AIBU to think care homes need more age-appropriate entertainment?

Care homes do need to move with the times but my DM is in her 90s and her mind is now very much stuck in her childhood. Most memories she talks to us about are from the war and her family home. She is not yet in a care home, so it’s not like we are pushing that era on her.

I think the UK has a massive hangover whereby anyone old = world war 2. Growing up in the 1980s/90s, yes it was a given that elderly people were part of the wartime generation...but we really need to get past this.

I remember visiting one when I was in the Brownies and we were the hit of the place. We were like celebrities

That's unfortunate.

I don't know if it's typical

My mum has had two respite periods in a care home. One of them coincided with an anniversary, so we did have wartime music for that but that's different.

Apart from that, they had a couple of entertainers in who played a good mix of music before taking requests. Requests were pretty varied. Mum asked for George Michael "faith" from the guitarist, I don't know what she requested from the pianist. I do remember her telling me what songs they had and it wasn't really old stuff. She also said someone else requested a Taylor Swift song but she couldn't remember which one it was.

They also had a music quiz which covered 80s till now. I went along for that one but they politely requested that me and mum weren't on the same team - I think that was to get people to mix more? We didn't mind anyway! Mum won the quiz with the help of a lady in her 30s I think. She was pleased lol.

There was lots of stuff on, but I really noticed that the lady who coordinated it all was brilliant. I think that one really motivated person who thinks everything through carefully makes such a difference.

Ask to speak to the activity coordinator and bring up the issue!!

I suspect "what old people like" is handed down through the care team. And they probably pull out last years plans, so gradually get out of sync with what the people in homes actually like.

This could be my business idea. A care home for old clubbers! I want it to be full of old ravers like me, with a soundtrack of House/Rave and Trance classics. Sunday sessions of chilled Ibiza sunset sounds.

I will call it ‘Old’s Cool’ 😎

My mother was in a care home until she died last year, she was born in 1935 too.

They played some 1940s music but also loads of more recent stuff - Lionel Ritchie, Abba, Tina Turner, Queen, Status Quo etc. My mother loved it all and would sing along.

The residents definitely did respond well to the 1940s songs, they probably trigger childhood memories.

So IMO, my mother's care home got it right.

I know even to just about been able to have fought in the dying days of the second world someone would have to be nearly 100!

I suppose it’s a generational thing.

if care homes are run by Gen X, those in their 50’s now, their experience of their own grandparents is that of people brought up in the war years.

my grandma was born in 1901 so that war time sing along was very much her genre.

many people must see “old” as “wartime generation”. Without thinking were another 30 years past that now and the current elderly generation were the 50’s and 60’s adults.

tbf it’s slightly scary, the 60’s wasn’t that long ago!

Have you mentioned this to the management OP? You're clearly not wrong. My GPs were the war generation and they've been dead for 20 years.

The flip side of this is that Nirvana and Limp Bizkit are now on the classic rock stations!

The war ended 80 years ago, so residents if any were very small kids then, it is an odd thing, same with bingo afternoons, why assume as you age you’ll like 1940s music and play bloody bingo!

Lol same .😂

I want to be in that care home too!

Because many homes are staffed by young people who aren’t actually very bright and think all old people were fighting Hitler.

I remember the same attitude when I was in school. We did an entertainment for the people from the care homes in the town. This was in the late 70s, so all our songs were First World War themed rather than Second, but even so I couldn’t understand why the people planning it were so fixed on one period, as though our audience hadn’t experienced life beyond a war that had ended 60 years earlier.

I agree they need to move on from war time songs my 84 year old Dad was 3 when the war ended he wss a young man in the 60,s and 70,s .

This-and you don't even necessarily like "your time". Lots of tweens and teens are into Oasis/Y2K stuff. Since it became easier to be into the Beatles/Bros etc even if you were a 90s kid, liking stuff "outside your time" has become even more common, so the emphasis should be on individual choice. A lot of my friends and family wouldn't even have lived in Britain in their youth, so there should be choices/variety.
That said, there was a lost of positivity in the 40s/50s, so I'm told- and many care home residents, even if they were only 10 then, do like it-I say this after being told by people in their 60s/70s/80s who enjoy forties weekend events.

YANBU! I worked in a few as an outside contractor and the amount of boredom coming off people in waves was palpable.
Im lucky that none of my own family are stuck in one, but the most excitement I ever saw was when the scouts visited and everyone got to talk to some very young people and “live again”.
Most people need stimulation and things to do, not just sitting in a circle waiting for things to happen to them.

Yeah, my clients are significantly older than you but still, it must drive them mad! I wonder if it's like how we all sing along to the "classics" that will be played on the dancefloor at any generic night out? Oh god. Are we going to be in nursing homes listening to come on Eileen and Macarena?? Eek! I don't know if I'd prefer the white cliffs of Dover or not!

Yes exactly 1970 was 56 years ago!! There are people in care homes currently who watched Star wars as teenagers!!!

My mum in her mid 70s grew up in the swinging 60s! Free love, Elvis, Beatles.