Everytime when I visiti parents home it seems that don’t care I’m even there. They have their “sports routines”, which cannot be stopped. It happens to others too. Most topics revolt around what matches they had, with whom and watch matches in TV. Whenever they go to some holidays they look for sports hall for playing. They take part in exercises with coach, they play occasional games with 20+ friends.
The last time I had some talk, was that one time couple months ago when I brought the board game to improve our family integrity and communication skills, to get to know each other better, but that was once.
I feel that I I know them mostly on the surface level currently.
I dunno, I think especially in older generations, the earnest conversation is something to be avoided at all costs. For my dad, that’s just how he was raised and I think his worst nightmare would be talking about feelings or something.
So take that and then put a hobby/passion that clearly means a lot to your folks and yeah, those can really combine in unfortunate ways.
Personally, when we’re not talking politics (my parents’ version of sports) I will sometimes throw more serious or interesting questions at mom (as said, dad hates that so I don’t push) and sometimes get interesting answers. It’s effort and mostly a one way street but I try to remember they’re not from a super healthy emotional era and even if they might at times be open to it, it does not come naturally to them (or me if I’m being honest.)
Don’t know if that early morning ramble helps but I hope it does.
It sounds like they’re deeply invested in their hobby (which is great) at the expense of other things (which is not great), and I’d say that is relatively common. It’s a shame that it isn’t a hobby that you share, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.
When you say “let’s just sit and talk,” what are you trying to talk about?
Not even sports. Every holiday, everyone in my immediate family has their face buried in a laptop or a game console. I was the same way when I lived at home and saw them every day, but I’d think with the distance, we’d want to catch up a little more 😭
My family is just uncommonly antisocial, though. Even the ones who live together can go years without speaking to each other. I’ve tried board games, card games, and multiplayer video games, but ultimately I feel lonely when I’m around them.
Have you just straight up told them this?
That’s me lol. I love programming a lot, and if I don’t, I’m either drawing or playing splatoon. I just don’t have a switch in my head that tells me “you must know about the news” or “go see how your friends are doing”. Not really that I don’t care, but as long as my family is fine and I have nothing to say to them, why bother?
My compromise with that was to get stuff to do together. Video games or board games are a good enough idea.
I grew up in a family of medical doctors, it came with its own set of similar challenges. Every problem discussion always revolved exclusively around solutions or practical harm reduction. I suspect God forbade the doctors from talking just for emotional support.
Every problem I ever had (completely normal ones included) was medicalized and pathologized, neatly classified and wrapped in a set of actionable instructions: “this is how you get better, this is how you allow it to get worse”.
I still remember coming home from school and sitting down at the dining table, eating my sausages with buckweed, while my dad, mom and older sister discuss methods and techniques to install a urethral catheter in a person with a broken phallus.
It wasn’t good or bad, it was just weird I guess. Hey, at least I am not scared of blood/trauma/desease, and in a some cases I believe it allowed me to stomach helping people in need, when other people would turn away out of disgust or disturbance.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you had to grow up eating dinner while hearing about broken dicks.
