WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR NOVEMBER 2019

When I was at my first overseas post, my mother did not have a phone in her house, and long distance cost $1 a minute from the enlisted club phones. We set up a time I could call her once a month--which was all I could afford--and she would be at my sister-in-law's house when the phone rang, at least when they weren't fighting. After my sister-in-law told Mama that she wasn't HER family, and Mama got mad and set fire to Christmas (long story), my mother would call me from a payphone and reverse the charges (by that time I was in Montana).

By the time Mama died in 1999, I'd been married nearly 20 years, she had a phone, and I talked to her once or twice a week, if not more. I was also out of the Air Force, as was my husband, and we lived about 70 miles away from her, so I got to see her once or twice a month the year before she died.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, whom I tended to call "The Voice of Doom," as phone calls from her always meant someone was dead or dying, was strictly my first husband's problem after the first ten years of trying to form some kind of connection with her. After that, I quit insisting my husband call his family, and I personally didn't speak to her for seven years straight, and I'm pretty sure she didn't notice. She and I made our peace the last few years of that marriage, but I haven't spoken to her since I left him in 2008. No kids involved, so easy connection to break--my ex-husband tried to guilt me once for never contacting her after the marriage was dissolved, and I told him you had to have someone on both ends of the rope to play tug-of-war, and I dropped my end the day I left him.

Regarding my kids communicating with me, I pretty much leave it up to them. They know where we are, they know we love them, and they have both our phone numbers. I think most of you know they were 15 and 17, part of a package deal with my amazing husband, when I got them 10 years ago... and I'm lucky enough, and blessed indeed, that they call me "Mom," and my grandkids call me "Gramily." However, they always call me when they make their very intermittent phone calls, not their dad. They always text me and not him, as well. I think it's funny. He's grateful for it, as he hates texting. My son sends me something that he thinks is funny over Messenger at least once a week, and my daughter probably messages me something every other day or so.

Please, to anyone who reads this, don't take this as any kind of judgment or suggestion on how you should or shouldn't communicate or want to communicate with your kids. I'm just describing the way my relationship works with these amazing young people that I'm so grateful call me "Mom." It's possible that, had my two not dealt with their drug-addicted birth mother first, and then gotten me a decade ago, they too would be reluctant communicators. Everyone has unique needs regarding communication, particularly with family.