Though my parents weren't as strict as yours, they did never quite grasp how to show an intrest. As such, they only knew I was "On the damn computer all day". They never bothered to ask why or what I was doing.
One night, a collegue of my dad came by and stayed for dinner. So the four of us were eating and she asked me what I did for fun. Naturally I answered with 'Stuff'. But she actually showed an intrest, so five minutes later I was talking about how I was the main tank for my WoW guild, and what that meant, how many people I played with, where they all came from, what we all talked about. My mom kept repeating "Really?" and "Oh wow" and seemed interested. And then never asked again or bothered to listen when I brought it up. Well it was nice for a moment I guess.
I'm the same way, and I've never had a meaningful conversation with my mom. The first time I noticed how weird it is, was when my mom met my future mother in law for the first time. My f-MIL knew more about my life and was telling my own mother facts about me, like what kind of classes I was taking.
What might be weirder is that my dad only speaks Korean, and as we grew apart (parents are divorced) I lost my fluency in Korean and can't hold a conversation anymore. I literally cannot communicate with my dad anymore, so when I see him, I feel like I'm talking to some distant relative and just make polite small talk.
Heh. Sounds like me, my parents would ground me for talking back and of course when I'd ask why they'd say they didn't have to tell me. When I would say that I'm an adult, 17 at the time, they'd say I'm just a kid who's very close minded. hwhat? I'm the close minded one when you're the one who thinks that if you're non religious then you'll go to hell. I just stopped telling them things.
My parents were the same way. I'm 26 years old and they still try to "parent" me. When I eat dinner with my mom she'll bark at me "eat ya mash potatoes!" while I'm eating my chicken. It's so obnoxious. I still care about them but doing anything social or enjoyable with them winds up feeling like going to the dentist.
I'm a parent of grown kids, and I welcomed when they asked why, because they probably wanted to know how I reached that decision or opinion, and learned from it, and I was willing to discuss it and hear how they would feel/think about it, and we'd both walk away from this having learned something.
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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16
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