My youngest brother is nearly 20 and is away at university. I am 27 and live in our hometown, and I see our parents nearly every day. My brother comes home semi-regularly, at Christmas and maybe a weekend here or there.
My mother sometimes jokes that she has to beg him for a text back. But recently, she opened up to me that she never hears from him without insisting, that she doesn’t know if he ever wants to come home again, and that this wounds her deeply. My younger sister (23) and I are both very close with our parents, and we call and text all the time.
My mother is a very kind and supportive woman, who will bust a gut to help any of her kids. She’s been very clear that she doesn’t put any pressure on him to be closer or to come home, even though she badly wants him to. She worries that she will never be close to him the way she is with her two daughters. I don’t think my brother has any issues with our parents, unless something has escaped my notice. I’m not close to him, and I don’t hear from him. He’s generally a pretty nice guy, if kind of typical for a male his age. He’s friendly and sociable when he is at home. I think he is just enjoying being away from home and hasn’t developed the awareness yet to realize that it would make his mom happy to hear from him. It makes me so sad to see my mother unhappy. What advice would you give her? Is there anything I can do to help, except be a sympathetic ear when she’s sad about it?
—The Eldest Daughter, At It Again