Reconsidering the humble family text thread
That stream of minor updates and silly memes is more important than it may appear
Last week I trotted out the old empty nester trope that my young adults don’t call often enough. I should fess up — I was having a little cheap fun at their expense. The relatively low frequency of our calls isn’t really a problem because we text.
We have ongoing threads: a family group chat among the four of us, chats (Rael + me) with each of our kids, and private individual conversations.
These motley streams of updates, memes, links, emojis, photos, GIFs, and bids for recognition are part of the background hum of our days.
It’s not perfect, of course. Keeping in touch with our adults is a dance. How many texts are too too many? Do periods of silence mean “busy” or “trouble” or “Sorry, I didn’t see it?” Plenty of our texts go unanswered. Does following up read as loving concern or parental neediness?
For all I know one or both of my kids turn off notifications and roll their eyes at our dorkiness. But our threads continue nonetheless.
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