prototypical phone call turns serious

This phone conversation started out with lots of the typical stuff (no lakes in DC, huh?) and quickly evolved into mom's saying that we're drifting apart because I don't call enough.

It's Tuesday night; we talked Sunday night, as you may recall.

A.: Hi.
Mom: V.!!!! V.!!!!
A.: Could you not scream into the phone, please?
Mom: Well, then I would have to get up to call your father. Fine.
[Slightly less thunderously] V.! V.!
Dad: Hi.
A.: Hi.
A.: Did the photos arrive?
Mom: What photos? The pictures of the cat? What's her name again? I haven't had time to look at those. Is this why you've finally called, after all this time?
A.: The print photos?
Mom: What print photos?
A.: Photos from China.
Mom: You sent photos?
Dad: Who will they be coming from?
A.: Shutterfly.
Mom: What?
A.: Shutterly
Mom: What company?
A.: Shutter. Fly.
Mom: What does this company do?
A.: It develops photos.
Mom: You actually had photos developed?
A.: Yes. Well, technically, I had some printed.
Mom: Why?
A.: Sigh.

Mom: Have you gone swimming?
A.: Do we need to go over this every time?
Mom: Yes. I'm reminding you.
A.: Thank you.

Dad: What are you reading?
A.: A book called "Nudge." It's about the psychology of choice architecture and decision making-- for example, the way people are much less likely to opt out of something, like a 401k plan, than opt into it, holding the substance of the choice constant. Wendy gave it to me.
Mom: I've read some of that stuff, it's pretty shallow.
A.: It's based on solid research, I assure you. Especially that example.
Mom: I don't know about that.
Dad: What's Wendy up to these days?
A.: Right now she's driving across the country. She and her husband are moving to Pennsylvania.
Mom: Where?
A.: Central Pennsylvania.

Mom talks about the Poconos; dad points out to her that the Poconos are nowhere near central Pennsylvania. They somehow get into a "so what?"/"I'm just saying" argument.

Mom: So, you're not going anywhere for work?
A.: I will tell you when I know where I'm going for work.
Mom: Who are you friends with these days? Have you forged close, deep friendships at work?
A.: I don't know about 'deep'. I mean, I've been there not quite six months and I spend the vast majority of my time there working. I do have friends at work... I'm also friends with the same people I've been friends with for years.

This is not the first time that my mother has auditioned the concern that I don't have any friends. I think she is genuinely convinced that I don't have friends (after all, I have that overbearing personality) and that I ran away from my former job because I didn't get along with people there, because of my abrasive personality. I'm not sure how to best reassure her that I do, indeed, have friends.

I do feel increasingly good about work. I feel like I'm settling in and finding my way around. I think I've said as much in past conversations but she's not terribly interested.

Anyway, then things got weird.

Mom: I feel that our conversations have gotten formal. It's because we don't talk often enough. I think you should call more.
A.: Or, you could call me when you want to talk. Really, most of the time during the week, making a phone call is the last thing on my mind. I'm mostly focused on getting ready for the next day.
Mom: Me, too.

Yes, I suppose I could sacrifice the forty minutes I spend watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report, but then I would go crazy.

Mom: If you don't have time, what difference does it make who calls?
A.: What difference does it make who calls, anyway? If you want to talk, call me. I don't call, because I usually don't have much to say.
Mom: Even if you just share the little stuff, the mundane stuff. Like, when you see a bunny in the yard.
A.: I told you the other day that I saw a bunny in the yard. Honestly, mom, I'm just in my own world on weeknights. Cycling takes more time. I'm exhausted and famished. I clean up, eat, get my stuff together for the next day, watch some tv, read a bit if I have any brainpower left-- which I usually do not-- and go to bed, later than I should given what time I get up.

All that is true. One or two nights I week, I do go out and spend time with friends, but this is about as much as I can take, and it's worth it but it wears me out. Am I allowed to spend time with the friends my mother doesn't think I have?

There is also what is true but is not said, like I don't want to share the mundane stuff because who the f* cares. It's one thing to say "there's a bunny in the yard" when we're already on the phone; it's another to call to report a bunny sighting, when the bunny is there every day.

I didn't say, 'Why do you find our conversations "formal"? Maybe because you don't listen so you can ask me the same questions on every phone call-- have I been swimming? Am I traveling for work? Do I have AC or ceiling fans? Because you cut off any chance of a substantive conversation? When we were talking about "Nudge," could you have maybe said anything other than, "nope, that's all BS"? Or even supported "that's all BS" with some interesting data?'

I really, really care about my parents and enjoy talking to them, but I don't have enough to say for daily conversation; I couldn't HANDLE daily conversation with mom; and I really am busy and tired. Yes, I blog, and yes I read a lot of news--staying informed to me is as important as exercise. I can't just make stuff up.

I know that the demands on me are different than those of, say, a single mother, or most mothers, or people working multiple jobs (and perhaps also parenting at the same time). There are many people in this world busier and more tired than I am. Nonetheless, I am busy, and usually exhausted. Mom just doesn't appreciate that. She won't admit to herself or anyone else that, being retired, she has free time and a bit more leeway in terms of how she spends her weeknights.

But I didn't say any of this.

Mom: So, do you still go to the gym?
A.: Less so. I go to the one at work now, but usually not on days that I bike.
Mom: Why the one at work?
A.: Because it's there...
Mom: What does biking have to do with not going to the gym?
A.: I don't usually feel the need to go to the gym on days that I cycle twenty miles.
Mom: I just feel that our conversations are increasingly formal.
A.: I don't know what to tell you. I don't feel that are conversations are formal. We can work on that. But I'm not going to call you every day.

We sort of left it there. I also realized later that, naturally, once a weeknight conversation is approaching or has gone past the time I should start getting ready for bed, I'm not exactly going into great detail about my activities or asking my parents about theirs. I can see how at that point the conversation would get "formal."

I'm wondering whether to point out to mom that it's a power thing. Why else would she need me to call her every day, rather than, say, calling me if she wants to talk? There are other things I can point out to my mother, in the vein of 'what's the point of telling you things when you don't listen' and 'I don't go out of my way to tell you about how work is going because you're just going to disparage it.' Maybe it's time to have those conversations.