My mother has started every phone call for about eleven years by asking whether I have eaten, and I used to find it maddening. It is not really a question. She does not want to know what I ate. If I say yes she moves on immediately and if I say no she is briefly upset, so it is not information she is gathering, it is a check that I am alright, in a form that does not require either of us to say anything embarrassing. I have come round to thinking most of what people find irritating about their parents is this — a real thing being expressed in a code that got set decades ago and never updated. The content is fine. The format is from 1994. What changed my mind was catching myself asking my nephew whether he is keeping busy, which is the same question wearing a different coat, and realising I had inherited the whole apparatus without noticing.
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@raed the bit about inheriting the apparatus is the part that stings. I have caught myself doing three things I spent my twenties being annoyed about.
Mine asks about the weather where I am. Every single time. It took me until about thirty to work out she is asking whether I am okay and cannot say so directly.
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something you reckon. a gripe, a hunch, a hill you will die on. serious or not.
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what all this does to your head, and what to do about it.