What do you talk about with your parents?

[Anonymous]

Only my mom is alive, and we get along fine, but I feel like we don’t have any meaningful conversations. We have the same discussions every time we talk. I want to be closer to her, but we don’t have much in common besides talking about her grandkids.

If you’re close to your parents, what do you talk about?

[Anonymous]

I get family history, and we talk about recipes, books, tv shows, whatever.

[Anonymous]

What they do in a day, my kids, my job, my vacations, a tv show they’ve watched, a restaurant, something I learned on a podcast, something they learned in a book, etc.

[Anonymous]

I ask about their lives and what things were like when they were young. What they think of how things are going now.

[Anonymous]

We and our adult children talk about everything -- politics, travel, family, friends, fun, tv, homes, etc. And yes, the kids and grandkids. We're friends.

[Anonymous]

My mom and I talk about her friends from church. My dad and I talk about TV shows he's watching, podcasts he likes, and his all time favorite: how the traffic was and what route he took to avoid the traffic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We and our adult children talk about everything -- politics, travel, family, friends, fun, tv, homes, etc. And yes, the kids and grandkids. We're friends.

This is it for me too. I talk to my parents pretty much like I’ve always talked to them once I hit adulthood.

[Anonymous]

Pretty much anything. I'm learning how to talk with my dad after my mom passed a few years ago, because I would usually talk with her when I called. We talk about the kids, politics (we're not the same, but that's okay), things happening at work, travel, things happening with extended family, interesting articles, health, etc. I found that frequent, shorter conversations are better. That way my dad remembers what we talked about and it's easier to ask follow up questions, like "what happened with your big work project on Tuesday?" Or "How was grandkid's game?" His memory isn't great, so doing a long conversation every two weeks means we're covering the same ground. A few twenty minute conversations a week means we're always talking about new stuff.

[Anonymous]

Just visited them for Father's day. They like to talk about all the grandkids. They like to hear the jokes on the group chat. They sometimes tell stories even if we have heard them all before. This time it was the 'hueys' in Vietnam, when they first had an avocado, a silly thing my brother did growing up, it's a range really.

[Anonymous]

Mostly who that I know is sick or injured, it seems. It's a hard stage of life in that way.

[Anonymous]

I usually talk to my folks together unless when I call one is out doing something.

We'll cover the typical stuff. What's going on with the grandkids, how they are feeling, what's happening in my hometown, politics both local to them and national, etc.

My kiddos laugh because my Dad will usually have some sort of story about someone that he grew up with or knew from work or somethin like that. "I ran into so-and-so at Eat 'n Park the other day. Remember, he lived around the corner from me back in 1952. Well..."

I have my Dad's old Corvette so we'll talk about car stuff too - he's usually admonishing me to make sure that I am up on the needed maintenance.

I'm happy that I have them both around to talk to still. Dad is 86 and Mom is 77.

[Anonymous]

Because my mother is a hypercritical control-freak, we haven't lived on the same continent for 25 years. I made a life elsewhere. But our long-distance relationship is cordial, and we Facetime every Sunday. There is always something to talk about for an hour: the grandkids; "sharing family news", which in practice means my mother criticizing and rumor-mongering about the relatives; the weather; current political turmoil; safety concerns of all types (my parents' area of anxiety and hyperfocus - every summer they stress about pool safety, for example), their health, everyone else's health, and their ongoing saga with an aggressive neighbor who has dementia.

One hour a week is PLENTY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because my mother is a hypercritical control-freak, we haven't lived on the same continent for 25 years. I made a life elsewhere. But our long-distance relationship is cordial, and we Facetime every Sunday. There is always something to talk about for an hour: the grandkids; "sharing family news", which in practice means my mother criticizing and rumor-mongering about the relatives; the weather; current political turmoil; safety concerns of all types (my parents' area of anxiety and hyperfocus - every summer they stress about pool safety, for example), their health, everyone else's health, and their ongoing saga with an aggressive neighbor who has dementia.

One hour a week is PLENTY.

This is pretty much how it goes with my parents, too. The weather is a huge topic of conversation, even though our weather is basically the same (we're about 150 miles apart). My mother could talk about gossip -- family, neighborhood, or celebrity -- enough to fill up a conversation. Safety concerns and health are also popular topics. That's about it, really.

[Anonymous]

Work, TV shows, movies, extended family updates, the kids, politics, the dog, vacation plans, social media, depending on the time of the year, holiday plans, etc. So many things. I definitely feel fortunate that we always have plenty to discuss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom and I talk about her friends from church. My dad and I talk about TV shows he's watching, podcasts he likes, and his all time favorite: how the traffic was and what route he took to avoid the traffic.

OMG - when my dad was alive, the last two or three years of life were all about the weather and the traffic.