my parents just to chat’ in the past and didn’t have that habit), but after a few years realized that intentional, regular communication was vitally important to maintaining an active relationship with a person. I started regularly calling my parents, as well as a few best friends who I spoke to only occasionally for the first five or six years after high school.
My parents live about 60 miles away, we talk usually once a week, sometimes twice. Not on a particular schedule, just whenever I have a free moment, or have something specific to share or ask.
We visit around once a month, either they come here or we all go there.
I talk to my Mom every day. It’s just part of my morning routine - get up, feed dog, make coffee, call Mom. I do it mostly because it’s a super small thing, and it makes her crazy happy. I also like to keep tabs on her and my Dad, they’re both old, and they have various health problems. If I call her and she doesn’t answer, I’m getting seriously freaked out by 10 or 11 unless I know she’s got something going on.
It wasn’t always like this, though. When I was younger (and they were, too) I probably talked to her maybe once a week.
My parents are about a 90 minute drive away, unless they’re at the lake house, then they’re 8 hours away. When I was in my 20’s we called each other and talked a couple times a week. That’s waned a bit and now I’m in my 40’s and we talk a couple times a month. We actually see each other maybe 5 or 6 times a year.
I’m 48, and live 200 miles from my parents (as I have for the past 24 years).
I try to call them at least once a week; they’re very irregular users of e-mail, so I don’t even bother trying to e-mail them. Now that they’re getting older, I make a real point of talking with them that often, so I can keep up with how they’re feeling, and hear about anything that’s concerning to them.
My parents are in their late 60’s, I’m 45 and my kids are 24 and 23.
I don’t speak to my mother at all. My dad and I are very casual about keeping in touch, we’ll go for a couple of weeks of talking every day and then it will be a couple of months before we talk again. No drama, just nothing interesting to talk about has come up :).
My daughter and I have a relationship similar to mine with my father. She was out of the country for 8 months and we talked a couple times a week on skype because there was always something new going on. Now that she’s back in the city we text once a week or so and talk when either of us needs to.
My son is off on his adventures and I mostly hear from him over facebook. When we do talk we tend to spend a long time on the phone but calls are rare - once a month maybe.
The key that I learned from bitter experience with my paternal grandmother and my mother was this - no matter how long it’s been since you’ve talked never try to make the other person feel guilty for it. That is the best way to encourage them to avoid calling you. Also another lesson my mother never learned - phones work both ways as does driving for a visit.
My parents are both 66, and live either four or twelve hours away, depending on the time of year. Mom and I both want to call each other weekly, but we each think of it at a time when we know the other is out, or working, or sleeping, and then we forget and it will sometimes be a month before we get our collective shit together and actually get on the phone. Dad rarely does the communicating, but he will occasionally call me out of the blue just to say hi.
Mom and I do the occasional text or email because we’re so bad at actually remembering to call each other, so I would say that I communicate with at least one of my parents on roughly a bi-weekly basis. It was actually less often when they still lived within half an hour of me.
I talk to my son whenever he calls me which is when he gets back from being at sea usually and right before he goes underway. I text him but don’t expect a response - I never know when he’s working or anything. When he’s underway, I send one or two emails (he’s gone for three months at a time) as they don’t have availability but once or twice during that to RECEIVE the emails.
I live 150 miles from my parents. I moved here for the express purpose of being just far enough away that they would have to make a “trip” out of seeing me, but not so far that visiting was too expensive. I see them in person maybe 2 times a year.
I talk with them maybe once a month, or once every other month. More often would drive me crazy because I do not like phones. Besides, I don’t even have anything to talk with them about - how boring would it be to recount the fact that I went to work, I watered my plants, took a nap, and read a book or played a game they have no interest in? That was everything I had to talk about right there, so time to whittle away the next 20 minutes on the phone…
I’ve never understood the appeal of talking more often with parents, honestly. Any more frequently and I would dread having to talk to them. Thankfully my mother “gets it”. Besides, they have two sons and 4 grandkids living literally next door to them so they won’t get totally lonely.