I have one son who doesn’t talk to me at all, which is sad, but that’s for another thread. My other son and his wife both talk to me fairly often, and share a fair amount of details. I say our love language is cat and dog pictures, because we share them almost every day.
From a fairly young age, my wife would ask our kid at the at the table what they had done, and slowly walk through the day. By the time they were in the mid teens, they would share stuff unprompted, as far as they could remember. From mid teens we started “share three good things that happened today”. If we didn’t start, they would start on their own.
Now they don’t live at home but will share stuff when we talk. Sometimes, if something really interesting, cool, happy, stressful or sadenning happens, they will call to tell one or both of us about it.
I have boys and I was always grateful to have friendships with girl moms because that was the only way I found out what was going on at school.
My D22 alternates between giving me unprompted details here and there and a full rundown of her day, depending on her mood and how busy she is.
I won’t hear from her in nearly a week and then get a very detailed text string with a play-by-play of everything interesting that happened that day. Or even not so interesting.
I agree, it’s age related. I never expected our kids to tell us everything about their days all the time. I know some people here have kids who they talk to every day. That never happened in the Thumper household, but we do talk to the kids at least once a week.
We do not communicate with our kids frequently but when we do it’s lovely. DD is 29 and DS is 27. Both have busy lives and are fortunately in happy, stable long-term relationships.
Our current communication tends to revolve occasional check-ins/catch-ups on the weekend if they aren’t busy. Spontaneous texts are usually related to Chicago sports.
Since we live about 50 mins from them we will occasionally see them for a visit which usually includes lunch or a brunch…and of course there are birthdays and holiday celebrations.
We recently spent time as a group of 6 on Oahu and Kauai. Living under the same roof was a lot of fun. Hopefully we can do similar trips in the future…not annually, but for special occasions.
Even so, I wouldn’t say my kids share a lot about their lives in detail. They work a lot.
We’ll occasionally hear about a great meal they’ve made or maybe an update on one of their friends, who we happen to know or a new project at work…though with both of their jobs they’re kinda hush-hush with any details. It makes me laugh. Oh well. Hopefully they’ll inform us if they get engaged.![]()
I’m loving all these responses and am looking forward to reading more, but let’s just say that my theory is definitely not going to work in absolutes! ![]()
As far as the survey goes, we currently have 119 votes (71 voters) and here are the responses:
Answers about males (most to least)
- 39%: Male kid that’s not effusive
- 32% Male kid gives barely any info/details
- 9%: Male kid gives me the low down of everything
Answers about females (most to least)
- 35% Female kid gives me the low down of everything
- 32%: Female kid that’s not effusive
- 15% Female kid gives barely any info/details
Answers about nonbinary kids
- 2%: Nonbinary kid gives me the low down on everything
I do BeReal with them. Does that count?
Largely due to my wife’s efforts, we have a close relationship with our kids, both in their 20s. We have a full family zoom call nearly every week, plus each one calls us separately a couple of times per week.
I picked not effusive for both of my kids since I don’t get the lowdown every day, but I’m actually amazed by how much my college freshman son uses actual voice calls to keep in touch with me, any time something pops into his mind that he wants to say. Strangely enough it seems to be his preferred method of communication.
When he was in HS, I wasn’t sure if anyone in our kids’ generation even knew that you could use a phone for voice calls ![]()
My daughter reminded me today of this gift link I posted to Facebook:
{sigh}
My kids seem to defy the norms. My oldest - a girl, has always been more reserved. I had to drag information out of her about school. Now that she is at college, I still do the same. We do still chat every day though, so maybe she communicates more than the norm, but not more than MY norm!!! My son is a junior in HS, and has always been a communicator. He shares everything (
). I hope it never changes, but I am sure it will.
I have four kids, the three boys all have communication styles!
The girl and the boy are super independent, rarely start a text (or phone) conversation. The local-ish single one will usually reply “Good Job” when I send my running time or other exercise info.
My daughter texts every day unless she’s somewhere in the world without internet. She shares big and small and is a TMI type of girl too.
I’ve gone through various ups and downs of communication with my three boys. The one that was most sharing as a child became the least sharing as a teen and college student. Now that they are all completely on their own and living several states away the 23 year olds both call about once a week for 20-60 minutes to give me the highs and lows of their week, and hear about the dog’s latest mischief. They text when they have financial, apartment, car questions. The 25 year old texts when he reads something he thinks I’ll be interested in, is thinking about something from his childhood or wants advice. We talk every couple of weeks either on the phone or in person to catch up. We family group text when someone travels or sees something funny, etc. I’m very grateful for this current arrangement and hope it will continue as they get even busier with life.
I saw vacation photos on FB today. That sort of counts as communication ![]()
Since he was 14 and at boarding school, communication with our son is roughly every 2-3 weeks, but he can be very chatty when he wants to be. Better not ask him about his personal life, though. That’s through observation only.
But did you “Like” the photos?
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Just thought I’d provide an update with the current survey results. There have now been 162 total votes (100 voters) and here are the responses:
Answers about males (most to least)
- 36%: Male kid that’s not effusive
- 34% Male kid gives barely any info/details
- 8%: Male kid gives me the low down on everything
Answers about females (most to least)
- 35% Female kid gives me the low down of everything
- 32%: Female kid that’s not effusive
- 16% Female kid gives barely any info/details
Answers about nonbinary kids
- 2%: Nonbinary kid gives me the low down on everything
- 1%: Nonbinary kid that’s not effusive
- 0%: Nonbinary kid gives barely any info/details