We are similar with our ds.
We FaceTime once a week with him. Some intermittent texting during the week, but not a lot.
I honestly should stay away from threads like these. I feel like they wind up going down a judge-y path regardless of one’s viewpoint on the appropriate level of support, contact, etc. Everyone wants to believe that what they are doing is, “right.” What is right for one family isn’t right for another.
Oh I agree - like so much of parenting, it’s very much dependent on the people involved - personalities, preferences, etc.
I kinda feel like there is a ton of media (books, classes, etc.) on helping parents of babies/young children/tens. I see so much less info on effective ways of dealing successfully (with boundaries etc) with adult children. So (minus any judgment) it’s interesting to me how others handle stuff… 
There was a time I talked to both of my children all the time. For us, the calling wasn’t especially healthy. It was when they were going through a tough time. I was happy to be there at the time.
Now communication has changed. Both have significant others. One has a child. Both have busy jobs and lives.
As I’ve said in the past, we do wordle with one as proof of life 
! The other won’t! Its ok. If we have something important, I will get a text back. Usually promptly.
But I don’t measure my relationship in terms of numbers of contact. I have less contact with my male child. I like to say that he’s terrible on the phone but good in person.
I also don’t call my mom every day and my husband doesn’t call his mom every day either. With my mom, she’s busy and it’s actually common that she’s not available when I call.
Once I hit 16 (50 years ago) I never received support from my (single) mother. I started working full time and trying hard to finish high school. I was responsible for rent and my own things. All of them. I took Amtrak then to a bus, solo, with a suitcase from LA to Seattle to go to college. It was an incredibly difficult and lonely period of my life.
As my own D grew up we were pretty broke, but I tried to make a fun, interesting and adventurous life for us. And I tried to help where I could. She could (and still can) count on me, no strings attached. But we aren’t tied at the hip.
This thread brings tears.
Our D is better at staying in touch with us than S. She also stays in touch with him. We all get along well and feel pretty close. We know that we are available to one another and would drop everything for one another.
We have always been emotionally supportive of both of our children and there was no magic age cutoff. We did stop providing for S financially once he graduated college but never charged either child rent, even when he lived with us for extended periods of up to a year. It never occurred to us as something we should do and we had no need of more money.
We have always provided financially for D—100% since she has long term medical disability. We will try to figure out a way to leave sufficient assets for her life.
Oh, frequency of communication is certainly not necessarily a sign of emotional closeness between individuals. One of my siblings was always much better about calling my mom than a different sibling. But the better caller has done lots of hurtful things over the years and can be unpleasant company, whereas the other sibling is much more of an “in-person” person, and though there can be extended gaps with no communications, that person is almost always pleasant and supportive.
For those who haven’t had supportive families, just know that I’m sending you a virtual hug.
My 27 year old newly married daughter lives on the other side of the country from me, about 2300 miles away. My 22 year old son and his girl friend live here in town about 18 miles away. We all tend to text a lot in several different permutations including a group text with both kids plus our son-in-law and our son’s GF. Mostly breaking news or funny news stories or updates/gossip about the extended family, etc. Son and GF usually have dinner with us once on the weekend. With my daughter, I text her a lot but when it comes to phone calls or FaceTime, I let her initiate it because I know she’s much busier than I am. Still we usually end up talking at least once a day. She often calls in the morning while she’s walking to the trolley station to go to campus where she’s a grad student. Often her calls are her ranting about something and using me as a sounding board. Recent topics have focused on how Philly drivers are disrespectful of bikers and pedestrians, or complaining about getting bogged down in the administrative bureaucracy at her school while trying to get reimbursed for something or signed up for something, or complaining about the poor maintenance of her apartment building which seems to experience an shocking number of leaks and HVAC shutdowns. I’ve definitely learned that my job in these conversations is to express sympathy and not to try to problem solve!
We recently spent some time helping daughter and son-in-law figure out their taxes. If was a bit complicated because they got married in September but son-in-law is doing PSLF and enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan. They need to do married filing separately to minimize his payments, but then they figure out that they had both made ineligible Roth IRA contributions that had to be recharacterized. They’re taking care of all this themselves but we helped talk them through figuring out what to do. Our son, on the other hand, wants a lot more direct help actually filing his taxes. His are much simpler so it’s just that he’s intimidated by it.
18 and 35 are pretty different. My experience was similar to @AustenNut in that my mother burdened me with her emotional reliance. I suppose it’s a matter of experience, and degrees, as children age into young people and beyond.
But I still would not want my 18, 20 or even 24 year old daughter to feel I relied on her for emotional support.
I was not close to my parents or my sister. However, my husband and I started dating when I was 16 and he has been my best friend since then.
My daughter and I are very close. We call and text all the time - to share stuff, catch up on what is going on, etc. She lives alone, has no siblings, and is unmarried, which makes it more important for her to have me to communicate with.
We recently moved to be closer to her (from 4 1/2 hours away to only 1/2 hour away). I think she is happy both that we are close enough to help her and she is close enough to help us.
S2 didn’t stay in touch much during college. I wanted to let him grow his wings, but in reality, he was struggling emotionally. We provided lots of scaffolding in HS to help him manage the ADD and executive function stuff. At college, it was hard for him to put all those pieces together by himself.
He moved home after graduation, worked and got his life together. He was really pleasant to have around and he and I often went to sports events together.
Now that he’s overseas, I hear from him almost daily. News clips, helping with their non-profit, pictures from places they travel, etc. We talk most Sundays on Signal. He asks us for advice, navigates logistics for us when traveling on his new home turf, etc.
We hear from S1 less spontaneously, but he’s always glad to chat. He and his GF like us coming out to visit (which is not the case with her parents). Just worked with him on designing a technical costume for a LARP he’s doing this weekend. We went fabric shopping together while H and I were in CA last month. If S1 comes east for work, he always makes a side trip to see us.
They are both self-supporting, but S1 is in far better financial shape. S2 is staying overseas in part because of the much lower COL. If he and DIL come back here, esp with kids, we will likely be more involved. Both of our sons are kind, thoughtful people and I enjoy the friends and SOs in their lives.
Both guys confide in me more than H, but their relationships with their dad has improved a LOT in adulthood. I was happy to be out of the role of negotiator. They have helped H mellow out a bit.
My relationship with my sons is the relationship I would have liked with my parents, but never got. I was turned loose at 18 without warning and while things were never hostile, they have never been warm or intimate. A lot of basic parenting skills just weren’t there. Emotionally aware parenting was never in their repertoire. My attempts to bring emotional expression into the relationship as an adult were virulently shut down.
H and I both vowed that we would do better with our sons.
I don’t think communication is always a sign of closeness. I do think that it’s much easier to communicate with people these days. I can text my sister and we often text just about everyday, much more than we used to when we didn’t have texting…
I think like everything else, every family is different. What works for one family might not work for another. What works for one kid might not work for another. And some kids need more guidance and help than others. And to be honest family closeness is good…
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