What is wrong with my parents?

[Anonymous]

My parents drive me up the wall and I don’t know how to have a better attitude about them. Advice welcome.

They don’t seem to have any interest in me as a person or anyone else in my family as people. They will ask questions, but they don’t really seem interested in the answers and generally use them as a springboard to talk about something else. Like they will ask one question about our DD’s school or whether we’ve been vaccinated, and then launch into these long monologues about unrelated stuff— their neighbor’s landscaping, my sister’s job, etc. Whenever we talk, I feel so drained but will realize we didn’t tell them anything about our lives.

I ask them about their lives, their hobbies, their home. Ask after their siblings if I haven’t caught up with them in a bit. Ask about political goings on in their town. I’ll even follow up on the neighbor’s landscaping.

But they just don’t seem interested in us at all and I don’t get it. They just want to talk about themselves, but not even important things, just superficial stuff (like the neighbor). I’m at a loss. It was easier when we could visit, of course, but truthfully this dynamic was in place long before Covid.

[Anonymous]

Narcissistic boomers

[Anonymous]

How old? Some retired people can become very self-involved. Also depressed people can become self-involved. I've seen this with my mom. I just stopped trying to change her and accepted it.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Late 60s/early 70s. It’s not a recent thing— they’ve always been like this. I will say that they seem interested in my siblings and their kids, based on how much the talk about them. My DH says maybe they talk about us that way to them, but I don’t know how they could? They don’t even know very basic things about our lives. I got a new job last year and it took me 3 months to communicate it to them because they kept interrupting me or weren’t listening when I tried to talk about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Narcissistic boomers

+1

My parents are like this too. Communicate less, lower expectations, focus on yourself and nuclear family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Narcissistic boomers

+1

My parents are like this too. Communicate less, lower expectations, focus on yourself and nuclear family.

+2 sorry OP it won’t get better.

[Anonymous]

Like my FIL calling me to ask how to pronounce something in my language and then when I tried to add what it means, he told me to stop talking bcs he is the one that has to talk?
Self-centered, care only about themselves people?
Sorry, op, you can't change them, selfish is as selfish does!

[Anonymous]

When you point the finger at someone else, look at your own hand. You'll see that there are three fingers pointing right straight back at you. Think about it.

[Anonymous]

It is annoying and sometimes upsetting but it is a symptom of a few things - isolation generally, due to Covid partly and it is also because as we age our brains change and for some people that means a loss of reason. With a loss of reason you get less subtle and seem more rigid. They are rigid in their patterns towards you in terms of conversation.

I agree with whoever said to lower your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Once you don’t have kids and jobs you forget how all encompassing they are.

[Anonymous]

Mine are the same way. They’re mid 60’s. I just stopped calling them- haven’t talked to them in a couple weeks. They haven’t called me either during that time. It’s great

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you point the finger at someone else, look at your own hand. You'll see that there are three fingers pointing right straight back at you. Think about it.

Cute and trite. Maybe not applicable in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Are they just lonely? Especially during covid, they may just have all these thoughts and stories and they haven’t had people to share them with.

My husband’s dad, a widower, can be like this. DH has found that if he lets him just talk himself out for 20 mins or so, then they can have a more satisfying give-and-take convo. It takes patience, but a listening ear is a true gift to his father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you point the finger at someone else, look at your own hand. You'll see that there are three fingers pointing right straight back at you. Think about it.

If there is something I could do to shift the dynamic, I’m all ears. As I said, I feel that I express an interest in their lives and ask after their work/activities/friends/family. I actually have a pretty good sense of what’s going on with them, even know which of their friends are vaccinated and which not, stuff like that. They really know nothing about my life.

I think other PPs are right I probably have to accept it. I ask because my DH and I have successfully improved the dynamic with my MIL in recent years and it would be great to do the same with my parents. But with her it was the opposite problem— she was nosy and invasive and we just had to talk to her about it and establish better boundaries. Now we talk to her all the time and are looking forward to visiting as soon as we’re all vaccinated and I feel like we have a really healthy give and take.

But at least she was interested in us and especially her granddaughter. My parents don’t seem to care. And my MIL is older and a widow, so it seems weird that my parents would be experiencing more cognitive decline. They really do just seem selfish sometimes.

[Anonymous]

How old are they. I noticed this gradual change where I sort become the adult and they became the child. It was gradual from about 75.

Children are all about them and need to be taught - it takes time for them to ask questions that are about others instead of them. As we age, we go inward again.