My grandmother expects constant attention from her child (my mom) without ever having to reciprocate or even be interested in my mom. Because of that, I suspect, my mom never guilts me about not calling often. I call mom a couple of times a month. I’ve never called grandma more than once year, even back when she remembered me.
I love it when people answer themselves.
My mother had this same theory, that it is always the youngest person who must call the eldest. Children call their parents, younger siblings call elder ones. My paternal grandmother died on a Saturday, the call telling my parents came after mine, I found out two weeks later when it was again time for me to call - thanks Mom.
One day, when she started that “oh my God, there’s so much I have to tell you, I couldn’t wait for you to call, I really wish you’d called me sooner” rant, I cut in with “Mom, I call every two weeks because that’s the schedule we set. Calling you eats up my whole Saturday morning. If you want me to call you at any other time, though, you can arrange that easily: call me. Since I’ve got a job and you’ve got a pension, call me, tell me you want me to call you and that no-one is bleeding to death, and I’ll tell you when can I do it. That work?”
After picking her jaw up from the floor, she agreed.
And if you think getting hold of my mother is easy, I can give you her number and I’ll gladly pay for the resulting bill. The woman is always “huddled up inna street” and she appears to be cellphone-incompatible (the deafness she refuses to get an aid for does not help).
If I had to call the Bros on my birthday, they’d eat their own cellphones 
You’re certainly a lot more patient than I am.
A few months ago, my great aunt died. I didn’t find out about it for 3-4 weeks until my mom accidentally referred to the funeral in passing. I was all “Wha…? Auntie Em died? When did this happen?” Mom said, “Oh, well, it’s not like you’d fly up here for the funeral so I figured it wouldn’t matter to you.” Well, maybe so, Mom, but now I look like a total asshole to that side of the family because I didn’t send flowers or make a donation or acknowledge this woman’s death in any way! Don’t you think it’s infantilizing to make that decision for me instead of just giving me the news in a timely manner so I can make these decisions for myself?
When her own sister died, she told my sister she wasn’t going to tell me, because she didn’t want me to spend the money to fly up for the funeral. I loved that aunt! My sister nipped that in the bud and instructed Mom not to treat me like a child and give me the info and I would decide for myself what I wanted to do. What if I wanted to say my goodbyes in person? I’m 42 years old; why does my mommy get to make those choices for me?
After I pretty much told my mom off for keeping family news from me, now I get detailed reports about any relative who sneezes. * face palm *
This sounds a lot like me and my mom. My mom NEVER calls to check on me. We have a terrible relationship, and after some of our huge fights where we are reconciling our differences and I tell her what we need to work on our relationship, I always tell her that she could call me to ask me how I’m doing, because from where I’m sitting she just doesn’t care. She says she will work on it. She never does.
The other thing is that I don’t bother calling her anymore. She has a cell phone that she answers MAYBE 1 time out of 20. When I call the home phone number, she is usually asleep if I call after 7pm. :rolleyes: But yet, she can post dozens of times per day on facebook. She says if I really want to get in contact with her, I should email her. I’m sure she is depressed, but that is absolutely no excuse for her behavior. I’ve been depressed too, but it is something she could intellectually get over by just picking up the damn phone since I have told her it is such a problem to me, she doesn’t want to make the effort. She is also my only adult relative within 2000 miles, I can’t rely on her to help me WHATSOEVER in an emergency, or even a semi-emergency where I would need help within 5 days. She is utterly useless as a parent.
I’m not sure why my mother not answering my phone calls and insisting that I email her enrages me so much, but it does and I refuse to, so I don’t see her or my little sister very much (She lives about 35 minutes away). Also her depression is more recent, it isn’t like she has ever called me and asked me if I’m okay even when I was 18 and on my own fresh out of her house…nope, not once.
Ugghh. My grandmother used to pull this sorta thing. For about 7 years she lived about 5 miles down the road from us. A good straight road with light traffic and one light. Mr Magoo could drive it safely. During that time it was just Dad and I living at home. He had to drive a good ways to work. I had to drive across the town to the other side to go to school. Now, keep in mind she wasnt some OLD grandma. She had her duaghter pretty young and my mother had me pretty young. Granny was in very good health too (despite chain smoking for 40 years) and drove another 25 years at least. But not once did she ever driving down to visit us, we ALWAYS had to go see her (and get a little grief for not doing it often enough). Dad and I were busy and drove out. She spend all day watching TV and doing crosswords. Hell, you would thought she go for a drive once in awhile just to get out the damn apartment.
Hello, darling brother which I didn’t know I had. Actually, only my dad is alive, he never asks what’s going on in my life and doesn’t care, either. He only calls me to get me to do shit for him. Sometimes I tell him information and I can see his eyes visibly glazing over and his attention wandering.
I’ve decided I’m not going to let it stress me out but I will be far too busy to run his little errands for him. I am not his servant girl and it isn’t stuff he can’t do for himself. for example, the latest thing was finding him a storage unit. He has storage units down there, but they are cheaper here, so he wants us to find him one here. I told him I was busy (and I honestly am) and he said, “That’s OK, look anyway.” Before that it was the apartment thing. Despite getting him in touch with a Hindi-speaking real estate agent he still wants me to do the legwork. I did that, but no more.
I wish he lived 1200+ miles away! I want him to move to Florida, but he expects that I shall look after his stuff while he gallivants in India, so that’s not happening. :rolleyes:
I don’t call him anymore. He calls me, never to chat, always to ask me to do something.
You mean me?
That would be “darling* sister *which you didn’t know you had.” 
And I’ve noticed that you and post eerily similar posts about our parents. We *are *siblings in another dimension or lifetime, I’m sure of it.
I’ve made my peace with my narcissistic parents. I do enjoy reminding them that I will be choosing the nursing homes later. That gives my dad pause sometimes. He used to quote the bible to me “you reap what you sow.” Yep, dad. You sure do. His karma sucks.
Sorry, sister-from-another-mother of mine. 
No worries. 
Hearing impairment is NOT like vision impairment. A hearing aid does NOT give the user “normal” or “20/20” hearing like glasses can restore sight.
All a hearing aid does is AMPLIFY. If the hearing has degenerated, amplification doesn’t necessarily add CLARITY to what is heard.
And telephones are instruments of the Devil to the hearing impaired. It finally reaches a point where NOTHING can be added or amplified to allow the user to understand a damned thing on the phone.
In cases where a person does receive adequate assistance from a hearing aid, the telephone may not be compatible to the aid. Many cellphones are not. If a hearing aid doesn’t have a telephone coil or if the phone is not compatible, trying to use a phone with a hearing aid causes feedback.
I gave up using the phone probably seven years ago, and I had extreme difficulty with it for many years prior. I tried using a TTY, but people simply are not patient enough to revise their phone habits by using a relay operator.
I suggest using emails or text messages to communicate with Mom. She probably refuses to get a cell phone simply because she can’t hear worth a damn on a regular phone, so the additional expense is unjustifiable. Welcome her to the world of text messaging.
I finally got a cell phone this past year because of the popularity of text messaging, and I could “talk” to people again.
~VOW
No, I don’t get that from my mom. But she lives next door and I see her every day, sometimes multiple times.
I thought this was going to be about when you have to call both sets of parents to tell them something like where you’re having dinner on Christmas Day or when the birthday party for the kids is, and I was going to tell you what I tell my husband. “Because she’s YOUR MOM and I’m still a little bit scared of her. YOU call her.”
Call her once in a while when you aren’t asking for money, it’s the nice thing to do. I have no problem reminding my mother that the telephone works in both directions and she is the one that wants to talk so it is okay to call me. But spare me the guilt trip. I’ve got enough shit going on without that. You’d think they way she makes it sound that I wait until she leaves the house and then call up and gab with my dad for hours about little stuff and hang up when he says she’s pulling in.
I swear my mom used to keep a gigantic dry erase board in a secret room. I’m talking 10 x 20 feet. I imagined this is where she kept track of all the sleights and wrongs she felt every single friend, family member, and acquaintance did to her. Top of her list would always be whose turn it was to call whom. My fucking brother and sister sometimes fall into this pattern of behavior and I call their asses on it.
As my mom has gotten older she’s MUCH better about it, but she still does it. I can always tell when she’s doing well physically and mentally because she turns back into Bitch Without a Reason.
Easy. Parents need/want to feel needed/wanted. Unfortunately, as parents, we tend to need our kids more than they need us as they get older…but it’s still nice to think of ourselves as important. 
I’d love to meet your mom. And I bet when you go home she says, “Howwasyourtripareyouhungry?”
No matter how old you are, when your parents die you become an orphan. Wish I could help.
Parent- adult child interaction.
I want to have a good relationship with my ma but i cant. she never calls so i never call. shrugs
As i see it, she is the mom, she is the one that needs to make an effort
This. My mom died last December. I used to call her twice a week. She didn’t demand it, but she worried if she didn’t hear from me, naturally, because she was my mother. That’s what moms do–most of 'em, anyway. If I forgot to call, she’d call me. That was OK, but the deal from the time we went to college was that we called my parents on Sundays–it was easier for us to reach them than vice-versa. After Dad died, I knew Mom was lonely and went to twice-weekly calls. Sometimes when I was busy, it was tough to fit in a phone call, but she was a wonderful mom, and getting my calls meant a lot to her. I still miss hearing her cheerful voice.
If you have crummy parents, you’re excused from having to call them. Otherwise, it’s part of what you do as their child–just like changing your diapers was part of what they did as parents.
This is a bit of a tangent, but this reminds me of a conversation that I had once with a coworker. We were talking about parents and I mentioned that I didn’t have any, I was orphaned at a young age. She was appropriately appalled and sympathetic - until I added that my parents died when I was a teenager. At which point she said, ‘Oh, well you weren’t really an orphan, then!’ I was a bit 
. Yeah, according to her, unless you were actually raised in an orphanage and/or had curly red hair and a dog named Sandy, you didn’t really qualify as an orphan! :eek: I was a bit bemused by that…
Anyway, perhaps because my own parents died when I was young, I never got the appropriate training for the laying on of parental guilt. So maybe your parents just expect of you what their own parents expected of them - remember this thread in a few years when your own children are grown, lol.
(By the way, I have two adult children now and I never nag either of them to call me or keep in touch or whatever. We communicate occasionally by phone, sometimes by email, sometimes by facebook messaging. Whatever, its all good and it seems to be working for us! 
)
The OP stated that she loved her mom to pieces, so I made the assumption that while Mom can be a PITA, she’s not a “shitty mom.”
And PITA or no, as a rule, children outlive their parents.
Just for the record, my mom did her share of nagging, guilt-tripping, and grudge-holding…but you are correct in saying that I had a great relationship with her.
I extend my condolences to Straight Dopers who have genuinely-shitty parents. I agree, once those parents are finally gone, there will be no new gaping holes in anyone’s life.
The holes had been there all along.
~VOW