Kids and calling grandparents (month, old, grandkids, child)

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life

Speakerphone! Then your kids can walk around and do stuff around the house while talking, er, listening!

I don't think there is an easy solution to this as long as your parents get insulted if you do a reasonable thing like say you have to go and YOU feel guilty because you think your getting off the phone is rude.

The feelings are the issue, not the behavior, because the grandparents aren't likely to change their behavior. The kids could, but it will take a grand act of maturity.

My sister and I started using the speaker phone method about 20 years ago, lol. So it is a very good suggestion. We are happy to indulge our parents b/c if we are not there on the premises with them (we each visit weekly, unless they are sick, and then we are there daily) . . . we feel that whatever they want to discuss with us - we want to be receptive, even if it is the same old rehash (wh/ is typical with my mom, not my dad).

SO we make sure we call them when we have other chores - be it folding clothes, making supper, whatever - and put them on speaker phone.

It is not like we resent the phone calls . . . we have just had to learn how to accommodate them and their need for long phone conversations. At one point, b/c I work at home, my mom didn't seem to understand the concept that I wasn't free to have an hour conversation with her during the day. We did get past that, eventually, but not without some hurt feelings initially. When she realized I would call her back in the evenings after work hours, things have gone more smoothly. Of course, in case of an emergency, that is different . . .

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by DewDropInn

Ani - Glad I could give you an idea or two.

My step-MIL was such a prototypical Jewish mother they could have put her on TV. I told my sons, "Either you call Bubbie back or she's going to come over here and walk in the door and hunt you down to nag you about not returning her calls. Which will it be?"

They learned.

And yes, calling the grandparents first is a good thing.

Oh yes, my mother will pout - for weeks on end, in fact. And I get the snippy remarks about how XX grandchild is too busy to show he cares, etc etc etc.

My parents have been wonderful g/parents to all the g/kids. But they have the need to do things like - call and remind our son (who lives in Chicago) that it is going to be cold and he needs to put on his thermal underwear (that they bought him, btw, lol). They will leave a message and the kids are like - oh my. They appreciate that the g/parents are thinking of them, but they don't feel the need to call back when a message like that has been left. My mother, however, expects an immediate call back to confirm that yes, g/son (who is 38, married and has a high level management job, lol) has put on thermal underwear. SIGH.

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by golfgal

Are your parents lonely? Do they have social activities to keep them busy? If not, maybe putting some effort into getting them involved in a senior center or something near them would help the long phone calls?

I still say e-mail is your answer. Forget the rest of the computer for them now, take everything else off their start up page and just have the email icon on. That way they can open the email and have it up and running all day. I would think that seeing a highlighted bar in the inbox would be enough for them to know they have a new email. Set up their email address book so the email address displays "John" or "Jenny" or whatever the grandkids' names are so they know who they are from. If they don't recognize the name, don't open it. Then, if you send photos, don't send them as an attachment, just copy them into the email so they can see that right away. Set their preview pane so it is shows most of the email. I would think that even at 83 they could deal with that. Oh, and set the base text size big enough for them to read it.

Yes, my parents are both very active and engaged. My father is a retired minister and still preaches on occasion. They are very active w/ various church activities and they travel frequently, too. However, they were both used to receiving a lot of phone calls during the day from parishioners as well as f/ their own siblings (mom is from a family of 11 siblings) . . . and so as they have gotten older and retired, they simply don't get as many calls. They have always wanted to engage in long phone conversations. My mom expected a call at lunch from me even when I was in college and working part time. This is just who they are.

Once folks got spread out, and with the cost of long distance calls being so expensive, that meant the folks who were local calls heard from them more often. When the cost of long distance went down, that meant a whole new resource of folks to "hear from," LOL. Now, with a cell phone and unlimited plan, mom can call while dad is driving in the car - FOR FREE! (something she still occasionally mentions - "it's free!")

I am definitely gonna talk to them again about the email. It would make things so convenient for them. But here is what my mom has said . . . I just remembered this . . . she always says - well she would rather get a phone call than email, wh/ is at the core of the situation. Her brothers and sisters tried getting her on email back in the 90s (and they are all OLDER than she is) and she told us all at various times . . . well, she wasn't interested in writing notes to people . .. she wanted to hear their voices.

[anifani821]

I called my parents last nite . . . they are going to the movies today. They wanted to make sure where we (hubby and I) would be later in the day so they could give us a synopsis of the movie. :-)

I am getting the feeling that others do not have parents who wish to communicate on the level that my parents do . . .for better or worse, lol.

[somebodynew]

Originally Posted by anifani821

I called my parents last nite . . . they are going to the movies today. They wanted to make sure where we (hubby and I) would be later in the day so they could give us a synopsis of the movie. :-)

I am getting the feeling that others do not have parents who wish to communicate on the level that my parents do . . .for better or worse, lol.

If there was ever a time you could have effectively set a limit on this, that time has probably past. But if I were your kids, I would go INSANE having to speak to ANYONE daily.

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by somebodynew

If there was ever a time you could have effectively set a limit on this, that time has probably past. But if I were your kids, I would go INSANE having to speak to ANYONE daily.

There is no way to set a limit or effectively create a boundary when you are dealing with someone who is gonna get her feelings hurt if the other person's behavior does not match her own expectations. You can set the boundary but the other person is not going to necessarily be gracious about accepting - wh/ is the case with my mother.

My mother was miffed for a long time when I set the boundary at her calling and expecting me to talk to her during work hours. She still will do it! But I have to tell her - I will call you back this evening around 7 pm - and then if I don't return the call at that time - she will really get upset. When she gets upset, it is my Dad who gets the brunt of it. So it becomes a family issue.

My mother doesn't expect the grandchildren to call her daily but she does get upset if they don't return her calls that day. DewDropInn addressed that issue and I think I have some good advice to pass on to my adult children in re: to returning calls as expeditiously as possible - and then placing calls on their own at their convenience during the week or on the weekend.

My parents have been wonderful grandparents. The kids in the family love them dearly and would like it to be that they call often - without it turning into a marathon. That is all.

[Lucidkitty]

Originally Posted by DewDropInn

Ani - Glad I could give you an idea or two.

My step-MIL was such a prototypical "Jewish mother" they could have put her on TV. I told my sons, "Either you call Bubbie back or she's going to come over here and walk in the door and hunt you down to nag you about not returning her calls. Which will it be?"

They learned. NOBODY wanted that. She was tiny but she was loud, lol.

And yes, calling the grandparents first is a good thing.

That's so jewish. *something i say when my jewish friends do something stereotypical *

[Zimbochick]

I'd also add my mother is 81, she is not very techy at all, but she has email, Facebook, and Skype. It doesn't just help her keep in touch with the grandkids and other family, but helps her keep in touch with her own friends too. My nieces in their 20's helped her set her Facebook up, and voluntarily added her as their friend.

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by Zimbochick

I'd also add my mother is 81, she is not very techy at all, but she has email, Facebook, and Skype. It doesn't just help her keep in touch with the grandkids and other family, but helps her keep in touch with her own friends too. My nieces in their 20's helped her set her Facebook up, and voluntarily added her as their friend.

Awwww! That is so neat!

My mom's brothers and sisters are all on computers, too. And the oldest will be 96 this year, lol! Skype is wonderful, too.

Well, my parents love looking at our FB pages. Everyone in the family is on Macs and has iphones and ipads. Maybe getting them an iPad would make them more apt to get involved. Hadn't thought about that. We could put them on our plan - we used to have them on our cell phone plan for many years (10 or so).

I think they would have a lot of fun but my mom is very stubborn. She got upset when she found out folks were sending e-cards instead of mailing them these days. She said that was "cheap" and "cheating," lol. She got mad at her brother b/c he said he was no longer mailing cards (too expensive, for one thing). She told him if he couldn't make the effort to send people a card, then he wasn't very sincere about the wishes. SIGH.

[NYMD67]

I was just having a similar conversation with a friend of mine who has kids that are now teenagers. She was commenting on how difficult it was to get her kids to call her parents or stop over to visit them.
My kids are much younger than hers and she said she misses the days her kids would get so excited to see their grandparents.
I hope that my girls will continue to love to call my parents, I will always encourage it.

I miss talking to my grandparents, especially my mom's mom. She only lived 10 min from us, but I talked to her probably everyday until she passed away.