How often do you speak to your adult kids?

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
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Title says it all, but it would be helpful to know pertinent circumstances, such as age, how far away are they, do they live with you, etc.

I’ll go first. One son lives 1,000 miles away and calls me almost every day. It’s a lot. :rofl: Second son lives more than 1,000 miles away and almost never calls. He’s married so I think that’s clearly a factor, once every couple of months is not enough for me. :pensive:

Just curious what others do. I have friends who Zoom with their adult children every week, all together. That seems nice but also feels like a little much to me, but I’m rethinking that thinking because of the absent one! lol

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deleted for privacy reasons

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I speak to my mother multiple times every day (she is my office manager-ha!!) I think she speaks to my brothers several times a week. My husband speaks to his mother almost every day, he is an only child. We live all live in the same metropolitan area so not sure if distance makes a difference. It is definitely too much, but…

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Son in France texts almost every day and we talk every couple of weeks. Disabled son calls every day for a check in. Daughter who lives in our town is inconsistent. She texts but doesn’t like phone calls. I call our puppy a daughter magnet because she comes to the house to see him. :sweat_smile:

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We text each other in groups or solo at least once a day. Usually it’s pictured or news items or just something interesting that happened. That’s good for me. I hate the phone. H is different and calls the kids from his car every few days as we are running errands. If a kid calls us I assume something is wrong or they need something :joy:

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My daughter just graduated in May. We typically FaceTime once a week and communicate via email/text once a day or so, on average.

I talk with my mother once every few weeks, maybe.

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Two thirty something kids…we speak to them at least once a week. They call.

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My DD and I communicate in some form every day. She’s 22 and is currently overseas. We’ve only missed a few days over the years due to lack of internet (eg. When she was in the desert). If a day almost ends and we haven’t communicated, she sends me a text jokingly asking if I forgot about my only child. We are super close.

My mother lives with me and my siblings call regularly. My sister calls her several times a day. My brother calls several times a week to at least check in.

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Youngest lives with us, so every day - until Jan when they are moving to Puerto Rico. Then it will be a bit more sporadic.

Middle son communicates with us a bit, but not daily. We’ll text each other mostly, sharing fun or serious stuff. Once every two or three weeks we’ll catch up by phone, but he only gets one day off per week and often works leaving at 6am in the morning and getting home between 5 and 7 pm at night, plus has a serious GF, so we totally understand that he doesn’t have a lot of time.

Oldest we hear from relatively rarely - maybe once a month unless we’re actively communicating about something like a trip or the stock market. I wish there were more communication from him, but he seems to like it as it is, so such is life.

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Talk to my 31 year old daughter probably 5 x a week, but text everyday. She is my only child and I was a single mom, so I don’t know if that dynamic plays into the frequency of our communication.

She will be having a baby in a couple of months, and I have been asked (blessed) to be the full time nanny. Will be 80 hrs a week or so, but I am looking forward to every day.

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Before my D had a baby, we texted or talked a couple times a week. Now I see her or talk to her every day. She lived far away for a number of years, and we didn’t talk as much - but we did at least text each other once a week.

My S had all of his packages sent to our house when he lived locally (he did that after a package was stolen from his doorstep). We saw him often! He moved 1.25 hours away in January, and I typically talk to him every couple weeks. H & I make sure to text him at least once a week, although it’s usually more often. He has never really liked to talk on the phone.

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So many factors here!

Is texting talking? That happens largely daily and sometimes multiple times daily with our family thread or individual threads.

If you’re talking phone/FaceTime….
3 kids.
D1 is 32 and lives 2.5 hours away. We probably talk once a week, sometimes twice. Often in the evening while we are both out walking
D2 is 24 also lives 2.5 hours away. She’s a health professions grad student - some weeks she is slammed. I’d say we chat once a week for awhile maybe another time for a quickie call to answer a question or something
S lives in town. 29 and married. We talk or see him 1-2 x a week. Sometimes not that often I’d we are both busy.

I don’t love talking on the phone. Of course it’s different with them but NEVER do I want to talk to anyone for like an hour! Nightmare!

I want my kids to call when they want to call and not on a schedule. I’ll admit I have negative feelings towards feeling obligated to call my
Mom on a schedule. I hate that that feels like an obligation but sometimes it does.

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Maybe once a month - always let her initiate. Occasionally I have something interesting that I’ll email. We actually are quite close, despite the long gaps, and sometimes have very-late-night, lengthy talks to catch up on life.

My wife sends her a good morning virtually daily - which typically yields a one-line reaction at some point during the day.

My brother won’t speak to his two kids with family for weeks at a time. On the other hand, friends of hours video-chat with their married daughter and grandchild daily.

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When my parents were alive I called them every day.

My D is 21. Currently living 1000 miles away. We text every day, call 2 -3 times/week, and FaceTime a couple of times/month.

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This is fascinating!! Great idea for a thread.

I’d love to also hear on how frequent the talks/chats are/were with kids in college – and did it change over the years.

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Son is 33, single, somewhat of a loner, 1200 miles away but fortunately same time zone. We voice chat every week or two, and video chat maybe monthly. Phone calls tend to last longer and meander when husband is not on the call. We do periodic text and email exchanges during the week, which I sometimes initiate just to give him some non-work interaction.

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In college, we talked daily. Usually when she was walking to class. Med school got a little less, obviously less time and she had met her now husband. But still very frequently

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Ds is 24 and single. We live 2,500 miles apart. We FaceTime once a week usually on Thursday nights. We set that expectation when he started college - that we wanted to talk to him once a week - and that has carried over. Sometimes we need to switch the day around, but we have settled on Thursdays for right now. There is some texting in between during most (but not all) weeks.

I have talked to ds about feeling, “obligated” since we have continued doing that weekly FaceTime since he has been out of college. Honestly, when he was on our dime, I expected it, as I didn’t think that was an unreasonable request. As he launched I brought it up with him, and I don’t think he minds at all that we still do that.

Dh doesn’t call his mother unless I force the issue or he absolutely has to for some reason. She doesn’t call him either, unless she needs something from him. His dad was the same way before he died - only called if he needed something from dh. As the wife, I am the one who communicates with dh’s family. Mil doesn’t call me either. I generally call her once a week. If I go much longer, I sometimes get the, “I haven’t heard from you in awhile.” :roll_eyes: It’s exceedingly annoying. I suppose I do call out of obligation, and I think that is okay. I would feel guilty if I weren’t reaching out to her, even if she doesn’t reach out to me. She is always glad when I call. I understand there can be horrible, toxic family circumstances where people must maintain boundaries or sever all ties, but short of that, I feel family members are obligated to one another to some extent. I wish dh wanted to talk to his mother. There is no ill will, bad history, anything like that - she is just old and prattling and goes on and on about things he has no interest in. I’m not interested in them either, but giving her 30 minutes of my time once a week is worth it to me. She is the mother of my husband.

However, if and when my ds ever marries, I am going to make it very clear to him that he is not to, “turn over,” communication with us to his wife. I mean, I hope I have a wonderful relationship with any future dil. I hope she wants to call me, and I hope I want to call her. But speaking to a dil is not a substitute for speaking to one’s own offspring.

More than distance issues, I wonder how gender plays into communication levels.

My parents both died when I was 24, so I didn’t have much adult time with them. In general, I talked to them once a week as well both during college and after I was out.

One other difference to think about between now and 30+ years ago was that we used to have to pay for long-distance calls! I think the fact that everyone has cell phones now and the ease of communicating in various ways has perhaps increased people’s expectations on frequency of communicating.

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Fun to see all the differences here! Two 20 something, single sons, each living 750+ miles from us in different cities. Older one initiates sustained, detailed text conversations, maybe 1-2x a week but I’ve learned that I should not to initiate phone calls as that is just not going to happen. Younger one is not a texter, but will call randomly during some down time to chat maybe once a week or two. Basically, I’ve realized I need to follow their lead and respect their boundaries.

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Our family group text is active daily. There is a lot of humor, pics of the dog, etc. DH and sons are all big sports enthusiasts so they text daily or at least several times a week about their pools, games they’re watching, etc. as for actual phone calls- not that often- but, most of our kids live in our area so we see them a good amount.