How often should you call your parents? (Plus Nan, Pop and your siblings)

How often should you call your parents? For most adults, a call or video chat every week or so, with texts in between, is a good default. Almost half of US young adults call or video chat a parent they don’t live with at least that often, and the best rhythm is the one you and your parents agree on.

As for what to say, most calls home are proof of life. Mum doesn’t need a podcast. She needs to hear that you’re alive, you’re warm enough and you’ve eaten a vegetable since Tuesday.

If calling home is complicated, there’s a section for you further down, with no jokes in it.

How often should you call your parents as an adult?

Weekly-ish is a starting point, not a rule. Adjust it for distance and how busy life is, the same small-and-regular idea behind our guide on how to stay in touch with friends.

• Close by. Texts through the week, and the rest happens over Sunday lunch.
• Far away. A weekly call or video chat, with photos in between. The time-zone tricks in our long-distance friendship guide work just as well for Mum in Manchester.
• A busy season. New job, new baby, exams: a text every few days and a call every week or two.
• Older parents. A short call on a regular day they can count on, with a photo or text in between.
• Complicated. Whatever feels safe, which might be very little.

Then ask them. Plenty of families run on guesswork: you assume Mum wants a daily call, Mum assumes you’re flat out and the two of you spend months being considerate at each other.

How often do adults talk to their parents?

Most adults with a living parent are in touch with them at least once a week. In Pew’s 2015 report on adults of all ages, 38% of Americans with a living parent were in contact daily and another 43% weekly.

For younger adults, Pew’s 2024 report asked US 18- to 34-year-olds about the parent they communicate with most often, not counting one they live with.

• Texting leads. 61% text that parent at least a few times a week, including 23% who text daily.
• Calls and video chats. 46% talk or video chat at least a few times a week, including 14% who do it at least once a day.

So the texts are doing most of the heavy lifting, one “Home safe” at a time.

Daughters are in touch more than sons: 70% of young women text a parent at least a few times a week, against 49% of young men.

And then there’s the Dad call: about a minute on the weather and the traffic, then “I’ll put your mother on.” Yet 44% of dads told Pew they communicate with their young adult child less often than they’d like (30% of mums said the same), and so did 37% of young adults answering about their father.

Both ends of the line want more Dad. Someone just has to stop handing the phone over.

Family ties are cheaper to keep than friendships

If you’ve let things slide, here’s some comfort. In a 2020 review, Oxford psychologist Robin Dunbar writes that “family relationships are extremely robust to not being contacted”, while friendships cool quickly, and a study of 251 women’s social networks suggests family ties cost less to maintain.

It may be why Mum still picks up after a quiet month, even if she opens with “Oh, so you’re alive, then.” Friendships need steadier upkeep, and our guide on how often to talk to friends covers the 18-month study behind that.

Is it normal to call your parents every day?

Yes, for plenty of families. In Pew’s 2024 figures, 14% of young adults talk or video chat daily with the parent they’re most in touch with and 23% text them daily. From the other end of the line, four in ten mums text their young adult child every day (against 19% of dads).

It isn’t new, either. In that 2015 Pew report, daily contact was already common in the US (38%) and more common still in Italy (64%). Whether a daily call counts as a lot depends partly on your postcode.

So there’s no right number, only a right-for-you one. If you both enjoy a daily call, it’s normal, even when most of it is “Nothing much, you?” Not talking every day is normal too: the other 86% of the young adults Pew asked talk or video chat with that parent less often than daily.

(If you’re here because your partner calls their mum every day: if it suits them both and your life together still has room, that’s just their rhythm.)

A rhythm for the whole family: parents, grandparents, siblings

A family is several relationships, and they rarely need the same rhythm. Mum might love a weekly call and Nan a fortnightly one, while your sister may count one meme a month as a deep and meaningful chat.

Change the defaults to fit your family, and set anyone to zero if they’re not someone you call.

The default family comes to 142 check-ins a year. At ten minutes each (the calculator’s assumption), that’s under half an hour a week, or roughly one episode of something you’d have fallen asleep in front of anyway. For one or two people, a repeating reminder does the job, so here’s how to set a reminder to call someone on iPhone.

Tim Urban’s 2015 essay The Tail End makes a related point: since leaving home, he’d been seeing his parents about ten days a year. His takeaways are worth borrowing: live near the people you love where you can, set your priorities on purpose and make the time count.

Calls can’t replace the visits, but they carry the relationship in between.

Nan and Pop: how often should you call your grandparents?

Usually less often than parents. In Pew’s 2015 report, 6% of US adults with a living grandparent were in touch daily, 22% weekly and 36% monthly.

A call every week or two is lovely if you’re close, and monthly with photos in between works otherwise. The phone isn’t the only way in, either: a 2026 AARP report found half of US grandparents aged 80 and over text their grandkids.

So Nan may text back faster than your flatmate. If she’s the phone type, expect voicemails that open with her full name, in case you know several Nans.

Brothers and sisters: how often do adult siblings talk?

We couldn’t find a solid recent figure for this one. Pew’s 2026 report measured closeness instead: 54% of US adults with a sibling feel extremely or very close to at least one.

Contact tends to dip after adolescence, but a 2022 study’s review of the research notes: “Fewer contacts do not necessarily mean less emotional closeness.” Siblings who’ve moved out may even appreciate each other more, which will surprise nobody who spent their teens knocking on a locked bathroom door.

A monthly check-in plus the family group chat is a sensible starting point, and our guide on how to remember birthdays works for siblings too, including the one who always told Mum it was you.

At uni (or college): how often should you call your parents?

Barbara Hofer and colleagues studied 417 US college students on a study-abroad program in Denmark, and they averaged 22.4 contacts a week with their parents, counting every text, call and email. From Denmark. And 54% still thought their mums would like more.

Hofer told Middlebury College in 2010 that “daily calls just make it too easy to process everything with parents”, and her own kids, at college, talked to her by phone about once a week.

So text whenever you like, call home once a week and have a go at the washing machine before you ring about it.

How often should you call your adult children?

Follow their lead. A few texts a week and a call every week or two suits many families, but ask them what works, and expect it to change with jobs, partners and time zones.

You’re probably not bothering them. Only 7% of young adults told Pew they communicate with their parent more than they’d like, and 59% of parents say they’re in touch about as often as they’d like. If you’re a dad, see above: they’d like to hear from you too.

• Text first. It’s the most common way young adults keep in touch with parents, and a message they can answer later beats a call during work.
• Don’t read silence as rejection. A quiet fortnight usually means a deadline, a new partner or a phone living at the bottom of a gym bag.
• Keep most of it light. In a week-long diary study of 247 US parents in midlife, 89% laughed with a grown child, and a pleasant moment with a child eased the mood hit of a stressful one the same day.

A quarter of parents in Pew’s survey track their young adult child’s location with a GPS app, even if only rarely (42% of parents answering about an 18- to 24-year-old). That can be reassuring if everyone has agreed to it, but it answers a different question.

A dot on a map can’t tell you how they are.

Things to talk about with your parents on the phone

Almost anything, which is both the good news and the problem, because your mind goes blank the second they pick up. So go in with one small thing:

• Ask for their expertise. A recipe, a shortcut, a name you’ve forgotten. People love being the one who knows.
• Send the photo first. Dinner, the garden, the dog in a jumper. The call then starts with a topic instead of “So…”.
• Share a small ritual. The same crossword, a show you both watch, a long-running dispute over the correct way to stack the dishwasher: a reason to text midweek.
• Follow up. “How did the bowls final go?” gets you a story. “Anything new?” gets you “Oh, not much.”

Log your calls in Howdy Mate! and the Recap sums up your year in one line: if Mum makes up at least 40% of your check-ins, it reads “Mostly Mum. Long live the group chat.” Mum will want it framed.

When calling your parents is complicated (low or no contact)

Everything above assumes a parent you want to call and can call safely. Not everyone has that, and you don’t owe a rhythm to anyone it isn’t safe or healthy to talk to.

If that’s you, you’re far from alone. A national US study reported by Ohio State University found 6% of adult children had been through a period of estrangement from their mother and 26% from their father.

“Going no contact is rarely a spontaneous or easy decision,” as a 2026 Ohio State article on sociologist Rin Reczek’s research puts it. Her work finds people choose it as a last resort, and that they “care so much about family”.

Low contact is a rhythm too. A birthday text, a call at Christmas, a coffee somewhere neutral twice a year: if that’s what you can manage, it’s the right number. Pew’s 2024 survey screened out young adults who weren’t in contact with any living parent (2% of those asked), so its averages describe families who are in touch.

If a parent or grandparent has died, the numbers in this guide can sting, so go gently. In Australia, Griefline (1300 845 745, weekdays 10am to 8pm AEST/AEDT) is there if you’d like to talk.

If you use Howdy Mate!, adding people from your contacts brings their birthdays across, and birthdays send a reminder. Leave unticked anyone you’d rather not be reminded about, or archive them if they’re already in: that keeps your history and stops the birthday reminder.

If you’d like support:

• In Australia: Relationships Australia (1300 364 277) offers family counselling and mediation, and Lifeline (13 11 14) is there 24/7 in a crisis. If someone in your family is hurting you, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, and if you’re in danger right now, call 000.
• In the US: call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988.
• In the UK: Samaritans are on 116 123, and Stand Alone supports adults who are estranged from their family.

The short version

• Parents: a call or video chat every week or so, texts in between, adjusted to suit you both.
• Grandparents: every week or two if you’re close, monthly plus photos if not.
• Siblings: monthly-ish, plus birthdays and the group chat.
• Every day: normal if you both enjoy it. So is not doing it.
• Adult children: text first and follow their lead.
• Complicated: whatever is safe for you, including none.

Most calls home are proof of life, and proof of life is enough. So if Mum’s on your list, call her this week and tell her about the vegetable. Then ask Dad to take his finger off the camera, because he’d like to see you too.