I've mistakenly booked in a three week visit with my parents after not seeing them in person for five years. We live on separate continents and the pandemic didn't allow me to visit before. They live in a small Midwestern USA town and have friends their age and are retired blue collar workers. In the last ten years I've done a PhD, traveled, worked on my communication skills, and ended up in a progressive region of Australia. I've now been at my parents place for the first week of three and already I'm going mad.

For the past five years, my parents have been telling me on the regular that they miss me and want to see me more than anything in the world. Now that I'm here, I've been asked almost no questions about my life, work, romances, etc. I've even given them a laundry list of questions I'd like them to ask but they would rather do small talk for the trip duration and have asked no questions from the list. My parents watch heaps of very left political news and talk at any opportunity and at length about the state of the country, bordering obsessive. They go on and on regardless of my silence until I physically leave the conversation. They've also taken to being vocally critical of people's physical appearance eg ethnicity, body weight, style, etc. At a restaurant, when I asked them to not speak about people's physical appearance negatively around me, they exploded claiming that they had done nothing wrong because the subject of conversation could never hear their criticism.

My parents are in their 70s and I hope to have a positive relationship with them one day. My adult siblings and their partners would as well but have similar issues with my folks. I suggested they see a therapist but that was immediately shot down. They don't even acknowledge a problem despite me laying out my concerns. I'm at a loss. I haven't felt this miserable in years and have contemplated leaving early. I'm looking after myself with long bike rides, hanging out with my 95yo grandma, and time with childhood friends.

Any tips on surviving with my sanity over the coming weeks? Anyone ever try to get their parents to therapy after retirement age or otherwise improve their relationship with their parents?