I wear pajamas at home. As soon as I’m in for the day, on goes the sweats/comfy clothes.
If your child has an issue with what you wear, it’s his problem. He should sit in a way that people won’t pass behind the camera or go to a room where he’s alone.
If you have an issue with it, stay in another room until hes done.
If you’re PLANNING on skyping with someone for the first time, sure wear something presentable. But, like many things, cross that bridge when you come to it. No need to worry about something that may or may not happen in the future.
For goodness sake, can’t he just videochat with his back to a wall so the person can only see him, and not the entire family? I find it hard to believe people who are so smart can’t figure out a way that the Facetime / Skype camera can just pick up the intended person, and not everyone in the room.
This reminds me of a past experience at work (in my previous company). The “collaborate” overseas team of ours once suggested that a camera be set up so that if some equipment or boards in our working area (which they could control remotely) was not functioning as expected, they could have a visual way to inspect what may have gone wrong.
Luckily, our manager is a more westernized guy and respects individual’s right of privacy (including what is typed and shown on the computer screen) and “stands his ground” and said no.
Luckily, his upper management agreed with him. Otherwise, we would be like monkeys living in a zoo whose every steps in our daily work could be observed by any member in an overseas team whom none of us (except for one manager at a certain level) have ever met. The life of an engineer could be quite “miserable” in a globalized company if you happen to have an inconsiderate manager (one of the misery is just the time: like meetings were always held at 10:00 pm in order to accommodate their working hours. This happens more often to the poor low level managers though - but the engineer could be assigned to help him out when there were two meeting at the same time.)
“The call could be in an inconvenient hour like almost mid-night (due to time difference.) No store is open at that time.”
If the call is indeed taking place at midnight your time, then no one should have any expectation that you are in anything other than casual clothes or pajamas.
Have you ever used Skype or Facetime? It’s not a full body shot. You can easily just keep the camera to neck and above. Really, if you are wearing standard men’s pajamas, who is really going to look closely enough to tell the difference? And who is going to notice? No one expects you to stay dressed up in your own home until midnight every night on the off chance that that evening, your son and girlfriend might Skype and her parents might come over and might want to meet you. You are definitely overthinking this.
"The issue is whether the parents inform their child that they would drop in during the call or not. We will not drop in. But it seems this may not be the family dynamics on the other end.
I guess we may be more “westernized” than them because we have been living in US for 30+ years. Or, maybe the parents of a son naturally behave somewhat differently than the parents of a daughter."
Mcat. You keep wanting to put people in buckets – people from this country behave that way, people from that country behave a different way, parents of sons behave this way, parents of daughters behave that way.
Stop putting people in buckets. Different people behave in different ways because they are different PEOPLE, not because they are representative of “all parents of sons” or “all parents of daughters.”
It is odd that you look at this girl’s family and extrapolate to “well, that’s what parents of daughters do.” No, that’s what THAT particular family does.
“What we are wondering is that if the parents on both sides eventually want to have the first meet in this way (instead of flying hours to meet each other), we really want it planned and turn it into a more formal event and definitely not in our pajama. The “protocol” for this to happen has not been set up yet. The availability of the new gadget seems to turn the more “serious” event in the past to a more “casual” one today, just because it is so easy to set it up.”
This is silly.
If the boy and girl are speaking casually and one of them says, “hey, mom or dad, come over, I’d like you to say hi to the other set of parents,” then everyone knows it’s unplanned and if you are in casual clothing, well, then, that’s how it goes. No one expects you not to be in comfortable clothing in your own home.
If the boy and girl make explicit plans that this Saturday at 8 pm both sides are going to “officially” meet, then you’ll know that upfront, and then you’ll make plans to dress as you see fit.
My child actually said I may have an anxiety problem of some sort, like I tend to keep “foreseeing” some potential problem that really either does not exist or is not a problem that deserves my attention now. I may just need more “wisdom of life”.
romani, Yes, it is true. I should only do what I am “good” at, like what happened this afternoon: we stopped at an Auto shop, bought some “tools” needed in a bad weather, and later showed him the very basic maintenance of a car using our car here as an example (he has one of our cars on campus now.)
Maybe another more useful topic is how to file a tax return, and some basic personal finance stuff like 401K or IRA.
The worst that happens is that you are sitting in your pajamas at home, your son is Skyping the girl, her parents happen to drop by and she spontaneously says, “Mom, Dad! Why don’t you say hello to my boyfriend’s parents?” And you’ll lean into the camera and say hello, nice to meet you, and you’ll exchange a minute’s worth of friendly chit-chat before handing the conversation back to the kids who are the ones who want to talk in the first place. You’re not going to be planning a wedding in that moment, you’re just saying a friendly hello. It won’t even be quick enough for them to notice what you’re wearing.
This is like worrying about what to wear just in case a FedEx delivery guy comes to your house and needs a signature. You’ll wear what you’re wearing.
You do seem to try to foresee problems and make them into bigger issues than they need to be. Do you do that in your work environment as well?
Furthermore, can’t you not speak the same language as the other parents so the D will be translating? This seems like it would be a VERY short conversation if it’s impromptu.
We indeed could not. This might be a part of the source of my anxiety in the first place, as I do not know what to expect. The young couple do appear to be happy with each other (I actually have never seen DS so happy before) so far but the time will tell. (At least it seems this time is much better than his last time.)
I think your son may be right also, based on some of your other threads. I think that in this case, you are searching for a solution to a problem that doesn’t even exist. And really, even IF you have to lean in to say hello to the GF’s parents, it will be spontaneous, they won’t see your entire body and they will know it’s just a quick hello and nothing formal. Anyone who judges your S or you based on what they caught you walking around your own house in has more strikes against THEM than against YOU.
Your son is in medical school, yes? That means he’s well above the age of majority and should be handling his relationships in the way that he sees fit. None of this is your business or your concern. If HE gets uptight about what you’re wearing, THEN you can address it, but no way, no how, would any potential maybe possible in-laws be dictating to me what I wear in MY home.
FWIW, my HS D has a date tonight at her new BF’s house, where she’ll be meeting his entire family of 9 siblings, their spouses and kids, plus the parents. We will be dropping her off and saying hello. We are not dressing up, but wearing nice but casual clothing. I am wearing sneakers because my feet are tired. If they judge my daughter based on our clothes, their son may not be the right guy for her.
Why do we have to see people when we talk to them, unless it’s in person? Just because the technology exists doesn’t mean you have to use it. I for one don’t like Skype and FaceTime and never use it.
Mcat, I’ve always lived in the U.S. so I just wanted to ask if a couple of things are cultural differences. Do gestures matter a lot more in the country where you grew up (small unspoken actions rather than words)? How about in the culture of your son’s GF’s family? Do the parents typically hold a lot more power in how their children’s relationships proceed in either or both of these countries? I’m wondering because I could see that explaining some of the anxiety, even if you pretty much hold to what’s more generally U.S. standards.
Part of the fun of the Internet is debating silly questions like this. I agree that if this is really something on your mind, you shouldn’t be borrowing trouble, but if you are just throwing the question out there for idle chit-chat, it is fine with me.
I, for one, don’t think it is appropriate for you to meet your son’s girlfriend’s parents for the first time thru Skype when you are in your pajamas. Just tell your son to keep you out of the picture unless you are dressed. Or if he asks you to step into the picture when you aren’t dressed, politely decline.
Another way to look at this would be to make sure the initial meeting via FaceTime/Skype was treated as an in-person event. You’d make sure it was scheduled, you would dress in clothes you might wear to meet them in person, and you’d adjust the computer so the background was appealing–in a way, you’d be pretending you were inviting them into your home. (Someone might have mentioned this already.) I do NOT think it is appropriate for your son to just spring them on you in your natural habitat without any warning–whether by inviting them to your house without asking you or by letting them into your personal space via technology.
@Deborah, Our family does not hold much “power” over his choice of SO. I do not know about her family. This is what I think I know (which could be incorrect thought):
In her culture, the social etiquette/manners/behavior expected for each individual seems to be different; some of them are even “encoded” in their language. For one thing, the majority of young adults, happy or not, seem to live with their parents until they get married - this applies to both male and female. It may be due to the high real estate cost, and the lack of government-funded mortgage system (their government seems to favor the large business/giant companies, rather than common citizens, and this may be why some of their large business is relatively strong.) I do not know to what extent it (grownup kids living with parents) is also due to their culture rather than the hard reality in high housing cost. A “respected” family (i.e., somewhat higher SES one) often contributes significantly to their offspring’s wedding (for both S and D, especially S) but in return the S or D is expected to “pay back” to their parents significantly when the parents are old (potentially even living with them - especially the eldest S.) This could create an in-law problem which is more serious than the in-law problem in America. The retirement system and/or social safety net is more like “within a family” (especially between parents and children), rather than between an individual and an institute (government or company pension.) Their healthcare system is very affordable when the citizen is not rich (single pay, nationalized system) even though most people are expected to buy some supplementary private insurance (somewhat like our Medicare but it is for all of their citizen.) I have learned all of these because some of my colleagues in my current company and my previous two companies are/were based in that (her) country.
If what I have learned from my colleagues in the past several years is true, its culture is really quite different from ours. (Their young tend to under much greater pressure growing up - especially in “education”. Many families go into debt for the future of their children. The idea of whether to attend a “better named” college is likely foreign to almost all of them - and this may be the only way that the children (and therefore their family as well - because the children and their parents work as if they belong to the same “team” ) climb up or go down the social ladder, at least this may be true as of today and I heard they are trying hard to correct this arguably imperfect system but it could be an uphill battle.)
