To think this is a REALLY weird thing to say?

You're wrong, very wrong.

I understand perfectly what sarcastic means thanks. However I'm not sure why I used it here, it's not the word I would have meant to use looking back at my post now!

Agree it's the type of thing I'd cringe over, but if all else seems fine, it's just a dumb thing some people might say without thinking and with absolutely nothing 'dirty' behind it. I'd try to let it go as just one of those awkward foot-in-mouth moments that happen sometimes.

Yes it's inappropriate but he's 80 odd

Yep, yuck and I have never ever heard any old person say this. It would always have been inappropriate and a bit weird.

Every generation has people who say the wrong thing, but if anything it would have been frowned on even more decades ago to say something like that to a child as vulgar jokes were generally kept more to adult settings, and not so normalised and widespread.

I guess if this is a one off I'd leave it, but yep it's a bit yuck.

Yes I remember kids at primary school singing that in the 70s/80s. Joking about strip teases was seen as harmless at the time.

No it wasn’t a joke. There is no such thing as a “joke” about a 4 year old doing a striptease.

it sounds like it might have been a joke

I don't think you understand what sarcastic means.

Oh god I've never thought about this phrase before but we used to say it all the time.

God, this thread has reminded me that aged about 10 a friend and I made a video of ourselves doing a “funny” pretend striptease as part of a history project (?) with the gag being we had our swimsuits on and gave the tape to our (male) history teacher. Totally our idea and supported by our parents. How weird is that?

But I think the whole idea of a striptease then had an alternative set of connotations- Morecambe & Wise (this was 20y before), the da-da-da music- it was all treated as a bit of a joke. Obviously completely inappropriate now but I wouldn’t assume he meant anything other than a silly joke.

I think it's just weird older generation jokey stuff.
He probably didn't think it through.
I don't think it's anything too pervy.
Unless there's a back story or other concerns I wouldn't worry.

My mum is 82. She doesn’t have dementia, but her social skills are definitely fraying and will say the first thing that comes into her head. And yes the striptease thing was massive in the 70s.

Was just thinking the same 😁
I'd say it's a generation thing rather than anything creepy. Sort of thing my Mum might have said as a joke

You have to remember that it's a completely different generation. If you went to the panto until quite recently the dame would do a mock strip accompanied by the stripper music.

stripping jokes were often a part of 70s tv comedy. I've an Andy Capp cartoon book why flo, Andy's wife is getting a bath in a tin bath in front of the fire, he's shouting get it off...then put it on, put it on...that was written about 1980

This thread makes me think of the dance at the end of Little Miss Sunshine 🤣

Not appropriate these days, but they grew up in a different era. But I think they knew the difference between having a bit of a laugh and paedophilia. My grandparents did anyway.

Yeah gross, but I do remember the people of my nans generation (born around WW1) saying this and cackling a lot. Bawdy working class east end humour I guess. My mum & dads generation hopefully know better but I do think they just parrot phrases they heard growing up without really thinking about it.
Could you wrinkle your nose and say "ugh, grandad. Weird"

My family too!

Different times I think. The humour was different and what was acceptable in the 60s and 70s wouldn't be acceptable now.

I couldn't get worked up about it. I'm sure he didn't mean anything sinister by it.

DH laughs at some of the things I come out with. I realise then how they sound to a third party!

It sounds wrong it the modern world but I can remember people saying are you striping off, and using steiptease etc growing .up. I think in the context of the age its innocent.

Totally normal behaviour for his generation. Be thankful we live in a different world now. I grew up in 70s. It was a bleak time to be a teenager. It was a very anti women time

I wouldn’t think anything of it.

I don't think so, either, @PiIIock but that is what he is talking about. It seems ridiculous because it is. A 4 year old child isn't doing a strip tease. (not sure what drugs have got to do with anything)

It's honestly not that deep. Inappropriate, sure, but I'm sure grandad isn't suggesting 4 year old Olivia really should be a stripper shooting up heroin etc etc

A strip tease. Like what strippers do. A woman paid by men to remove all their clothes for men's sexual gratification. Of course it's disgusting.
Some people will bend over backwards to defend pervy old relatives.

If I got to a ripe old age and it was suggested I didn't realise what I was talking about and infantilised, and my language likened to 'cartoons' I would feel fucking patronised unless of course I was in the stages of dementia, which the OP hasn't mentioned!