owlice

Heck, I have a rotator cuff injury and *isn't* from playing sports!

And goodness -- my taste in games has changed over the years. I don't spend my time playing Candyland for a reason!

blankmind

It's like listening to a robot from a bad sci-fi flick.

MBA Grad 2009

It's a Jedi mind trick. We really have and do 90% of the cool stuff, we just hide it from the kids.

Youdon'tsay

I am passionately sick of this thread and am curious why it continues to live every time I come to this forum.

And, yes, I realize this post just added to the problem.

mousegray

^^^Because no adult wants to let some upstart too-smart-for-their-own-good kid who accuses them of being passionless and incurious have the last word.

And also, forgive the armchair analysis, but most of these parents here, including myself, remember those "don't trust anyone over 30" days way back in the 70's when we congratulated ourselves for not being like our parents, only to wake up here to find out... that we're accused of being, well, do I need to finish this thought?

mom2three

OK, I apologize for keeping this thread going.....

I am PASSIONLESS and UNCURIOUS (sic) about fishing, my husband's passion. He and his buddy can sit and watch fishing shows, talk about fishing, etc., etc., for hours and hours and hours. We've been married 24 years. I'm not going to suddenly become interested in which knot or lure or temp or WHATEVER IT IS THEY FIND INTERESTING!!!

But, that's OK! He doesn't generalize that I or all women are passionless and uncurious. He just knows that we have different interests!!!

We also have common interests!

Sheesh.

galoisien

Well actually it's not about the common interests thing. It's like my mother doesn't have any passionate pursuits of her own, at all... I'm fine if they don't mesh with mine.

Although one parent on here brought up a very good point -- perhaps parents are actually doing their passion, whereas kids can only dream or anticipate their passion, and talk about it endlessly, and maybe the adults who take a break at the end of the day are ready to do something else and return to it later (with actions and not words).

I did suddenly remember why I found some conversations so tedious though. It's like parents don't seem to take your words for anything and you have to repeat and reassure them over and over about your health, rent and other bureaucratic aspects of life. They ask, "ARE YOU SURE?" and you have to say for the billionth time, "YES!"

Are you sure your phone isn't MISSING? Are you well? You aren't sick are you? Are you SURE? Must make sure you know! When did you last see a doctor? (Didn't you ask this last call too? Shouldn't you have remembered?)

I know my mother's SSN and alien registration number by heart but she also has to ask me for my address ever time she wants to send something....I think that's the other thing ... conversations feel tedious when you feel like the other participant won't remember the details of them.

Northstarmom

"I know my mother's SSN and alien registration number by heart but she also has to ask me for my address ever time she wants to send something..."

It was a lot easier for me to memorize things like phone #s when I was young. I am convinced that's because I had more room in my brain. The older one becomes, the more knowledge one has gathered.

"It's like parents don't seem to take your words for anything and you have to repeat and reassure them over and over about your health, rent and other bureaucratic aspects of life. They ask, "ARE YOU SURE?" and you have to say for the billionth time, "YES!"
"

Parents tend to do this when their kids have lied to them in the past.

QuantMech

I saw the title of this thread, but I wasn't very interested in finding out what it was all about. Then I thought I'd post my opinion on the topic, but I really didn't care about it.

Pizzagirl

NSM, how has Galoisien lied to his mother in the past?

I don't understand why you're extrapolating your mother's particular idiosyncracies to "parents" as a whole.

I also don't get how saying "Are you sure you ... (have enough money, aren't sick, don't need my help in some way)" translates to passionless and incurious.

Honestly, galoisien, something is missing in your ability to read people emotionally.

galoisien

Because I've heard other people complain about their parents in the same fashion too... actually this was just part of the reason why I found calls to parents tedious...and not because of clash of interests.

I probably have a miscoded neurobiological gene somewhere in my genome don't I

galoisien

Uhh basic logic?

We wouldn't expect there to be any significant gene-selected evolutionary pressure against individuals who didn't consciously ensure that their children bore their DNA, because DNA-testing only came out less than a generation ago?

Now you may have preference for children that at least somewhat look like you, with black hair, etc. or be of the same race as you, subconsciously or consciously, but that's not the same thing.

Pizzagirl

Not every single decision is based on "basic logic," though. People are people, and they have emotions too. This is the part you don't always pick up on.

People don't decide to have biological children with their partner based on neutrally considering evolutionary pressures. They love their spouses, they enjoy the old-fashioned way of getting pregnant, and they want a child that combines aspects of them and their loved one. If that weren't the case, then there wouldn't be the big infertility business that there is. Just because you don't understand their feelings, or don't take feelings into account when making decisions, doesn't make them any less prevalent in the population at large.

sorghum

More technically, you got a screw loose, boy.

Pizzagirl

If the desire to have children which have your own DNA wasn't so pervasive, then I wonder why half the history of the world was about kings or rulers passing their thrones or fiefdoms onto their children. And why women's virginity has been so prized over the years.