What I learned in therapy was that you and they are trying to communicate and neither is very good at it because you haven't had much practice.

I learned that through an exchange when I was 20 that my therapist and I went over and over. I walked into the kitchen one afternoon where my mother was and innocently asked, "What's for dinner?" and got the angry, sarcastic reply, "If you were in here helping, you'd know!"

My therapist finally got through to me that my, "What's for dinner?" was me trying to start a conversation, trying to engage my stepmother, to interact. My stepmother was like you sound with your parents, though, and "missed" what was happening.

Were I you, I would try to feel a little "sorry" for your parents You are their child they have watched grow up and now you are off on your own and they don't know how to interact with you anymore, you don't "need" them so the automatic interactions they use to have with you are gone. They don't know what to do! They don't know you anymore, don't have any other way to talk to you?

Next time they ask a question, think of it as a greeting; you know how when someone asks, "Hey, how are you?" you answer "Fine" automatically because it is not a question so much as a greeting? So, when your parents say, "Who's going to be at this party?" Go into a little detail but also turn the question around to it is an actual conversation with your parents/mother, so you are telling her a bit about your adult self and asking about her when she was your age (remembering will reassure her that you are okay because she knows she was okay or maybe she had a problem and can tell you about it now that you are older and you'll better understand why she seemed so protective) "My friend, Susie, I met her in math class, she and I often go out together so we can keep an eye on one another. Did you have a friend like that when you were my age, Mom? Someone you went out and did things with?".

If your father is in there too, they're together, just make the questions about the two of them and how they met or what dating each other before they married was like, etc.

I still remember the conversation where my stepmother told me about her youngest aunt borrowing her favorite sweater to go on a date one night, the aunt wasn't much older than she was, and bringing it home with a cigarette burn hole in it. You can learn some surprising things about your parents, like how much they had in common with you :-)