agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Carolyn: I got my dream job last year and moved to New York City. I found a decent place to live with three compatible roommates and I’m figuring things out and loving life. My parents, on the other hand, are miserable. They live only a few hours away in a small town and think I am going to get killed or robbed living where I do. They can’t accept that I can take care of myself.

They call me every day. I answer when I can, but it’s not always convenient. Sometimes I’m asleep, sometimes it’s too early, and sometimes I’m just busy and don’t want to talk to them or anyone else for that matter. When I don’t answer, they immediately call my roommates, one after another. Then my roommates end up waking me or texting me to call my parents so they stop freaking out.

I understand my parents’ being nervous, but it’s been nine months now and they’re always calling about something unimportant that can wait. It’s so embarrassing to explain to my roommates why my parents are calling them about me when I’m almost 25. I’ve asked my parents to stop but they say they can’t, so I told my roommates to block my parents’ numbers.

Yesterday when I called my mom back, she was sobbing, saying my dad almost had a heart attack when they couldn’t get a hold of any of us. He wanted to call the police. I tried to talk to him, but he was too mad at me to take my call. I don’t know what to do. I want to live my life, but I hate upsetting them this way.

— Check-in Trap

Check-in Trap: You are not “upsetting them.” You are an adult living a typically safe, typical adult life that — literally! — millions of other typical people are typically safely living. By that I mean, not entirely without risk, but with the kind of risks everyone assumes by living.

So your parents are upsetting themselves with hysteria and unchecked ignorance. They also are demonstrating a need for either psychological care or political deprogramming. Or both.

Do they know? Your chance of being murdered today in New York City is roughly 1 in 8 million. (Over the past 10 years, it’s had anywhere from 292 to 488 homicides per year, in a population of over 8 million.) Even one is tragic, yes, but also statistically freaking rare. Which is the scientific term, by the way.

I am sorry your parents are doing this to you. And to themselves and your roommates. And soon to the cops. But these next steps are necessary:

1. Make exactly one (1) clear, kind, nonnegotiable statement of intent: “Mom, Dad. I love you and hear your worry. But your fear is not rational and panicked calls aren’t acceptable. Millions live in New York — literally! They survive it.” I mean, explain the real estate prices otherwise … “so I will not indulge your fear anymore. I won’t discuss my safety. I will call to check in every _____.” Whatever time interval you can manage.

I suggest once per week to start. Break their false-assurance-feedback dependency. Then: “I will block your numbers in between; email me with anything time-sensitive. If it is not time-sensitive, then I will respond in my next scheduled call.” You may need a friend to skim those emails for you at first. “If you send the cops after me for living my life, then you will train them not to come if there ever is an emergency. So don’t. I have people here looking out for me.”

2. Understand the problem is way bigger than phone blocking. Sobbing? “Heart attack?” Nine months of daily panic about one of the most popular hometowns on Earth? But it’s not your job to fix your parents. The blocking is merely to break the panic circuit and create space, which is your job. Effective, but simplistic.

3. In that space you give yourself, it’s also on you to build emotional health. They’ve conditioned you to appease them, so you may need therapeutic support just to take that first step of blocking. There is no shame in that; it’ll be a flat-out grueling first few weeks as your parents (over) react. A therapist might be the appropriate guide, not to mention the outlet you want, if your roommates have had enough.

You moved to a city that terrifies your parents just to think about, so never minimize your own courage. You’re also justifying to us, strangers, why you don’t pick up every single one of these unhinged calls — so also never minimize how effectively your parents guilt-mapped your brain. It’s a lot to navigate just as you’re “figuring things out and loving life.” Meaning, you gave yourself some crucial healthy distance by moving away; now get some help with the rest.

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I am not as nice as Carolyn, so here is my advice:

1. Contact a lawyer and have them help you draft a pre-emptive report to the local precinct informing them that you have a stalker who has threatened to harass you via the cops and that you do not need any welfare checks, thank you. It may be a good idea to get something in writing and notarized.

2. The next time the parents try some bullshit claim of "Dad almost gave himself a heart attack" (lol, no) immediately hang up the phone, call 911, and tell them that your parents have informed you that your father is having a heart attack, no you don't know why they didn't call 911 themselves but here is the address. Call their fucking bluff.

I wouldn't assume it's a bluff; I once came home from college later than expected with a dead phone and the paramedics were there because a parent had in fact had their first ever panic attack and thought they were dying. (There were extenuating life circumstances and we worked things out, I'm 100% sure that one was not a bluff or manipulation and suspect I would never have heard about it if I'd come home a bit later.)

But treating it as if it's not a bluff works fine either way; react by being genuinely worried for their health and refuse to discuss anything other than whether they've seen a doctor about it.

This advice is really good.

Captain Awkward also has addressed this exact question as well.

Let me guess: do they also consider “Try That in a Small Town” a reliable account of life in The Big City or small towns?

"It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside." —Sherlock Holmes

My mother had a very strong dislike of anywhere where your neighbors might not hear you screaming.

I imagine space was right out, then?

LW narrowing their horizons to soothe their parents' anxiety is of course not good for LW, but it's not good for the parents either. All it does is validate the anxiety.

Oh, god. This reminds me of the time that my college roommate's parents ended up calling me after we'd both graduated and gone to (separate) grad schools. I had moved eight hours away, so was in no position to tell them her whereabouts. They were trying to track down a neighbor and had called the cops. Her crime? She'd been out late with friends, then didn't immediately call them back, and they immediately went to, "Must be a victim of a serial killer." Thankfully, the brouhaha sufficiently embarrassed them that they never did it again.

My daughter had to turn off her phone and put it in her drawer to deal with her birth mom's panicked calls. Temporary blocking is much more reasonable because it lets you use your phone in between.

*sends this back in time to myself 30 years ago*

I have so much sympathy for poor LW

My mother once called police and tried to file a missing persons report on me when I was 15? 16? 17?

because I had gone to visit a friend, and my mother had assumed (without asking or discussing it with me at all) that I would be home before the sun set, and I actually got home at night around 8pm/9pm/10pm (I went to see a film)

the police told her that she had to wait 24 hours

the police told her that she had to wait 24 hours

This is dangerous in the other direction - if you actually have a reason to think somebody is missing (not just because a kid or young adult is out late) then the police are obligated to take that seriously right off the bat.

I've seen police missing persons announcements this year (and also received text message alerts, that are not opt-outable or blockable - they get sent to every single person within reach of the relevant cell tower) for people who've been missing less than 24 hours

either the rules have changed

or the 24 hours rule doesn't apply if the person in question

is eg 12 years old or less

has dementia

has just been in hospital for medical issues

etc

I've always been told that the "certain number of hours" rule is just a myth. Probably they simply lied to your parents because they knew, or anyway suspected, that your parents were full of it.

And since they were right, great, all's well that ends well, but in principle I'm not really a fan of police making up their own rules or breaking the ones that actually exist. (Even if, really, an adolescent who is a few hours later coming home than expected is virtually always totally fine.)

It may have been better if they'd followed procedure and then came down on your parents for filing an obviously false report. Or anyway, I'd prefer that in principle.

Edited 2024-09-18 05:07 (UTC)

Huh. In Arizona, the police immediately went looking for my 16-yo sister, and when she turned up at a friend's, arrested her for being out past curfew without her parents' permission (at my parents' request).

At the same age, I almost got the police called on me for being 30 minutes late home from school (substitute bus driver missed my stop and I had to walk, pre-cell phones), but fortunately I came walking up the driveway while my mother was still on the phone with the school.

I wonder what would happen if LW said

"look, I will send you a single thumbs-up emoji every morning when I am commuting to work so that you know I'm okay, and I will NOT answer the phone if it's not a good time for me to talk"

LW should not give them even that much. Once a week is probably as much as their parents were in touch with their own parents at LW's age, and is a reasonable boundary. Honestly, I wouldn't even give them that much because they sound so annoying - I'd do twice a month, and not plan to build back up to once a week until they'd thoroughly chilled out for at least a year, and then *another* year before I'd agree to send them occasional texts throughout the week about interesting things I'd seen or heard or whatever.

When I was ?20 and a student I went to NYC which was not only A Big City but in another country across a big wide ocean, we did not have mobile phones, phone calls were prohibitively expensive, and I communicated with my parents by postcard and airletter. And that was pretty much standard In Those Days.

And when we had gone off to uni we were not in constant contact either - one phone per residence block, payphones near the dining hall I think. A weekly letter maybe.

Parents survived then, I daresay they will now.

This is something that happened to me and my wife recently. We had visited and had a small argument with her father about our car and what he preferred vs what we preferred. I had ended the argument by saying that we were adults and the item was no longer up for discussion. We left the next day and he informed his wife that we were going to die on our way home. She cried for the 3.5 hrs it took us to get home. We had called to say we had arrived and got a sob ing and hysterical woman who I formed us we could have died.

My wife had to tell her that if she had gotten that hysterical that perhaps she needed to seek help. That she needed to talk with someone who might help her navigate these big feelings. And that she should maybe also talk to someone about how her father manipulates those feelings to get her to do what she wants (be hysterical for several hours)

It is the only time she has stood up to her parents. She was 48 when she did it. And they have never spoken about it again.

If LW doesn't stand up for herself now she will have them do this all her life. They might do it anyway, but she doesn't have to be a willing participant. She can hang up the phone and they can make each other anxious on their own.

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