I phone my mother some five to ten times a day, every day. My father really wants to travel, but he says my mother worries so much that I won’t be able to cope if they go away, that it is impossible. I think reducing the number of times I phone my mother may go some way to addressing that, particularly because when I do phone it is for my benefit not hers. Tomorrow, I’m going to try and only phone once in the morning and once at night. I’ll try and stick to that as a routine. Thank you.
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I think, as a parent, I would enjoy having my child call multiple times a day.
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The problem is the reason I am calling is because I am needy. At forty years of age, being a needy child is no longer respectable. It is a sign of how much my mother loves me that she puts up with it, but it adds to her sense that I can’t cope, which in some sense is true.
I text my mom and dad every day just to say hello.
So I only phoned my mum once in the morning and once in the evening yesterday, and she thanked me for it. She has been saying for some time that I phone too much. If I stopped phoning, I’m sure she would say that I don’t phone enough. The problem is that I only phone to moan about my situation and tell her how bad I feel, which gets her down and makes her think I can’t cope. It has caused her to worry unnecessarily about me and made her afraid to go on holiday with my dad in case I need her. It was quite tough disciplining myself to not phone more than twice. I’m going to try and stick to it. Thank you.
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My mum thanked me for not phoning her all day again today, only phoned once in the morning and once at night, and she actually phoned me to share something with me. I am happy.
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That’s considerate of you to try to not call too much. Good work. I’m sure that if you occasionally call more than twice a day they would not think it"s a horrible thing. I phoned my dad once a week in my late thirties and forties until he died when I was about 48 or 49. We got comfortable so that we told each other our problems and our latest news about our lives.
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Once a year if you want to let them know you haven’t cut them off.
Once a month if you’re having an argument about something
Once a week if things are going well and nothing interesting is happening to you.
Once a day if something interesting is happening to you.
Once before a flight, medical procedure, date, road trip or some other important event, and then once after.
As needed if you are going through something traumatic and you need an emergency line of contact to another person to stop yourself from harming yourself or another.
In my opinion at least.
If you are needing to call them every day, multiple times a day I would investigate with a therapist what is going on and seek professional counseling. Everyone’s normal is different but it just seems like somethings off to me.
@Ryanana thanks for your comments, I will have to think about the need for professional counseling.
I managed two days of not phoning my mother more than twice in the day, once in the morning and once before I went to bed. Even that is probably too much as @Ryanana says.
My parents need to know that I can look after myself, and I need to look after myself in reality too. I’m going to try and limit my phoning to twice a day again. Thank you.
So I managed another day of only phoning my mother once in the morning and once at night. I need to keep this up.
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