ATLANTA — Local bartender and part-time student Carl Frum’s communication with his father, Bernard Frum, has been pared down to only asking for the streaming service passwords, according to sources.
“I love my dad, I really do. He’s just not much of a texter. Or a phone caller. We talk better in person,” the junior Frum stated. “Well, we don’t really talk much when we’re in person either. For a while, it was just me asking to borrow money when I needed it, and him letting me know how much I owed him afterward. But even that petered out when I still hadn’t paid him back for some tires he bought me in 2016. Since then it’s been down to passwords and password-related topics, especially since he knows I don’t have a yard to mow.”
Olivia Frum, Carl’s mother, takes the changing relationship in stride.
“Carl and I talk every week or so, but he and Bernard have a different way of communicating,” said Mrs. Frum. “They get all they need from Carl texting to ask for the latest Hulu, Netflix, or HBO password, then Bernard replying with that password. One day I thought I caught them catching up on each other’s lives, but it turned out that Carl had just gotten a free trial for Peacock. It was nice of him to share that. He’s a good son.”
The situation seems to be worsening, but according to Dr. Phyllis Washington, an expert on family counseling from Emory University, there may be hope.
“It’s not just Carl and Bernard—a father and son only discussing streaming logins is an increasingly common phenomenon nationwide,” Dr. Washington said. “Luckily, there are strategies we can implement. Carl could come up with a list of topics to discuss with Bernard, like sports, movies, or movies about sports. Olivia could get involved too, simply by calling Carl, mentioning a current event, then passing the phone to Bernard with no warning. Think of it like trying to get two dogs to be friends with each other. Their minds are simple, no need to reinvent the wheel.”
At press time, Bernard Frum, unsurprisingly, could not be reached for comment.
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