Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write about a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-seventh day of the month is "Priority."
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I am not great about touching base with my mom and my sister. In my defense, they aren't great about reaching out to me, either, but I think I feel worse about it than they do. There have been times when there has been big family news and neither of them remember to tell me. I think they each think that the other has told me, but no one ever does. Sometimes this means I actually hear about family things from my cousin and she's always somewhat appalled about how out of the loop I am.
To combat this, one of my goals this year was to text my mom and sister at least once a week and make it a priority to make sure they're alive. Early showing for the first couple weeks of the year proved that this was a challenge for me. I just don't know what to say to them and while I can pump out hundreds of words for you fine folks every day, I think it would be weird to text my mom photos of my dog and random pieces of furniture.
But! But! I found a solution for my mom. (My sister has been tricker to tackle, but I'll figure it out. I always do.)
For Christmas 2021, she gave me this book:
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She had filled out a lot of the questions, but had left a fair number of them blank. I started texting her a question a day that she hadn't answered and updated the book. This has also meant that occasionally we start talking about things that aren't the questions and my goal is being met. I am quite pleased with this and my mom has a) given some hilarious answers - she's very funny, and b) is super pleased that I'm talking with her every day.
How often do you check in with your parents or siblings? Does anyone have any advice for me on what to do about reaching out to my sister?
The Happier podcast had a great hack for this very thing-- send weekly boring emails to a family group email and include all of the mundane details of your life. Their family started it like 5 years ago and still does it weekly. I call my mom once or twice a week, but I am ALWAYS the one to initiate.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if my mom or sister check their email regularly. Ha! I can't imagine taking the time to write an email with the mundane details of my life. It sounds boring to ME and I live my life! I guess this would make sense if we had children or something like that, but it would really just be "walked the dog, went to the dog park, went grocery shopping" and even I'm falling asleep just reading that.
DeleteI like your intentional plan to stay in touch. I wonder if by just being consistent when reaching out to your sister you'll find it easier and she'll come to look forward to it. It doesn't have to be a burden if you think of it as a cheerful little no big deal.
ReplyDeleteHm. I wonder how I would even know if she was looking forward to it. I guess maybe I could ask my mom?
DeleteMy brother decided more than 5 years ago to not be in touch, so there is that. I'm not sure what happened, there was no fight and we were quite close previously. I see/text my parents weekly, but only because they live 15 min away from me. If we lived further apart, I'm afraid week/months would go by without talking/texting. We are a low communication family, which is something I wrestle with. But I think, like you, I feel worse about it than anyone else in the family.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely ME who feels like the communication is lacking, so I have determined that it's up to ME to fix the problem. Low communication family is a good phrase and I might have to steal it from you.
DeleteI have three siblings. Two of them live within ten or fifteen minutes and, with me, are involved with the care of my mother (92, early Alzheimer's, lives with my brother). The third lives half an hour away and simply dropped off the face of the earth when things got challenging. We three are in regular communication, and my mother even uses an iPad to keep up with her grandkids so far. But radio silence from our oldest sibling, even to Mom. It's a puzzle, and we're not about the confrontation.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever mentioned to your mom and sister that you'd just like to be more in touch, or is this a covert operation? Can you just tell them?
It's a covert operation. It's really something that bothers ME, not THEM, so I feel like it's up to me to fix it. My sister and I aren't really close and I don't really want to pester her or anything, but I would just like to know major things that are going down. I kind of did tell my mom when I told her I would be texting her a question every day. I would be incredibly uncomfortable talking to my sister about feelings. LOL.
DeleteI communicate with older daughter almost daily because we share Wordle scores. I usually add a very short note as well.
ReplyDeleteAw, that's a nice tradition!
DeleteI feel you. I love my parents but I need A LOT of space. Apparently so do they because we had gotten to the point where we were going months without talking and COVID did not help. I realized that I needed to fix this now while they're still in good health. I reached out to them to set up a hiking date and since then we've met up every couple of weeks just to hang out. At this point I have to do all of the initiating, and I've come to realize they hey, it's not such a big deal. If the price of staying in touch means that I have to be the one to pick up the phone it's an easy price to pay.
ReplyDeleteYes, I definitely have to be the one to initiate. It's a me problem, not them. I feel like it's important to let people know when I think about them. It's part of the reason I send a lot of snail mail and random tiny gifts throughout the year. That is obviously not something that's important to THEM, so I need to make it happen. They live quite a distance away, though, and in another time zone, so it's not as easy as I want it to be to just visit or do things together. *sigh* Your hiking dates sound like a perfect solution.
DeleteI email my parents almost daily. This has been going on for... years. In fact, last week I didn't hear from them for two days, and then I emailed them and didn't hear back, and woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep because I was so afraid Something had happened to them. Turns out I hadn't actually sent the email. When I did, they responded right away and all was fine. And maybe you will get to a place where you will feel comfortable sending dog photos or whatever. Sometimes, I only tell them what the weather is here and what I'm making for dinner. But I am not a phone talker, so it's a good way to keep in touch and keep abreast of what all of us are doing. I am much worse about staying in contact with my brother and sisters-in-law. We text occasionally but either it's for something specific or just something really vague like, "Hey, how's it going? All fine here!"
ReplyDeleteI am much worse about keeping in touch with my in-laws. They are not great at returning communications and it turns out I need that kind of affirmation that they *like* hearing from me to prompt me to reach out. So I try to force myself to send pictures and say hello occasionally, but... don't do it often enough. I do try to stay in more regular touch with my husband's aunt though. She is pretty good about responding, and seems to really appreciate the emails/texts, which helps!
It DOES help when it seems like people *want* to hear from you. My mom always responds to me and seems happy to communicate, but sometimes I get crickets from my sister and I feel like I'm bothering her which makes me less likely to reach out. It's important to me, though, so I need to make it work.
DeleteI, shamefully, do not talk to my parents very often. Maybe a couple times a month. To be honest, I find talking to them somewhat stressful. Plus they just want to talk to/about the kids. I try to send them lots of pictures of the kids to make up for the lack of phone calls. Also ... my parents only FaceTime theses days, they never just audio call, and I find a video chat takes more of my attention than just a phone call. But... I should just call them more.
ReplyDeleteI also very rarely talk to my brother, but I do talk to my sister in law (his wife) at least twice a week. My brother is actually quite jealous of this. I adore her and I couldn't ask for a better sister if my mom had birthed her. I find that the more often I talk to people, the more we have to talk about. Like if I haven't talked to someone in a while, after we do the initial catch up, there isn't a lot to say, but with my SIL, since we talk to much, I feel like we don't need to have a big initial info dump and we can talk about all the minutia and everyday boring things. Our conversations last for 45 minutes at a time.
Have you considered calling your sister while you walk Hannah? I often call people while out on walks.
I love the idea of that book of questions!
There is absolutely no way I'm calling my sister! This is all done via text. I think the last time I talked to my sister on the phone was when my father died more than ten years ago! We're strictly a texting family and that is actually quite challenging to do when walking the dog.
DeleteI do frequently call my cousin when I'm walking the dog because she doesn't text at all. It's crazy how I just adapt to other people's whims!
That book is a good idea. I talk to my mom usually once a week or so. I never talk to my dad, if ever I phone and he picks up, he'll talk to me for about thirty seconds before saying "Here's mother" and hands my mom the phone. HOWEVER he will call to talk to my HUSBAND WTF DAD.
ReplyDeleteI have two brothers and I rarely, if ever, talk to them. My younger brother does reach out to text occasionally, and then I get into a text chain of pure weirdness. My older brother, I text him on his birthday and he on mine, so our one-on-one text chain is just a bunch of "happy birthdays."
Ha. Before my MIL died, the same "here's your mom" conversation would happen if my husband got his dad on the phone. It's actually been a really hard transition for my husband to have to talk to his dad on the phone! But his family is much better about keeping us in the loop than my family is.
DeleteDo your brothers talk to your parents regularly? I would be interested in how much your parents are vectors of communication, so if something big happens in your brothers' lives, you find out via them?
I would definitely find out via my parents, although my younger brother might tell me what's going on (he's going through the most brutal divorce imaginable right now, but isn't super keen to talk about it). My older brother facetimes my parents often, so they are in touch with him a lot. My mom would keep me in the loop for sure.
DeleteThat book is a fun idea! I talk to my parents more regularly now that I have kids. It shouldn't have taken kids for me to establish more regular communication but here we are... We facetime almost every Saturday morning after breakfast. And then I usually send photos of the boys during the week to a group text that includes Phil, me, my parents and his mom. I text very frequently with my little sister. I am not in touch much with my older siblings. There are some strained relationships in my family that have gotten rough in a post-Trump/post-Covid world. I don't know if our relationships will ever really recover. Time will tell. My family has a private family facebook group, but I am off facebook. Phil is in the group but he rarely checks facebook. So I am often in the dark on things because I refuse to be on social media. So, for example, my mom will send a group text saying "grandma is feeling much better." I'll text her and say - what is going on with grandma? And she'll say - she had covid, I put it in the facebook group. She forgets I'm not in that (or maybe it's a way of guilting me into rejoining facebook?) or she thinks Phil sees it and tells me.
ReplyDeleteBefore I had kids, if I went a long time w/out talking to my parents, when I called them they would say "we were so worried about you, we hadn't heard from you in awhile." At that time, they had a house phone, a business phone, and their cell phones. I said - 'there are 4 different numbers that I could reach you at. You have ONE phone number to reach me, you know you can call me, right??? I do accept inbound calls!'
I cannot imagine trying to function in my life without Facebook, to be completely honest. My extended family posts there, my book club is organized around it, and I would just feel completely out of the loop if I didn't check in at least once a week. I honestly don't know how you live a modern life without being on Facebook! It's really impressive.
DeleteI actually own that book. It's a lot of fun to fill out, and it seems like a good idea to have a way to communicate. Every family's communication style is unique, and it's interesting to read about your family dynamic as well as all of the comments. I also believe that the text/phone call/who is the first to call may be generational.
ReplyDeleteMy parents are only 15 minutes away, and I text my mom pretty frequently. We rarely talk on the phone, but we see each other on a weekly basis. I have one younger brother, but we rarely text or talk on the phone.
I think adult sibling relationships are perhaps the most complicated of all. Even on this thread it ranges from no contact at all to texting daily! It's interesting to think about all the variables that lead to such divergent attitudes.
DeleteI am not a fan of phone calls - at all. So everything happens via e-mail or text.
ReplyDeleteI send a monthly family/friend update e-mail. People rarely respond, so it always shocks me when I'll mention something in passing to a friend and they'll nod in agreement and say: I read that in your update e-mail!
During COVID lockdowns we had a family text group and that was by far the most communication we had had for years, but it has petered out lately. I text one sister 3-4 times a month; my other sister once a month, and my brother a handful of times a year. My parents are temporarily living nearby so I see them every few days, but when they go back home in the spring, I'll text/e-mail them every week or two (outside of that group update e-mail).
What a cool book! I love that idea. I've toyed with buying my parents StoryWorth of Christmas some year...
I've looked into StoryWorth and it seems like too much work for my mom, but this is like a mini version of it! My mom and I also did a mother/daughter scrapbook one year. She bought a pre-made kit that had cards with prompts on them and we each filled out the prompts and then she put the book together. So I know she's willing to do a little bit on a regular basis and this is similar to the scrapbook project.
DeleteThat is a great solution for the mom problem! Sounds like it's working well for both of you. My sister and I are close and we text just about every day, multiple times. It seems like you have to get into the habit of it. Like, because we know so much of what's going on in each other's lives, our texts are things like "How did that dinner come out?" or "Did your headache go away?" I can see how it might be hard to get started if you're not in regular contact. You need some reason to get started, like the book with your mom. Like you said, you always figure it out!
ReplyDeleteI honestly can't even think of what I would talk to my sister about every day. Our lives and interests are so different! I'm impressed you're so close with your sister and a little jealous!
DeleteOh, dang... I facetime with my parents and sister at least three times a week, so I don't really know what kind of advice to give when the "keeping in touch"-part is hard... but I think you found a great way to reconnect with your mother and I hope you can keep open this door of conversation (and come up with other questions, when the book questions run out!). I feel like the more you talk/connect, the either it gets... and maybe you'll get to the point where you send her silly photos of your pets!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how your relationship is with your sister in terms of comfort level around each other, but maybe you can just tell her that you'd like to connect more and basically get her on board to make some of the effort?
Are people comfortable telling their adult siblings their feelings? I am never going to tell my sister I'd like to connect more. LOL. I think I just need to keep reaching out and see what sticks.
DeleteThat book sounds really cool! I was thinking about doing StoryWorth with my mom but I think she would get really stressed out about it, so maybe I'll buy that book and we can work on it together.
ReplyDeleteI talk to my mom a few times a day - we Facetime frequently. But I don't have a partner to pester, so she bears the brunt of it, haha. I think it would be different if I had someone! I don't talk to my brother AS regularly. We see each other at least a few times a month, but sometimes he'll text me out of the blue to ask me how I'm doing. Mostly, we talk a lot about football.
I also struggle with how to start a conversation with someone you're not in regular contact with, but want to be. Maybe it's as simple as "Hey, I was just thinking about you and hope you're doing well! [insert something about the weather/Hannah/your life]"
Yeah, it's interesting because my mom gave me a book she had filled out AND an empty one, so I do think it's something you could do together. Plus, it's not as in-depth as StoryWorth, so I agree that there's a lot less pressure. Last night I asked my mom a question and she just answered "no" and that was the end of it! Easy peasy!
DeleteThis is so great! My mom and I had a regular Sunday Evening Phone call for most of the last years of her life and we'd catch up, she also read my blog and we texted regularly; mostly silly stuff. (Gosh, I miss that so much!)
ReplyDeleteI hope you find a solution for keeping up with your sister too.
I'll get there with my sister! It's just harder to find a regular reason to reach out and she's busier than my mom, so I don't want to be a bother.
DeleteMy parents moved nearby when my kids were little, and they are older now, so the impetus to check that they're okay is there, but they also don't want to feel like I'm checking that they're okay. They dog sit a couple of times a week while I work, so Mondays I always go in afterwards and have a drink and a visit. More than that we run out of things to talk about unless I'm taking one of them to a medical appointment or out for lunch or something.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I don't talk often enough because she prefers the phone and I prefer email, but we text sporadically and I still consider us close - we have a blast when we get together.