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Carolyn Hax: Wants to see more of grown children
Dear Carolyn: I am an 82-year-old woman in good health and living independently. I have two grown kids living 15 to 20 minutes away. We all have a good relationship, but I see them infrequently, and they call maybe once or twice a week. I want more. I have friends and a fairly active social life, but I want more from my kids.
I think it is not too much to ask that each one make it a point to see me once a month. I have dropped hints but nothing has changed. I have not come right out to ask for what I want because I think if they do not visit willingly it will cause resentment, so what's the point. Your thoughts?
— H.
H.: One thought: By waiting for them to read your mind, you’re getting the resentment anyway, without any visits to show for it.
Just say what you want, please: “I’d love to set up a standing visit — say, every first Sunday. How does that sound?”
I think it is not too much to ask that each one make it a point to see me once a month. I have dropped hints but nothing has changed. I have not come right out to ask for what I want because I think if they do not visit willingly it will cause resentment, so what's the point. Your thoughts?
— H.
H.: One thought: By waiting for them to read your mind, you’re getting the resentment anyway, without any visits to show for it.
Just say what you want, please: “I’d love to set up a standing visit — say, every first Sunday. How does that sound?”
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She wants them to WANT to spend more time with her.
And maybe saying that out loud in so many words to her kids might help. And there are a lot of different ways to say that, and some of them are loaded with heaps of parent-to-child guilt and some of them are genuine requests for how LW can evoke "I want to spend more time with you even if I actually can't do that because Life" in her kids and there are a whole lot of other variations on these themes.
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I'm getting that too.
As a child of a (very clingy, boundary-oblivious) mom whose threshold of minimally acceptable contact is higher than my comfort level, I'm cringing slightly. And thinking of all the capital-H Hints that my mom drops that I don't accommodate...
It's possible she's a nice mom and her [adul] kids enjoy spending time with her. It's possible the kids are perfectly happy either way. It's possible they dread it. I don't know. But the whole "I want X but I also want them to want X so I won't ask, I'll just be disappointed at them" mindreading ploy is ... gah.
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I have told my clingy, boundary oblivious mother once that I cannot read her mind. And that if she wanted something she needed to ask for it. That I would not guess.
Her response was "You should *know* what I want bc you are my child"
If LW tells them explicitly what she wants and they do not give it to her than that is one answer.
Also, I find that people who are older and retired seem to think that I have abundant amount more energy bc I am younger (which may or may not be true). But they seem to forgot the ABUNDANT amounts of things I am required to do for work, for home, for my family who live in the same house as me. And that time itself is a finite amount set per day.