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    Phone calls with parents

    My parents are a double act on the phone. They have always been poor listeners and are now pretty deaf.

    Typical phone call is a bit of back and forth with one of them that involves the questions and answers being batted about between them.

    The phone is then handed over and the same questions are gone through and batted about between them.

    Had a classic today.

    Flávio - hi dad how are you?

    Flávio senior - we're in France - followed by 10 minutes of uninterrupted discourse between them on what they are up and finished with - well that about sums it up bye.

    Call ends.

    They are 87.

    #2
    Phone calls with parents

    I miss calls like that terribly.

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      #3
      Phone calls with parents

      I should add and magnificent. Married 65 years in October. Which will be way longer than me and my 2 siblings clock up in our combined lifetimes.

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        #4
        Phone calls with parents

        My dad has a problem with his phone apparently deleting his texts as soon as he reads him. So every text I send to my dad is followed by his replying "did you send me a text?".

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          #5
          Phone calls with parents

          I have always gone back and forth with the parents using the speaker phone on their end. On one hand, it's a great way to avoid repetition of conversations. On the other hand, one parent is always sitting closer to the speaker (usually my dad) and the other is mostly inaudible.

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            #6
            Phone calls with parents

            We have my widower father (82) over for dinner once a week. Last week, on two occasions, he surreptitiously turned on his little pay-as-you-go mobile and, no doubt assuming that we would take the start up music for the ring tone, launched into a fake conversation with appropriate pauses in the pretence that a friend was calling to invite him over at the weekend. Sad on the face of it, but in recent years he has become such a liar and bullshitter that our tolerance for such things has been sorely tested.

            Last night he tried it again, but before he could 'answer' my wife intervened and said "Oh, you've accidentally turned your phone on."

            "I don't know how that happened," he said, and quickly turned it off. Hopefully that will be the last time he does it.

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              #7
              Phone calls with parents

              I always talk to my parents on Skype video. As well as being able to see them, it means I don't have to tell the same stories twice.

              If they're hard-of-hearing, have you thought of using video and IM?

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                #8
                Phone calls with parents

                This is a great insight into the subject.

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                  #9
                  Phone calls with parents

                  My parents always like to say hello to my wife when we're on the phone, resulting in the same conversation happening four times.

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                    #10
                    Phone calls with parents

                    Apropos of nothing, today would have been my father's birthday.

                    (& last Wednesday would have been my mother's - with whom it must be said most of my "phone calls with parents" occured. My father was about as taciturn as I when it came to use of the "Telling Bone".)

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                      #11
                      Phone calls with parents

                      Used to feel really bad that our family never really speaks to each other, not even when we lived in the same country.

                      Have discussed this with me mam, and she was much of the same mind as me, that a lack of contact is a sign that everything's alright, though I'm a bit uneasy at the whole deal.

                      When me dad died I knew something was up, otherwise me mam wouldn't be phoning me at six o'clock on a Wednesday evening (or ever, tbh). Same when my grandma died, and since then I've been compelled to speak to my grandad more but aside from being almost entirely deaf, he's an old Yorkshireman that doesn't hold to niceties: the gesture wouldn't be appreciated, and would only lead to awkward non-conversation.

                      So have started making the effort to phone me mam more, if only to normalize phone conversation. I don't want to be frightened when I see the phone ringing and it's a member of my family, and wouldn't want them to feel the same.

                      It's all so fucked up and neurotic and stupid, and the daftest thing is I've internalized this situation to the point where I think all families are the same.

                      Earworm.

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                        #12
                        Phone calls with parents

                        I miss calls like that terribly.
                        Ditto. My mother died six months ago today; my old man's been gone some twenty years.

                        Cherish every second of frustration.

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                          #13
                          Phone calls with parents

                          - Hello, Father. How are things?

                          - We were in last week. Saw . I’ll tell you what: If you’d closed your eyes, you’d have thought it was really singing it.

                          - If I’d had to see , I’d not only have closed my eyes. I’d have put my fingers in my ears as well.

                          - Yeah, because you haven’t got a fucking clue about music, that’s why. I’m talking about singers who can actually SING. How’s the amusement arcade going?

                          - Crazy golf.

                          - Yeah, same thing. Gone bankrupt yet?

                          - No, not yet, but I'm working on it.

                          - You ought to sell chips. People’ll always buy chips.

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                            #14
                            Phone calls with parents

                            My mother isn't interested in me any more.
                            Not since the cub came along.
                            We skype pretty regularly though. And chat as often as feels right.

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                              #15
                              Phone calls with parents

                              hobbes wrote: My mother isn't interested in me any more.
                              Not since the cub came along.
                              We skype pretty regularly though. And chat as often as feels right.
                              Your wife gave birth to a bear? That would make me suspicious.

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                                #16
                                Phone calls with parents

                                Other animal also have cubs.

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                                  #17
                                  Phone calls with parents

                                  Some even go on to have scouts.

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                                    #18
                                    Phone calls with parents

                                    My mother moved back to Scotland, and my dad lives the other side of London. I don't see, or speak to, either of them enough.

                                    This thread, and ursus and Jah's posts in particular, have prompted me to arrange to go and take the kids to stay with my dad.

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                                      #19
                                      Phone calls with parents

                                      Jah Womble wrote:
                                      I miss calls like that terribly.
                                      Ditto. My mother died six months ago today; my old man's been gone some twenty years.

                                      Cherish every second of frustration.
                                      My mother in law died just over a month ago and my wife was saying that she saw a daughter taking her elderly mother around the garden centre yesterday getting frustrated with her forgetfulness, rolling her eyes and whatnot. My wife said she wanted to tell her to savour every moment because she used to do the same with her mum and wished she could go back and change it.

                                      It's not life though, is it? Not only can we not be saintly with our relatives all the time - indeed, we are least likely to with them - but it is part of a proper loving relationship to have frustrations as well as laughter, love and support. It's like the Exploding Vole's "Live every day, people. Live every fucking day" exhortation. We know we should but we don't.

                                      That mother that my wife saw was probably delighted to have that time with her daughter whether she picked up on the frustration or not. The memory she will have is of a day spent out with her daughter. Similar with phone calls - people appreciate the phone calls and, if amongst many, there is the odd one that is terse, that is forgotten.

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                                        #20
                                        Phone calls with parents

                                        treibeis wrote: - You ought to sell chips. People’ll always buy chips.
                                        He's right. You should. The chips at Twerton Park are astonishingly bad value at £2 a pop and still people buy them.

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                                          #21
                                          Phone calls with parents

                                          This thread has made me feel very guilty.

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                                            #22
                                            Phone calls with parents

                                            Why. Did you have chips?

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                                              #23
                                              Phone calls with parents

                                              My Dad phones me up to tell me insane levels of details of things he has been doing or to moan about his stamp club, or the football, or his church. It can get very wearing.

                                              Both my parents-in-law have died and I feel very guilty complaining to my wife about how annoying the phone calls are.

                                              If we aren't in, Dad will leave a long answerphone message telling me everything he has done. He then complains if I don't ring him back. When I say 'What else did you have to say?' he never has aanything else to add.

                                              My Mum texts in text-speak. I hate that.

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                                                #24
                                                Phone calls with parents

                                                Chips may have gone some way to alleviating the guilt of not calling my parents often enough; although any benefit would be outweighed by the additional guilt of breaking my low-carb diet.

                                                Catch 22.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Phone calls with parents

                                                  Crusoe - do it.

                                                  My mother in law died just over a month ago and my wife was saying that she saw a daughter taking her elderly mother around the garden centre yesterday getting frustrated with her forgetfulness, rolling her eyes and whatnot. My wife said she wanted to tell her to savour every moment because she used to do the same with her mum and wished she could go back and change it.

                                                  It's not life though, is it? Not only can we not be saintly with our relatives all the time - indeed, we are least likely to with them - but it is part of a proper loving relationship to have frustrations as well as laughter, love and support. It's like the Exploding Vole's "Live every day, people. Live every fucking day" exhortation. We know we should but we don't.

                                                  That mother that my wife saw was probably delighted to have that time with her daughter whether she picked up on the frustration or not. The memory she will have is of a day spent out with her daughter. Similar with phone calls - people appreciate the phone calls and, if amongst many, there is the odd one that is terse, that is forgotten.
                                                  My mother once called (c 2004) to tell me of plans for us all to visit her sister's family at Christmas: the previous day, I'd told her exactly the same thing. Not knowing how matters were going to pan out over the next few years, I couldn't contain my frustration at this and was short with her. Five minutes after we rang off, I called her back and apologised, then arranging to visit her in Kent that same weekend - which we did, chatting long into the night over a bottle of Pinot or two. Six months after she passed away, that now feels like the best decision I ever made.

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