Bad Manners and Brimstone

During both phone calls I finally interrupted the lectures.

I think maybe the only thing I would suggest you change is to stop the lecture sooner.

"I understand you're upset, but I'm not interested in listening to you vent about this. I've got to go."
     Label it as venting, not as a lecture. Maybe they think of you as a sympathetic audience; maybe they are trying to shame you for "not raising him right." (insert eye roll here, btw)

I might personally add, "Fred is a grownup, and he is entitled to learn from his own mistakes."

The other thing I'd suggest is that you not even try to "have a nice conversation" with people who are doing this.  This isn't a conversation; it's either a venting session or a harangue; they called you specifically to unload on this topic.

Have a "nice conversation" with them at some other date.


Or I guess you could interrupt them and seize control of the monologue, and just muse (as if they are sympathetic audience, and surely must agree with you!) that "some relatives have called me up and harangued me about the choices my grown offspring has done, as if somehow I'm at fault, and Fred isn't an actual grownup with the power and the ability to make and learn from his own mistakes. As if they think I'm a failure as a parent, I guess, even though surely all of us have done stupid things from time to time that we would never THINK to blame our parents for, right? As if somehow I was supposed to head him off from making a foolish mistake simply by ESP, or by osmosis? Isn't that ridiculous? I just don't understand these people, do you?"


What are they going to do--tell you that they're "one of those people"?