to think some retired people completely forget what it’s like to be working full time?

I'm only 40 but the difference in how I feel now compared to 30 and 20 is huge, I imagine the difference when I get to 60/70 will be even bigger than the change from 20-40. I think you may be underestimating how much more difficult things are for older people. Seen as retired people have experienced being working age and retirement age, they're probably better placed than those of working age to say which is most difficult.

It's a different mind set us oldies just got on with it. Time management is a skill. I had 2 kids full time job and ran house. Hubby 2 jobs and did gardening work. People nowadays are stuck to their phones when they could be doing things. We maybe watched tv 2 to 3 hours a week. We were always busy

Oh yes. One Christmas I was visiting my aged relatives house about 1.5 hours drive away, and it was a Sunday night. Sedate affair, but still a long drive home in the dark afterwards and I had to be up for work at 7am the next morning.

When it got to 8pm I said I’d better be off, they asked “What, so early?” When I replied I had work to get up for in the morning they laughed and call me a lightweight. I explained it was also a meeting with the CEO first thing and they didn’t even take me seriously then.

I have a long retired aunt and uncle who seem to have forgotten the concept of annual leave (but aunt is a retired teacher). We’ve been discovering Scotland in the last few years, where they’ve been caravanning for decades, and when we’ve asked for advice we often get “well you really need to spend at least three weeks there to get a proper understanding of the place”. She can’t understand how we’ve only got one or two weeks. We don’t bother asking now.

Her adult daughter also got the same treatment “I’m ready to click & book a three week trip for us to Canada, just say yes!”. Not grasping and annoyed that daughter can only have two weeks off at a time, and she had plans for her annual leave anyway, with her partner.

Apparently when uncle was working she was always badgering him to try and wangle extra time off.

OP, I hope you remember this post when you reach retirement at 67 and have half the energy you had in your formative years. Your turn will come my dear!

My mother once didnt speak to me for weeks because she was banging on about how I needed to manage my time and money better when I was struggling with working FT and having young kids costing £££ in childcare. She said "Well I managed alright!!" and I said "Yes, because you worked two and a half days a week when we were looked after by grandma and when we were old enough, were expected to have dinner cooked by the time you got home" She went MAD, called me a liar (I am not, my sister and father backed me up) and didnt speak to me for ages. My father lost it with her and said that just because she didnt like the truth it didnt make it any less true and that perhaps she should try to be more supportive and less selfish.

She has never criticised me again, so I guess thats something!

Yep, my mum was going on about how she cleaned her oven herself, while I paid someone to do mine … while I was working!!

It is very possible to not work and still be busy.

Then you are very lucky.
i work in a school.
if i get a 30 minute break all day, its a win.

I have worked for 42 years, when I retire in 7 years I will have zero interest in what is going on at work. I will have earned that.
A lot of the younger generation could not cope with what we had to, when we first started work, with no workers protected rights. We didn’t complain, we just accepted it. We knew no different.
Stop making this about a war between generations. One day you will retire and you won’t give a scooby do about work.

It sounds better than saying, oh I don't do anything unless you count shopping on Tuesday and the Dr. on Thursday.

It also stops family filling their nice relaxed retirement with school pick ups and babysitting!

My almost housebound MIL was far too busy to accept a visit from her brother who travelled about 100 miles to drop off her Xmas present 🙄.

I'm planning on being very busy doing sweet heehaw when I retire.

Nope, p'raps it's because you work for the Daily Mail 😉 ?

I guess it's because I'm a sad, old, tired, retired, etc. baggage I still don't understand why an employer would be considered archaic if they expected an employee to work while they are at work.

Come on, OP, tell us what job you have that enables you to WFH and keep popping in to SM. Maybe some of us sad old baggages could get a life and join you. 😊

People like that were probably never very sympathetic or understanding throughout their adult life. I’m retired and sympathise with working parents who have to juggle on a day to day basis. I remember it well.

So she's never had to juggle work and looking after children? It doesn't sound as though her life in retirement is very much different from her life pre-retirement after her children grew up and left home. It sounds like she has always had time to do housework and gardening.

Does she help you with your children?

You're being a martyr because you say you have no time at all, not because you dont watch tv for 4 hours a night

I have.