Don’t call your child too much! Court deems 49 calls a day by mother as excessive.

Mother Fined for Excessive Phone Calls to Son

Most people have a good relationship with their mothers. Some better than others, and some much worse. All families are different. Sometimes though, the divide between the family can be so great that the results border on the weird and even obsessive. Let’s take a case from Austria that happened several years ago to illustrate this point.

Constant Calling

An Austrian woman called her son to speak with him and to her grandchild, but her son wouldn’t pick up the phone. So, the woman decided that she would call again. When there was no answer, she called again, and again, and again. In fact, the 73-year old woman was calling her son’s phone up to 49 times each day over the period of two and a half years. That’s well over a thousand phone calls, and the phone was never picked up, at least according to what is known about the case. The doggedness of the mother was impressive given that none of the calls were successful.

The son had been ignoring the calls, but he finally grew tired of what he felt was constant harassment, so he went to the authorities and took his case to court. He was constantly getting calls – several an hour – and it had become too much. The court in the city of Klagenfurt agreed with him. They said that it was essentially stalking, and they decided the best course of action was to fine the mother. She was fined to the tune of $478.

While it might sound harsh to bring the case to court, it’s important to remember that there are multiple facets to every story. If the son was not speaking with his mother, and if he did not wanth is son to have contact with her, then there very well could be a good reason behind it. In a case like this, there were only a few options. He could have perhaps changed his phone number, but there was always the chance that she would get that one too. In addition, it would mean having to let all of his other contacts know about the changed number. The other option was to take legal action.

The woman said that she just wanted to talk to her son. She told a newspaper in Austria that she can no longer talk to her son or her daughter, and that she’s never seen her grandchild, who at the time of the case was 15 years old. It’s a sad tale all around, and the backstory of why there is so much animosity in the family will probably never be known. It’s a personal story for the family, after all, and perhaps it is best that it stays that way. Even the court decided not to release their names.

However, for all of those other mothers out there who call their adult kids constantly, you might want to beware. Even though this case happened in Austria, the outcome would likely have been similar no matter where it happened in the world. Maybe it’s better to send an email instead.