How often do you speak to your grown-up children on the phone?

I always speak on the phone with my mum and dad (v lucky that they are both still alive) on a certain night every week - have done so for over 40 years. If I don’t phone them, they phone me or vice versa.
Would it be an idea to initiate that idea with your DDs? MIL used to speak with us on a more ad hoc basis but I’ve noticed that she’s adopted the idea of phoning same night. It seems to work well - not etched in stone but I would definitely ring the next day if I’d been out on the night we usually chat.

We also chat other times too, but we all know that if we haven’t spoken in the interim, usual night applies.

I agree with you tidyskatemum. We speak regularly to our two, I am not competing so no frequencies. We also email, Facebook and, on occasion, text.

I went to boarding school and my parents wrote to my sister and I every week. We knew that every Monday's post would include individual letters to both of us. That pattern continued through university and I always wrote back as reliably.

It just became habit, when we all had telephones, letters were replaced with weekly phone calls. DC grew up seeing DH and I ringing our parents regularly on a Sunday evening, and they do much the same, its a three generational thing now, bred into the DNA.

Mind you we are as likely to ring as DC. I do not quite understand why so many people seem inhibited about ringing their children regularly to chat to them. It may feel odd for both parties to begin with, but they will soon get used to it.

I get bit tired of hearing about how our AC have such busy lives - not too busy to regularly post rubbish on facebook and Instagram - but we are obviously not nearly so interesting to someone like 27mommy who apparently thinks checking in on her DM is a waste of her time unless she has a problem or some major announcement to make. Selfishness rules!

Never, ever. They tell everyone I'm dead!

Starlady - that reminds me of something I did for a few months, about 20 years ago.
Each week I handwrote a letter about what we were doing, what I had heard from some of them, what we thought of current affairs etc. Then sent out a copy each by post.
I've just done a similar thing by email with son and family in India - he always replies to emails. b'h.

Oh, the art of the letter! I think it's all but gone, lol!

Now this does age me; until we had our second child, (1978), we had no phone. My Mum and I exchanged a letter every week. If we needed to speak it was from a call box!

Oops! Sorry, I meant WhatsApp, not WhatsUp, LOL!

Anyhow, I think that would be a good idea for you vdas, You would get to communicate with your dds more without pushing them to do things (scheduled 15-minute phone calls) that they are not into doing. Your relationship with your own mum, years ago, was beautiful. But times - and technology - have changed, and imo, we need to change with them if we're going to keep in touch with our ac. Please give this some more thought.

Haven't read all the posts, but rarely talk to mine on the phone. Frequent texting and fb messages though. Also think think the WhatsUp idea is a good one.

I hope it helped to write this letter on here. I wouldn't send it though. The "who-knows-how-long-Iv-got?" idea is usually a turnoff for young people, I think. And how can you - or they - be sure those calls would really only last 15 minutes? I know that's your intention, but they may be afraid that you;ll want to talk longer once you're on the telephone with them. I know you miss talking with them, and I don't think you're being unreasonable. But I'm afraid this letter might backfire.

DD lives abroad and we don't talk on the phone, she may call on mothering sunday or my birthday. We have a family whatsapp but not much goes on there. I heard at the weekend that she lost her paid for flights with Flybmi and will not be visiting UK.
I hear from DIL now and then because we talk about GC, care of and school plays etc.
Life is what it is, very busy mostly for younger family.
When my sister went to live abroad in the 60s I used to get a letter every week now that we are old we barely even e-mail.

I don't get to see my daughter as much as I would like, but we do text, which seems to suit her better than actual telephone conversations. It's so hard, isn't it, those beautiful girls that were the centre of our lives for all those years, have now got lives of their own, which we are just on the periphery of. I am retired with a lovely husband. I have cultivated plenty of friends of all ages - and do lots with them, as well as exercise classes a couple of times a week. Please don't send that letter - maybe start texting with a few light comments and see where that leads? I understand how you feel, but they would probably be horrified if they realised how upset you are - don't guilt trip though - it would prove totally counter-productive.

I have a suspicion that, like me, you are a bit talkative as your letter to your daughters is about 4 times longer than it needs to be.

I told my son, who rings often, 'please stop me if you need to go' - because between us we could, and have, talked for an hour.

Try timing a conversation between yourself and a friend and I bet you'll be astonished just how long one does talk for.

So maybe your daughters, who would be willing to chatter for 10-15 mins, are aware it will actually be much longer than that.

If I am wrong about this, I apologise unreservedly but I know from years of experience just how time gets away from you when you're chatting about family stuff.

I have a cousin who called her mother every day. I was impressed but although DM wistfully told us this story, I'm afraid I phoned my own mother once a week. That's about the frequency we keep in touch with our AC.
Like yours, mine are often busy when I call or eating. Or they don't answer and I leave a plaintive message!
I don't think you should send a letter. It may make them feel guilty and I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that.
They'll call when they have news .

Hello, I understand your disappointment but many AC today are simply wrapped up in their own lives and sadly don't show much interest in what Mum is up to. I think FountainPen has written an excellent post. In my opinion I think the best thing to do is to concentrate on cultivating your own interests. Then if you do decide to initiate regular phone calls ( and no one is too busy to call their Mum for a short chat) you'll have something interesting to talk about. When I was feeling a bit neglected by my AD I got a dog which really brightened my life and I made new friends on dog friendly walks. Of course nothing beats face to face communication and if practical I would invite your daughters and families for the occasional meal. Good luck and please let us know what you decide to do.

poppyred hardly "smug" when my daughter is seriously ill and keeps in touch sometimes for the sake of her sanity! The OP asked how often we spoke to our AC.....I answered honestly and said I'd be happier if she could have a normal life and didn't call at least once a day ,I'd rather she had a life than just a phone for company .

I feel for you VDAS, and enjoyed your 'letter'. Not positive I would send it, but perhaps a shortened version.
A few minutes voice to voice or face to face is definitely better than texting.
I hear from my daughter quite often, and we chat via messenger video a few times a week. Sons on the other hand don't communicate as often and sometimes I too feel that I don't hear from them unless they need something.

My dd is on maternity leave at the moment so we speak each week and I travel down on a Friday once each month when dgs is not at nursery or preschool and take them all out to zoo or NT day. When dd goes back to work full time I will get to speak to her less on phone and see her and dgc much less. When working full time and dropping children to school and nursery she has so little time she stays up late cleaning kitchen and is up in night with baby and she puts washing on in middle of night even. I don't want to add to her already busy life while the dgc are small. She will probably ring more as they grow older. My dgs sometimes makes me a picture at nursery and she posts it to me. I am very grateful for that.

I would be really angry if I got a letter like that; probably more so if I knew there was some truth in it, to be honest.
I think its beautifully written and thought out, but it should be disposed of as something that 'seemed like a good idea at the time'.

I think the important thing here is for the OP to decide what she wants to achieve and do whatever is most likely to succeed.

Sending a letter that makes them feel guilty is likely to be counter-productive as it will strain relationships, and make the less likely to keep in touch.

Mine rarely ring me, every 3 months if I'm lucky. We do have some occasional WhatsApp chats.

I do miss them, especially as they hardly put anything on FB these days. I would love to know a little of what's going on in their lives. I just send an occasional short loving message and console myself that no news is good news.

Just to see a recent picture makes me happy. I do ask but they just ignore me. I think they are just too busy getting on with their own lives.

My Dad would not approve, he was such a good son to his Mum.

Don't let this eat you up, OP. Both mine are irregular communicators but they have their own families and responsible jobs to do, for which I am grateful. We see them and the grandchildren every now and then (weeks, not days) and sometimes get called upon to child-mind in the school holidays. Either of them would help out if we asked for help but in the meantime we get on with our own lives. I wouldn't send that letter.

If have thre sins two married one has recently moved back hone I am quite close to the youngest and feel he is my closest one. Elder son has own business and always busy he does ring his dad but not me so that hurts. But when we meet up he's fine so... Middle son works long hours never rings never visits doesn't feel it's necessary? We do visit the gran kids but we make the effort they don't. I call us birthdays and Xmas family.

Our chats used to wax and wane, depending on what was going on for each of us.
Sometimes 5 times a day, other times every 5 days.
If ever either of us text to say "can we speak?" then we did, as soon as possible.

When deciding if I could fit an OU degree around a full time job and family, the university sent a chart for students to map out how they spend their time. From this you can see how and where you could fit in at least twelve hours of study a week. It can be done and I did.

There is no point guilt tripping your daughters into calling you by saying how much time you spent on them when they we growing up or how much time you spent with your own mother. It sounds like you have been keeping score. That will just cause (more) bad feeling.

You should avoid making the phone call seem like a chore and a bore to the person on the other end. A friend’s mother would call him every evening. He would put her on speaker phone while he cooked dinner after a day at work. She would prattle on. He would just make noises whenever she paused for breath. He wasn’t listening. I found it rather sad.

No-one is so busy that they cannot find fifteen minutes to talk to someone. Nowadays, it can seem harsh if you know that the person who doesn’t have time for you does have time to faff about with nonsense stuff on social media. It’s a sad fact of life that some people (women especially) think social media is essential, missing out somehow if they don’t join in. That sounds like the crux of your complaint. They have time for that and not for you.

You don’t mention a partner and how he or she feels about his. I’d say this. Cultivate your own life. Find something to absorb yourself in, maybe something away from the friends who torment you with how dutiful their own daughters are. Leave yours to their own devices (probably literally). When they wake up and realise they haven’t heard from you in a while they’ll call. Then you can tell them about your exciting new interests and how busy you have been.

That's the one Farmore thank you