Learn to accept introverted mom

Dear Carolyn: I appreciate your guiding principle that none of us can make others do anything they don’t want to do. I’m in that situation now. I know there’s nothing I can do to make my mother call me more. I have accepted that any requests just make her defensive.

What I need help with now is getting over my hurt, that in the competition between TV shows and calling me to catch up, chat, what have you, TV wins. I’m a nice person, with good friends and a loving, fantastic husband. – Anywhere

I appreciate your appreciation, but at the risk of sounding ungracious: They’re guiding principle s, plural.

It’s good to accept that you can’t control others’ behavior, but that’s an avenue to frustration and hurt feelings unless you pair it with a companion principle: You can’t project your way of thinking onto others.

You’ve projected your mother’s noncommunication into a conscious choice, a moment where she thinks, “Hm, should I watch TV, or call my kid? Ha ha, just kidding, hand me that remote.”

Maybe you’re mindful that way, and before you grab the remote, you weigh other options, better choices, even boxes you feel duty-bound to check. Maybe you don’t even get to the point of conscious thought, and feel an impulse toward personal connections, versus passive media consumption, the moment the pressure of daily obligations is off.

Not everyone’s wired to do these things. For every extrovert who thrives on connections, there’s an introvert looking to withdraw, shut down, regroup. These end-of-day readers/watchers/ putterers don’t necessarily love their friends and families less; they just don’t reach for the phone the way their more outgoing brethren do.

You’d like her to try harder, fair enough. But maybe she’d like you to accept her as she is. Isn’t that fair, too?