Nosey elderly parents is embarrassing

You’re definitely on to something here. I was reading this thread, puzzled. My grandad and grandma have never had a bad word to say about anyone and this hasn’t changed with ageing. Maybe they don’t have ugly thoughts to begin with? Same with my grandparents (no longer with us). Outspoken rude, nasty comments aren’t to do with bog standard ageing.
Dementia, I don’t know about but I think if there’s anything in that theory it would be to do with brain/personality changes, rather than a filter being lifted to reveal previously hidden judgements.

It’s dreadful - my grandmother used to do it - once in a queue in a building society she shouted (deaf as well as racist) “I need a little black boy to carry my bags” and “look at him, thinks he’s John Wayne” about a man in a hat in a shop. I died.

Fast forward 20 years and my mother shouted “she can’t lift the bags she’s got a wound” about me in the queue in Tesco and another time shouted “I’ve got an infection in my vagina” to my brother across a crowded room.

I really hope this isn’t hereditary!!! 🥴

I shouldn’t laugh, but on reading some of these I laughed out loud Mind you, I am 78…

"They"? Who are "they"?

Indeed. Threads where you get to slag off old people with impunity are very popular on MN

My grandmother was like this. She did not have dementia, but did have some frontal lobe damage after strokes.

(Frontal lobe is the bit of the brain that helps us inhibit behaviour that we should not do).

Calling someone's mother ghastly is terrible! Grow up.

Please read above. Often this is caused by mental decline. It’s a shame that we have no age related sensitivity, tolerance or compassion in UK society.

And just like with small children, they will often come back furiously with insistences that what they're saying is true... as though that gives them full validity and freedom to say it out loud.

It's also all about them and their own understanding of the world - which is a lot more acceptable with a small child. Yes, that woman may be very overweight... but what good do you actually believe it will do for you to inform her of that fact that she's already very much aware of?

Sometimes people are just nasty. But more often than not and especially when they didn’t use to be like this, it’s an age decline thing linked to dementia and mental changes.

If that is the case it’s not within the control of the speaker and they shouldn’t be blamed or hated on that account. They have a mental handicap. There, but for the grace of God …..

I think that a large part of it can be when older people's worlds start to get very small. Their children are grown and have long left home, they're retired and don't have anything like as much structure to their lives.

Most older folk embrace this new-found freedom and find positive hobbies and interests, travelling and social/community pursuits - or just enjoy spending time with their families, sitting at home, enjoying their own company; reading, watching TV, social media, relaxing etc.

Unfortunately, for those who don't find good channels for their interests and energies, there's always the risk that they will seek to make other people into their entertaiment, almost constructing their own real-life soap operas - finding fault in passers-by and cavilling at the most pointless things. We have an elderly neighbour whose hobby is making enemies of the neighbours, mainly by harassing them over parking perfectly legally, safely and considerately where he thinks they 'shouldn't', even though he has a very big drive and it doesn't impact him in any way.

I think some older people also find it hard to adjust to how the world is going, with new technologies and social customs that they just can't understand. They can start to feel excluded and so cling on to sharing far and wide the 'wisdom' that they have; but not the positive wisdom of experience.

They may see a much younger person in good health, happy, confident and popular, with their life ahead of them; and feel jealous and resentful, so their automatic recourse is to fault-find and belittle in some way that seems important to them. In fact, apart from the 'life ahead of them', these kinds of people are not that dissimilar to school bullies.

My mum was exactly the same, and refused to stop, even when we continuously pulled her up on it. She got so bad in the end that I thought it was only a matter of time before someone pulled her up on it / was really rude (or worse) to her, and told her if that happened then she deserved it.

She'd always hit back with the passive aggressive 'oh you're all so sensitive / oh I'm the problem now / you can't say anything these days' so it always descended into an argument. Ironically, for someone older (pushing 80) and overweight, she saved her worst comments for people like her - I assume its some sort of deflection

Haha brilliant!

My mum also started doing this when she was about 80. Some of the comments were awful. Even about people she knew and were present with us! If I said anything to her she would say “they can’t hear me”. A memorable occasion was when I took her to sit by the river in the car for a cup of tea so she could watch the ducks and boats. A man was parked next to us and she said “look at the size of that fat fellow! He shouldn’t be undressed like that with the size of him!” The guy had been paddle boarding. But she had forgotten that her car window was open and the guy was right next to her. He told her off and she stopped it for a while. Very embarrassing though.

My dad has taken to telling me information about people but as his hearing deteriorates he says things loudly. As a consequence I remain in a state of high alert, he hates it when I ‘nag’ him to be quieter and resents me saying ‘don’t use that word it’s not acceptable these days’. He also relays stories that he thinks are funny, but they make me cringe inside as no-one else is remotely amused by them - and he doesn’t notice and so repeats them to the next group of people…
In all, OP, I empathise with your impossible situation

Small children and older people can be filter less. Both my young nephew and my Grandmother comment on how fat people are, they get on famously. It’s very common, not worth worrying about imo.

My 87 year old mother is similar, luckily she’s housebound, unfortunately her carers take the brunt. She’s always been judgemental now she voices it. She has no hesitation in telling her carers they need to lose weight (she’s very ‘fatist’ amongst other things) 🙄. It doesn’t matter what I say, she validates it by saying she cares.

I've heard of this being part of dementia/ageing, 'filter comes off', i can definitely see one of my parents going this way as I know they have these thoughts.
What im curious about is if it will happen to me, as I dont have these thoughts??? I dont look at someone and think 'oh what a big woman' or 'what an ugly man' it just doesnt occur to me? I think the most I've ever thought negatively about another person is when there's a big group of drunk men spoiling for a fight in the street I think 'not a braincell between them' I dont have this constant stream of negative observations going through my head that im 'filtering' they just dont happen? Is it likely i will have more negative thoughts about people as I get older and my world might get smaller... or is it a personality driven thing? So interesting.

(To be clear, I have lots of other horrible personality traits - noones perfect - just dont have this one??)

Unfortunately as people age they often loose their internal filter- so instead of just thinking “what a big bum she should not be eating that pie “ they say it out loud.

It is very sad and embarrassing when this is your loved relative- but there isn’t much you can do.

My elderly (early 80’s) relative can be like this. Looking round a chateau in France this year: “Do you think he’s Chinese- he’s a bit slitty eyed “ about the tour guide, who spoke very good English! I was mortified- she sailed on regardless. I caught his eye from behind her and apologised. Other times when she comes out with very non-pc comments we say “you can’t say that!” or similar and deflect her /change the subject. I’m not going to cut her off and not see her because of this, would anyone really block someone they loved because they are sometimes embarrassing due to aging?

It's annoying. But I do think it's part of getting older and mild dementia setting in. The filter is the first thing to go unfortunately.

Sounds as spiteful and mean-spirited as a person can get, tbh.

My MIL was always judgmental and rude about people but definitely got worse and more vocal as she got older. It was bloody mortifying and she had to be shut down in public many times. I just used to walk away if possible.

In her case it was spiteful, though, not just loud observations with no filter. She generally feels everyone is beneath her, and it boosts her sense of superiority to comment negatively on people’s appearance. She wants them to hear her disapproving of their weight (being overweight is in her eyes a moral failing) or hair or clothing, as though they should be grateful to her for opening their eyes to their own faults.

She’s now in a home and looked after by women of saintly patience and stoicism, who are mainly of South and East Asian heritage. In return for all the wonderful things they do for her, she pretends not to understand what they’re saying. Nasty cow.

I had a friend in her 60s when I was about 40 who started doing this and I told her over and over to stop and I walked away eventually - I called it nasty person diarrhoea

😂

Well in that case my mother has had dementia all her life 😂😂😂😂