To tell or to say nothing: should I censore what I say to my parents?

Hi guys, okay I know my regular readers will know that I have a very distant relationship with my parents and that's because I just can't talk to them. Allow me to use an example to illustrate my point about how I find it impossible to talk to my parents and why I much prefer talking to my friends. Then you can tell me if you guys face the same challenges or if I am just being an obnoxious dick. So recently, I had a situation where I was offered the chance by another company to work on a project that would be rather lucrative, it is nothing to do with my employers so I would have to take time off work to do it - I'm not going to talk about the details of this project (as that opens yet another can of worms) but I was in two minds about whether I ought to do it or not. On one hand, I felt it was an exciting opportunity to do something brand new and yes, I could earn a lot of money. On the other hand, I had some serious misgivings about some aspects of this project and so it was a case of "I like this kind of project, but I am worried that this one may not be right for me. I have seen other kinds of projects in this field before which are much more suitable to my kind of talents, which I am far more interested in. Whilst this isn't a good match, I worry I may not get another chance to work on something like that again." Thus I was in a dilemma so when I spoke to my sister and mother, I raised the topic and told them that I felt very conflicted. Neither of them knew anything about the project or the industry that was involved, they mostly looked very confused as if they didn't understand what I was explaining, so the only thing my mother had to offer was, "aiyah if you think it's going to be very stressful, then don't do it lah." Yeah, that wasn't useful but there was a part of me that realized, if she didn't even understand anything about this project and my situation, thus maybe it was my fault for choosing to share that with her in the first place if she was in no position to contribute anything useful to help in my decision making. 

So I then decided to talk to my American friend Beth who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. She is in fact one of the world's leading experts in this industry and is highly respected in this niche field. It would be like going to Tim Cook for help if you had a problem with your iPhone. Thankfully, Beth was very kind and understanding. She took the time to let me present my situation to her before asking me a lot of questions to find out more what this project entailed since it was a UK-based project rather than an American one (though the format is quite similar to what they do in the US). Beth then asked me a lot of questions about how I felt about some of the challenges and tasks involved in this project, most of all she was curious as to find out why I was so concerned about some of the aspects of these projects, why my gut instinct was telling me no. She then asked me other questions like, "so let's say you don't do this project, how would you spend the next two months? Are you going to be productive? Will you have other interesting projects to do to keep you busy and a lot of earn money?" After a very comprehensive review of the situation, Beth came to the same conclusion as my mother - it's not worth it if you already have all of those misgivings about this project. Something better will come along, so just take it as a vote of confidence that people from this company want you to be a part of this project - they want you because they like you, you're brilliant and really good at what you do, but just take that vote of confidence with you and say 'no thank you' to them. After I spoke to Beth, I felt so much better about having to tell this company "no thank you"; whereas after that conversation with my mother, I was simply left thinking, "how the heck do I talk to my uneducated mother when she doesn't even understand anything that happens in my world at all? What do I then choose to tell her?"

Here's the thing: my parents are uneducated, I know that fact and I'm okay with it. I don't go to them for advice, I don't need or want anything from them. I just want them to be happy and live in peace. But if I can't talk to them about work because they are too uneducated to understand anything that I do, then what can I talk to them about? You might suggest, what about talking to them about what they do, that way you let them do the talking and you just listen. However, since the pandemic, my parents have adopted this routine which I call in Chinese "等死" ("waiting for death to come"): that means they do very little beyond what they need to do to get through the day. They wake up, they have breakfast, they might go buy some food for lunch and dinner, maybe perform some basic housework but apart from that, they do practically nothing else. They had given up all forms of social life when the pandemic gave them the perfect excuse to stay at home and do nothing, thus once they had done the usual tasks like have three meals, have a shower, take their medicines - well, they collapse in front of the TV and their eyes would just glaze over as they spend ages staring at the TV. Mind you, my father usually falls asleep in front of the TV so he isn't even watching it. Yeah, this is why any attempt to talk to them about their lives doesn't get anywhere. I remember once my father told me about a visit to the supermarket like, "I went there, there was a lot of people, I saw there was an offer on eggs and so I decided to buy some despite the fact that I still had plenty of eggs at home. Maybe I'll have some eggs with my lunch tomorrow." It is evident that I'm not interested in that kind of conversation, so he doesn't even try to talk to me anymore. I can't talk to them about my work and I don't wanna talk about their 等死 daily routine. So what on earth can I possibly talk to my parents about? 

The other alternative of course is to simply come to the conclusion that if I can't talk to my parents, that conversations with my parents are just a fruitless waste of time, then I should simply spend my time talking to intelligent friends like American Beth. Not only is she super intelligent and an expert in her field, she is also kind, compassionate, understanding and so good at giving advice. With lovely friends like her, why would I want to turn to my parents at a time like this? So what am I supposed to do when I do talk to my parents? Do I just say, "yeah fine, I'm busy with work, nothing new"?  I am wondering how many people actually do just that with their parents and tell them little, as they would turn to their more educated and empathetic friends for advice when they need it. I know there are some people who have parents who are as intelligent and caring as Beth (she is a parent too, she has two children) and so for people like that, wanting to speak to their parents is a natural thing to do and I'm sure Beth enjoys a very good relationship with her children. But what about people like me then? Is it simply inevitable that I end up very distant with my parents once I contrast the quality of the interactions I have with them with others like Beth? Would people like me end up becoming a lot closer to our friends like Beth whilst being distant, even estranged from our own parents? You know it's one thing when someone has such a bad relationship with their parents because they argue, they fight and they have a good reason to hate each other. But in my case, the conflict isn't there - I just find it impossible to communicate with them because they are so uneducated I feel like I am speaking to a 5 year old child and when I tell them anything that I do, they just stare blankly into space as if they don't understand at all but they're too afraid to ask me to clarify what I mean. 

Please allow me to address another issue: a main reason why children turn to their parents and the rest of their family when they have a dilemma is because our family members have known us longer than anyone else. My parents along with my two older sisters were there on that day way back in 1976 when I was born in Singapore. So contrast that to my friend Beth whom I have known for a few years, I have been friends with her since early 2019, so that's about four years ago. My parents have known me for 47 years compared to Beth who has only known me for 4 years. Hence that's why in times like this, it isn't completely unreasonable to turn to people whom we think ought to know us very well. In most cases, one would assume that someone who has known me for 47 years would be in a better position to advice me as they would know me better than a friend who has only known me for just 4 years. But I have never been close to my parents and ever since I had moved away from Singapore in 1997, I had not been close to my two older sisters either. So whilst Beth and I may not be that close, it is a combination of her knowledge of my industry plus her natural ability to ooze empathy that had made her the ideal person to approach for help in this situation. But let's say we agree that I don't mention my problems, dilemmas and issues to my parents and I simply tell them that everything in my life is great; well that just leaves the question: what the heck do I talk to them about then? Given that their 等死 approach to life, they have absolutely no idea what is happening in the world, they have no interest in learning anything new, it's like they wake up in the morning and think, damn why am I still alive? I'm going to do the bare minimum to get through yet another day and let's see if I will wake up again tomorrow morning. So if that is their approach to life, then what can I talk to them about? 

I know what a dutiful, filial Asian child would say, as an adult son, I am supposed to ignore the fact that my parents are uneducated and stupid. Now is the time for me to take care of them, not the other way around. So a dutiful, filial Asian adult son would attend to his parents every need, so when he takes his parents out for dinner, he would dutifully treat his parents to whatever they want to eat and be grateful for that precious time spent together. If the elderly Asian father wants to talk about the price of oranges or cooking oil at the supermarket, then the dutiful son has to smile as if he was listening to the most erudite philosophy from a professor at Harvard. This perfect Asian son would probably say to me, "you already have friends like American Beth, if you have problems then go talk to people like her, what the hell are you doing, bothering your parents with your problems like that when you jolly well know your parents are not in a position to help you with such decisions? Telling your parents anything will only worry them, especially if they can't help so just smile and don't say anything, call up your American friend Beth instead if you really need someone to talk to. What's so complicated about this approach? It is not rocket science." Pardon me for asking a stupid question, but is it wrong of me to assume that it is normal for children to want to talk to their parents when they are facing difficult decisions? So why am I suddenly seen as the selfish, obnoxious bad child who has chosen to burden his parents with all this information, only to cause them unnecessary stress and worry as they cannot help? Or is the solution somewhere in between the two extremes of completely telling them nothing and telling them a lot of stuff they simply cannot understand? Okay I shall leave it there on this topic, please do let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Many thanks for reading.