My mom gets mad at me because sometimes I take hours to respond to her WhatsApp messages. I work all day and I'm not glued to my phone, but she says it's rude. Is there really an etiquette rule about how long I should wait to respond?
There's no universal rule about how long you "should" take to respond - it all depends on the context and your relationship with the other person. Your mom probably feels ignored or worried, not that you're actually being rude. What feels like you being busy to you might seem like you don't care to her. The reality is that expectations vary a lot between generations: she grew up without instant messaging and might see WhatsApp as something that should be answered quickly, while you see it as just one tool among all the things you're doing during the day.
The reasonable thing is to find a balance. Responding to your mom's messages in a couple of hours when you can is fine, you don't need to reply instantly. But if you go all day without responding to anything, she's going to feel bad - and she'd be right. If you're really swamped and can't keep checking, you could send her an occasional message like "I'm at work, I'll get back to you later" so she knows you saw the message. That way she understands it's not that you don't care, just that you're busy.
The actual WhatsApp etiquette is pretty flexible: responding in minutes is fine if you can, in an hour or two is totally normal, and hours depends on what kind of message it is. If she writes you something urgent or important, it deserves a faster response. For casual chat, nobody expects you to drop what you're doing. Talk to your mom about this without getting defensive, explain your routine to her, and come to an agreement about when you can check messages. She'll probably feel better just knowing you're not ignoring her on purpose.
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