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Re: Parent time

#81

Post by luxurytent »

stantaylor wrote: post #74
luxurytent wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdotal experience from speaking with other young parents: this is way more common than I anticipated!

As someone whose kids are both (ages 27 and 23) finally out of the house in the last couple of years--but no grandkids yet--I totally get this. I've very much gotten used to having my own time FINALLY, being on my schedule, etc. My son and his fiancee have talked about moving back in with us for a year or two to save money, and the prospect does't sound that appealing to me at this point. I'm happy that our son think…

This isn’t directed at you specifically, but your comment about FINALLY having time back makes me think this is a generational consequence. If you had family and other support while raising your kids, you may not feel like this? Of course can’t paint a broad brush but something is broken in how western civilization does family.

Re: Parent time

#82

Post by dijit »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #13

> I was out for a drink with a friend. > As we settled in, George asked about my life and how I was feeling. > “I’m good. Busy!" > He stared blankly through my empty words. > Feeling the pressure of his gaze, I adjusted myself and added that living in California had begun to wear on me, it being so far from my parents on the East Coast. > George: “How often do you see your parents?" > Me: “Maybe once a year now.” > G…

I'm not George, but hell if I'm not guilty of saying things like this when actively listening.

Re: Parent time

#83

Post by SamBam »

hammock wrote: post #33
pastor_bob wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a made up story for a twitter thread.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've seen this story repeated at least three times by different people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066955

Or, once someone has heard the story, they are more likely to bring it up again, continuing the cycle.

I genuinely plan on mentioning this to my wife this evening. Not in a "let's move to live near my parents" way, but just as a way of bringing up that time is valuable.

If she then mentions to someone that I said this, will they say "I don't believe you, I've heard this story before?"

Re: Parent time

#84

Post by lo_zamoyski »

jefftk wrote: post #19
spywaregorilla wrote: post #13

> I was out for a drink with a friend. > As we settled in, George asked about my life and how I was feeling. > “I’m good. Busy!" > He stared blankly through my empty words. > Feeling the pressure of his gaze, I adjusted myself and added that living in California had begun to wear on me, it being so far from my parents on the East Coast. > George: “How often do you see your parents?" > Me: “Maybe once a year now.” > G…

Weird, but effective!

It's weird people think it's weird.

Making perhaps unpleasant but relevant and topical observations that help a friend isn't weird. It's charitable. The author brought up the fact that he would like to see his parents more often. George simply threw some light on the obvious in order to help a friend who is waffling and hesitating and wasting time instead of making the right decision. It was an obvious inference based on the stated facts and an important thing for the author to understand so that he could live a better life. It wasn't arbitrary, it wasn't nosy or intrusive or rude (if the author's story is accurate).

Re: Parent time

#85

Post by SamBam »

hammock wrote: post #27

This "story" is likely inauthentic and is an overused trope. I was looking for the time one of Joe Rogan's guests used it. Instead I found yet another example of a different guest on a different podcast also using it: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequotebibles/video/693557468395790... Doesn't make the insight less valuable, though

If the insight is valuable, and plenty of people have heard it in various forms, why is it unlikely that someone would bring it up in conversation?

Re: Parent time

#86

Post by samatman »

hammock wrote: post #33
pastor_bob wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a made up story for a twitter thread.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've seen this story repeated at least three times by different people. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066955

It seems at least as likely that a Roe Jogan listener might enact that story with a friend, as that they would just hear it and then make up a story where they ask the question.

It's of course quite pointless to speculate about the truth or fiction of an Internet story starring people you don't know.

I wonder about the people who think it's implausible however. Do you never discuss difficult things with your friends? Whether to marry the girl/guy/human, how many times you'll see your parents again, how's your cousin's health, that kind of thing?

That's supposed to be normal, I worry that what y'all would call friends is what I would call colleagues or casual acquaintances.

Re: Parent time

#87

Post by LVB »

darod wrote: post #73

This is all well and good if you actually like your parents. There are reasons people leave home and never come back. Not all relationships with them are going to be the loving fairy tales one sees on TV.

Yeah I’m in this situation. Parents are couple hours away by plane and we might see them once a year if that, mainly so the kids have some knowledge of their grandparents. The visits tend to get ugly, quickly, so they have to be carefully choreographed and usually the other party staying in a hotel. (Generally this is due to my dad’s behavior, which often will have him screaming profanities towards me or our kids.) Even the occasional Zoom calls are usually just them sitting there, nodding along, answering our forced questions. No real engagement there.

Fortunately we have my wife’s warm side of the family as a counterbalance.

Re: Parent time

#88

Post by pjbk »

And Port had said: "Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless." - The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles (1949).

Re: Parent time

#89

Post by rcarr »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #3

Parents could have moved to SF, just sayin’ ETA: One set of parents could have moved from east coast to west. They had enough savings and could have found a modest place in a nice peripheral location. We had good SV jobs and would have helped them. They never really liked where they lived, never made the most of it, and only stayed there out of inertia; I hated the weather and sprawly shabbiness, would never have mov…

This. It is the responsibility of aging parents to move to where their children can earn a living, not the other way around.

My grandparents lived around two and a half hours away from their daughter (my mother) and I and half an hour away from their son (my uncle). We were pretty poor after the financial crisis so it meant we could only really go visit once or twice a year. My uncle was away a lot (works in the military) so they didn’t get particularly frequent visits from him. We asked them to move closer to us, but neither of them liked change and my grandfather was fond of the view.

My grandfather ended up getting ill and dying. We only got to see him a few times between diagnosis to death because of how far away they were. My grandmother ended up living alone in the house for about two years and getting Parkinsons. She’s now bed bound in a care home, again with hardly any visits because of how far away she is and the fact that we’re still not financially recovered, even after all this time. This whole sorry state of affairs could have been avoided if they just decided to move closer to us. They had more than enough resources to do so. But no. Primarily because they didn’t like change and my grandfather liked looking at the sunset over some hills.

To anyone reading this, do not bury your head in the sand about the realities of aging and dying unless you want to end up living a similarly tragic story.

Re: Parent time

#90

Post by sbaiddn »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #13

> I was out for a drink with a friend. > As we settled in, George asked about my life and how I was feeling. > “I’m good. Busy!" > He stared blankly through my empty words. > Feeling the pressure of his gaze, I adjusted myself and added that living in California had begun to wear on me, it being so far from my parents on the East Coast. > George: “How often do you see your parents?" > Me: “Maybe once a year now.” > G…

I find myself being that George all the time. Once I apparently convinced a friend of a friend of a friend (ie a stranger) to make another baby.

I only know this because when I saw these people two years later they had an extra kid in tow and thanked me for convincing them to make a plunge. I have no idea what I said, but they were adamant that I shoved them over the fence.

Another time I got a kid in undergrad admit to me that he wasn't going to the job fairs because he was expected to go to grad school.

I pointed out to him that applying to a job is a skill, and a hard one at that. I also told him that just because you apply for a job doesn't mean you'll take it. His jaw dropped at that realization (he's first gen Korean-American).

If you want to be George all you need to do is say basic, obvious, truths everyone pretends to ignore.

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