Do you live far away from your parents? How often do you see them? What's it like going to visit them?

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2000

Answers

Do you live far away from your parents? - Four states away. How often do you see them? - Not any more. What's it like going to visit them? - They criticise me when I don't know something, but they expect me to since I have a Bachelor's degree, which means that I am supposed to know everything now.

There's also a huge history of bad communication and painful experiences after my dad passed away when I was 13. I have an Uncles on both sides of the family that have been in jail for stealing. My mom and brother are very shallow and don't know anything about how to love, or to be nice to me.

I spent the holidays home by myself because I have no friends. I must have poor communication skills too. I hope to find some friends some day.

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2000

I live about three hours away now, but I'm still in college so I don't know if that counts. I see them over holidays and bits and pieces over summers.

Visiting them is tough for me, because my mom just recently moved out of my childhood home (of 16 of my 19 years), so it's weird to go to a different house that is far away from where my friends are and from where my dad is.

They don't poke fun at me anymore like they used to, which is good times, but it's still hard to be governed by rules when I'm used to dealing with everything on my own and in my own time.

*sigh*

-- Anonymous, December 31, 2000

I use to visit my parents like once a month, but since I moved to Syracuse, it's been a lot less. The drive just seems to far for a weekend trip. (4hrs. to my mom's and 6hrs. to my dad's). And since I'm the only one in my apt that drives (legally that is/has a valid driver's lisense) I've been keeping long road trips to a minimum.

But I make up calling them at least once a week.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2001

i see my mother roughly once per month, but she rings me every other day. no doubt to make sure i've eaten breakfast and changed my underwear.

she is still very 'mothering': that comes partly from having a single parent family, being an only child and a son/mother relationship. i think the mixed gender parent/child relationships seem to be especially strong.

she is very loving, so although she annoys me with her mothering, it does make me feel wanted and cared for.

-- Anonymous, January 01, 2001

My parents live in the S.F. Bay Area, and we live in St. Paul. They flew out for our second Christmas here, and it was 45 degrees on Christmas day (uncommonly warm, and no snow on the streets or sidewalks. They were pretty optimistic about that and suggested they might retire here. We made sure to invite them back for the next Thanksgiving, during which we got 6" of snow... they changed their minds about retiring here.

They were going to come out for a late Christmas this January 12-16, but the week after they suggested it Chicago got hit with a blizzard and they chickened out, saying they didn't want to risk getting snowbound in St. Paul with dogs at home. They decided to move the visit to Easter.

I've only seen them three or four times in the past six years.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

I live in South Dakota. My parents live in New Jersey, where I grew up - so I only see them at Thanksgiving and maybe one other time during the year.

What's it like going home? Weird. As recently as a couple of years ago, my parents' house felt more like home than anywhere else, but after getting married and moving into a much bigger house than my mom and dad own...well, after a few days there I'm itching to go home.

This isn't anything against my family - I love them and I enjoy their company. But we (my parents, brother and I) were never an especially close family when I was growing up, and we're less so now. My wife's family, with dozens of relatives within two hours of us, is another story altogether...

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2001

An infinity -- an eternity -- but they are close in my heart.

My dad was 85 when he died nine years ago this month; my mom had died in 1989 at 80 years old. I feel they died far too young... if only they could still be here.

For most of my adult out-of-college life I lived about a two and a half hour drive away from them and I probably visited them on the average of once a month for much of that time, although perhaps only once every five or six weeks during the last few years of their lives when we had two small children and packing up and heading off in a car was less easy.

I miss them very much.

I did get to see them both just before their deaths. Mom had a heart attack and I rushed to visit her in the hospital. The next day I visited again before having to go back home. She had a fatal attack the following evening. I made a solo visit to my father the weekend before he died; I mopped and swept and cleaned for him and we spent hours talking. A few days later he died.

My eldest is getting married this summer and I wish my parents could be at his wedding. He is marrying a wonderful young woman and I know my parents would just love her. My daughter is a freshman in college and they would be so proud of her... and amused by her variety of bold and unusual hair colors. My youngest -- well, everytime I look at him I know exactly what my father must have looked like when he was fifteen.

Jim

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2001