
Call Mom Maybe - kirillzubovsky
https://blog.twitter.com/2013/call-mom-maybe
======
edw519
_Call your Mom_

This is the best advice you will ever get here or anywhere else. So do it.

I called my mother almost every day for 30 years. It I missed, she was sure to
remind me. No matter what else happened, it was pretty much the highlight of
both of our days.

We talk about a million different metrics to measure just about everything
here, but I just can't get pass HowYouTreatYouMother as the #1 binary metric
of you.

More about my mother here: [http://edweissman.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/betty-
weissman-19...](http://edweissman.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/betty-
weissman-1930-2011/)

Please call your mother for those of us who no longer can.

~~~
sneak
> This is the best advice you will ever get here or anywhere else.

That's rather presumptuous.

> Please call your mother for those of us who no longer can.

What do my family contact habits have to do with people whom I've never met?

~~~
jkonowitch
Are you kidding me?! Are you completely devoid of empathy? He's not trying to
_command_ that anyone do anything, so drop the indignation. This is what we
call a human response to grief; his mother is no longer here, and knowing what
a wonderful and life-giving relationship that was, he is imploring the rest of
us not to take our relationships with our mothers for granted.

~~~
mpyne
To be honest I might have made a similar comment.

I at least knew my mother. She would take me to bars with her, or leave me
with her sister while she went out (but she usually made sure to drunkenly
wake me up when she got back to tell me again and again how much she
loooooorved me).

Eventually she left me and my siblings and fled to Holland, where she promptly
stopped paying child support and started helping to raise the other guy's
children instead. Occasionally I would get cards. Even less often I would get
phone calls full of guilt and awkwardness.

She's actually on my FB now, but I'm not calling her.

It gets better though, my dad later remarried to someone who means well but
didn't exactly contribute to a loving upbringing... but at least she stuck
around. But how does Happy "Stepmother's" Day fall into this weekend?

And every single year I get to go through this dilemma anew. Thanks, Hallmark!

So I suppose the point is that for those who do have the doting, loving
mother, by all means _don't skip out_ on making that phone call. But not all
of us are going to be in that situation, so Ed's advice isn't going to apply
to all of us.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
My grandmother had a drunk for a father, so I am told.

He left the family and kept to himself, but that didn't stop my grandmother
from visiting him every week. Bringing food and making sure he was doing OK.

To this day, I have never once heard her speak a bad word about the man. In
fact, she wasn't even the person who told me this story.

I don't know if he paid "child support" or any form of it, but I would assume
not as he was constantly penniless.

He couldn't help being a poor drunk, but it was nothing to punish him over is
how my grandmother saw the situation.

Sometimes forgiveness and acceptance is the best medicine.

~~~
mpyne
> Sometimes forgiveness and acceptance is the best medicine.

Sometimes it's not. I don't wish ill of my mother even at this point,
hopefully she's happy over in Holland with her new life. And I would certainly
never deign to tell your grandmother what she should do, I'm assuming she
maintained contact because she had good reasons to.

But I have kids of my own to think about, a wife of my own, and a very short
life of my own to live, so I'm not going to waste a minute of it worrying
about someone who could not reciprocate in kind. I stress myself enough
worrying about the people who _do_ care for me.

If my kids still respect me when they grow up I want it to be because I
demonstrated a reason to _earn_ their respect, not because I guilt-tripped
them into feeling they have to live up to some familial bond which society
imposes upon them.

Edit: I did end up calling my stepmother earlier today as well. Pays to stay
involved, I guess.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
I wasn't suggesting you call your mother, just adding another side to a
similar story.

Mother's day is almost over now, thank goodness!

------
petercooper
Unless you're in the UK, then you should have done it 6 weeks ago, you lazy so
and sos! ;-)

~~~
antoko
Thanks for that, Ed almost shamed me into calling, I'll still call since its
been a while but at least I won't open with "Happy Mother's Day!"... to be
followed by a confused silence.

------
munyukim
It would be ridiculous to just tweet and believe its enough.Our mothers are
very important pillar of strength and on such a day even calling might not be
enough, you need to something special and nice for mother.

~~~
tekacs
'need'?

If so, why not do this on your birthday, which seems like it would be a wildly
more appropriate date? :P

~~~
OGinparadise
Mothers Day -- you as a son/daughter show the appreciation for the sacrifices
she made _raising you_. A birthday is totally different.

And of course you don't "need" to, the sun will still rise the day after if
you don't, but certain things matter.

~~~
Radim
You "need" to, in the same way an engagement ring "needs" to be diamond and
cost 3x your salary. Certain things matter!

What matters even more is showing your appreciation outside of one designated
day a year, or a shiny piece of carbon.

~~~
OGinparadise
_You "need" to, in the same way an engagement ring "needs" to be diamond and
cost 3x your salary. Certain things matter!_

WTF? We're talking about a PHONE CALL vs a tweet for your mom not spending
$20K. If you can't spare five minutes, don't bother with a tweet (unless
you're in Iraq, the South Pole etc.)

------
brunorsini
I just love this and wish more marketers would understand the power of low bs
messaging

------
ComputerGuru
I call my mom very often, but nevertheless, she gets two Mothers' Days every
year by virtue of not currently living in the US but having kids who do: I
call her on her Mother's Day and mine.

It seems the whole world but us celebrates Mother's day in March.

Fun fact: while most of the world celebrates Mother's Day, very few countries
have Father's Day. At least we can do something right :)

~~~
mcintyre1994
Really? In the UK we have both (with the more common March mother's day), and
it seems really sad that schools are basically not mentioning father's day any
more because of the obvious issues. I didn't know most of the world didn't
celebrate it at all though, that's really sad.

------
hawkharris
That was really funny and refreshing. Humor is the most underused tool in
public relations, in my opinion.

------
galvanist
This is some talented ad work. It was clearly cheap to make. They're going for
viral. We're discussing it. The message isn't slimy. It's funny. It's more
interesting than something like #tweetyermom. I say mission accomplished.

Also I still don't care much for twitter.

------
mcintyre1994
Really nice video, great advertising idea. With the focus on video at the
beginning though, I couldn't help but think how if you said Youtube instead of
Twitter it'd pretty much all fit, interesting to see them become more and more
about media.

------
mattacular
This strikes me as a post about a thing that is not a thing. But, I guess
that's Twitter for you.

------
BasilAwad
maybe visit mom?

------
val_c
Nice one Twitter... I almost fell for it and thought they'd done a super
cheesy vid... PHEW!

