Catia Hultquist: Help, my son has turned into an Italian grandmother

Why have the children stopped answering text messages? Even an imploring “hoho?” can be coldly ignored. Swedish columnist Catia Hultquist says she found a possible explanation in “nonna-maxxing,” a lifestyle trend that seeks to imitate old-fashioned life in Italy, where a mother’s messages do not necessarily come first.

Hultquist recalls an earlier family dispute over her texting habits. Her daughter accused her of sending abrupt, “serial-killer-like” messages and breaking emoji etiquette. Her emojis were wrong, too ugly and too few, and her son agreed. Feeling like both an outdated person and a bad mother, she followed her daughter’s strict instructions and worked hard to correct her messages.

For a while, the strategy worked. Then a new mobile crisis emerged. Her children’s replies began taking longer, and some messages were ignored altogether, regardless of how affectionate or text-perfect they were. If they were elsewhere, an answer could take days. Hultquist says she was being ghosted by her own children.

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hoho?

She began to fear that her messages had become like faxing in the 1990s: a kindly but slightly stale sign of life that did not necessarily require a response. But she also started to wonder whether the silence might signal something healthy.

Hultquist belongs to Generation X. She grew up when mobile phones seemed like science fiction, then entered adulthood when an iPhone was first among the coolest things anyone could own and soon became essential. Her children grew up with iPads and iPhones as ordinary household objects. Their current fatigue with technology and mobile contact, she suggests, may not be surprising, especially when they are busy enjoying their summer rather than remaining constantly reachable.

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serial-killer-like