I May Be Their Child But...

Mamapedia doesn't have a 'box' long enough for me to list the number of times I said to my parents and other 'grown-ups' do this --consider this -- I think this...... and years down the road I would remind them --do you remember when I said ..... and I said ..... and said... and I was right? Then why won't you listen to me now??? I might be right again. The world has changed ....

It's like having a housefull of teenagers again.

ooh dear!!! I'm sorry! Like Angi - i live outside of DC - we've had people not pay attention to the 95/495 split and end up on Route 50 in DC...or worse? The 395 interchange!! YIKES!!!

I'm sorry. I really am sorry. My parents have the Magellan and their Sams Club Atlas - when you're driving a 40' motor home with a tow - yeah - you DO NOT want to follow the GPS all the time...

I hope they stop and get an atlas!!!

Lol, will it be a very LOOOOONG visit?

:)

on an hourly basis sometimes ROFL Welcome to the world of being an adult child LOL

I live just south of Washington, DC. My house is VERY new (as in we closed on it the day before thanksgiving 2010) so my house and street aren't in the GPS or Mapquest or even Google. So I tell my family (who were coming in for my oldest son's HS graduation), use the address for the stadium (we have an independent league pro baseball team) I live RIGHT before it (I can see the stadium from my back windows). If you get to the stadium you've gone too far.

My dad calls me from a gas up stop and tells me where he is and he's on his way. While I'm on the phone with him I ask him where he's at, then I SPECIFICALLY tell him directions to the most direct route to my house. Instead he listened to the GPS ... which if you have a garmin and want to come SOUTH of DC, DO NOT LISTEN TO IT .... which sent him THROUGH the city .... at rush hour. I was expecting them at around 6pm, they didn't get here till 8:30. And my poor step-mom was a nervous wreck LOL

I have been a practicing veterinarian for 15 years now, but when I was about 2 or 3 years out of school and working in a small animal practice, my mom once said that a vet had to be out of school for 10 years before they were any good. Now I know there's much to be said for experience, but it's not like I didn't know what I was talking about!

I had a GPS device in my car while driving with my mom but she still insisted on showing me her map and making me try to look at it while I was driving. Also, when we were still living out on the East Coast, she came out for a vacation and when I picked her up at the airport, she insisted on pulling out her map and trying to give me directions back to my own house and questioning why I didn't take one route vs. another. I was like, ummm, I live out here Mom! I think I know where to go and how to get there!

First they raise us, then we raise them!

Mapquest isn't always right either. Our house was built in 1996 and mapquest puts everyone the next block over from us. So we just give everyone directions from our main cross streets. My mom actually argued with me about my last name! Although I married again 2.5 years ago, I didn't *legally* change my name from my ex's and she INSISTS that I did and promptly puts my new husbands last name as my last name on everything. Ugh...parents...

Just laugh and shake it off, this could be you when your kids grow up, lol.

I just love when my GPS shows that I am driving in the water or out in a field but tells me I am on such and such street.

This is hilarious!

Yeah, I know what you mean about stubborn non-listening parents..., but I have ONLY EVER been sent on wild detours into oblivion with mapquest as well! Granted, I quit using it years ago because of that, so maybe it improved, but I relapsed and used it once last fall to get to a friend's mountain cabin. Suffice it to say-we were hopelessly lost in the wilderness and had to go back home. If they don't know the address, can't they just say so instead of giving fake directions? There was literally no such location when we got there. I'm all about google maps and writing things down now, and I NEVER leave home without the paper atlas and people's phone numbers. I do not have the nerve to try GPS....

Haha, oh yes! This has happened before. My Grandparents were in town and our family were all going to visit my brother and his wife at their new house. I knew where we were going so I tried to give my Dad directions of where to go but he didnt listen, and so he and my Grandpa are in the front seat trying to figure out where we were, and where we were going. It was sooo frustrating!! I was like helloooooo! I know I am in the backseat but I know where we are going would you just listen???! Needless to say they didnt and that was the most stressful, should have been short car trip, which turned into over an hour and a half trip I have ever taken!

And my brother was texting me the whole time going "where are you guys??" Lol! Yeah, next time I'M driving!

"So glad you made it!"
And then, in the next day or so, get them a map of your area for their car: "just in case you ever want to go exploring". This should be a polite help.They'll have to learn on their own that the GPS isn't 'all that' (I had a relative visit who wanted to use the GPS on a trip instead of having a little help from me... it took us an extra hour to get onto the freeway in the right direction. I realized it was their folly and I just needed to keep my mouth shut. Then it became about Them VS the GPS instead of Them VS Me.

Have a good visit with them...whenever they get there!:)

If they bring it up again say, "I'm sorry. You chose to use your GPS and I cannot trouble shoot it from here."

My guess? It doesn't like your town. I have friends whose mailing address is x but the town the street is in per the GPS (or even Google) is something different. Happens often in an unincorporated city.

My mom is in her early 60's. I never thought I would be the more rational, sane one!! :)

i think all parents are like that in one way or another.. no matter how old u get youre still their child younger then they are and they think they know better than you do .. and yeah gps are great but you cant always 100% rely on them.. i have a nav system in my car but my car is from 2006 which means so is the navigation so alot of times it will take you a longer way .. or it wont know small side streets.. the best is when we go to vermont to visit the fiances parents on of the highways we take is new and for a good half hour my nav says u are not on any digitized road .. my cousin also has a gps and its only 2 years old but it got her lost the otherday.. she said without her onstar she wouldve had no idea where she had to go

Fustrating isn't it but well worth the good laugh to come after the relief of their safe journey comes to pass.

Heck in my family, my generation, just made it to the adult table at family functions and I'm over 40.

Hugs to you...

I know the feeling...

At least they are using the GPS. I know for a fact that my in-laws will get lost every time they drive to see us, because my FIL insists on doing it entirely from memory, and he hasn't visited us that often. We tried giving him directions, but he refused to use them. We bought him a GPS for Christmas - he got frustrated once, and that was the end of that. So instead, we just expect them to get lost. Now we're moving, and so I know things are only going to get worse! Maybe it isn't that your advice should be discounted, but just the stubbornness of parents not to rely on anyone...

Next time, buy them (or yourself) a AAA membership and send them a Triptik and maps.
We've driven from NY to CA and back again (way before GPS or Map Quest were ever invented) and AAA got us where ever we were going without any problems whatsoever and recommended nice places to stay everywhere in between.
The membership is so worth every penny we spend on it and we use it all the time.

Oh Lord! We got my mom a GPS for Christmas, and it's still in the box. She calls me for directions instead!!!