Talking with many of my friends and co-workers, I've found a common theme throughout--no matter if you are married, single, live close/far from mom and dad, etc:
Family stress
Case in point: My mom calls me today as I'm leaving from work in a panic.
"Call your sister! She's lost in Athens and I don't know what directions to give her! She won't stop to ask for directions! Call her cell--do you have it?"
No, she's my sister--I don't have her cell number! Hello?!?! So, I call my sister and she just chats it up. Panic was not in her voice... We chat for a bit and she tells me where she is, etc. I eventually get her on the right way home and we hang up moments later after catching up. Why does my mom feel the need to over-exaggerate things? This isn't the first time she's called me with a situation like this. One time, my sister was lost in Atlanta and I was chosen as the "phone a friend" option to get her back on her merry way. Am I their personal MapQuest?!?! Apparently so. This is just unneeded stress for me AND my mom AND my sister. All the way around, just unneeded! URGH!
And then, if it's not this, it's something else.
"When are you coming home to visit?"
Ummm...it goes both ways. Plus, I have my *own* life that I live from time to time, too.
AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!
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4 comments:
Haha, I get the same pressure from my parents - always asking when I'm coming home to visit. The bad thing for me is that they make the 3 hour drive down to Atlanta about once a month, so they expect me to return the favor. I somehow find it a little less exciting to spend 6 hours of my precious weekend in a car just to go back to a house and neighborhood I didn't even grow up in. Not that I don't love my parents or anything, but to the surprise of my parents, I do have a social life here in Atlanta.
Well, yeah--your situation is different. You didn't even grow up in that house, so it's not "home" to you. I think parents need to realize the social aspect of our lives, ya know? Mine are only 1 hour away, so that's why they expect me to come home more often, but come on, ya know?! In the same repect, it's only an hour, so they can come down, too:)
I'm lucky in that neither of my parents nag me about visiting them. However, my dad will often answer the phone "Is this my long lost daughter?" (dang caller id). But he could call me too, right? And I think it's part of a mom's job description to panic...My mom..."You can't give up your car, what if there's an emergency!" or "You can't see that guy, he'll just break your heart again!". Um, mom, thanks but it's my life. She always goes to the worse case scenario when it comes to one of her kids. My sister and I have learned that she won't change so we just smile and say "okay, mom". But ya gotta love em.
Yeah, but see, I do the "smile and nod" thing TOO much. I've just gotten to the point that I do that to everthing she says and it sometimes comes back to bite me in the butt. "oh, I told you that, remember?" "um...oh...yeah..." LOL
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