When Your Parents Are Your Friends
When Your Parents Are Your Friends
Today it's common to see adult children who are very close to their parents. It wasn't always like this.
How often would you guess that young adults talk to their parents? We don’t mean a quick text message, but a phone call. The answer: a lot.
According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, nearly half of 18- to 34-year-olds talk to a parent on the phone or through video chat several times a week (32%) or every day (14%). And yes, as you would probably expect, the share who regularly text a parent is even higher (61%). These figures are highest of all if you’re just considering young women, 55% of whom are in touch with a parent via phone or video chat at least several times a week and 70% of whom are regularly texting.
Pew separately asked the parents of young adults how often they communicate with each other, and the parents’ responses are even a bit higher. According to parents, 54% of them talk to their kids on the phone or through video chat and 73% text at least several times a week.
One might shrug and attribute this frequency to technological availability. It’s easier than ever to stay in touch. But is it really that much easier than it used to be to have a phone conversation? One might also suspect that maybe Millennials are the unwilling recipients of a parent’s frequent “just checking in!” messages. However, when asked about their frequency of communication with their parents, young adults are far more likely to say that they’re communicating as often as they want (66%) than to say they would rather communicate less (27%). It’s not because they have to. It’s because they want to.