My parents have become insufferable.

Do you watch GB new too?

"Prople love to believe they are too clever to be manipulated but we aren’t. None of us are. GB Pablum is an unadulterated stream of shite beamed straight in to our brains. Don’t accept it."

Let me guess, do you perhaps read The Guardian?

I would generally describe the Guardian in the same vein that you refer to "GB Pablum [sic]"

I would also suggest that you perhaps cut yourself off from the Guardian for six months and see how you feel after that.

My mum is the same. I tell her I'm not discussing politics. If she ignores me I literally don't continue the conversation. Just repeat.
Her health is different.

Did I write this?

My dad got like this and this was before all the people on boats or GB news - it was around Brexit time. What got me though is that we lived overseas, various types of country, different religions, ways of life who treated his family with so much kindness while we were there. Dad's dead now but I could imagine him chuntering loads now.

Some people as they get older have less of an off switch? Not sure. A lot of time they do have less of a wide circle of friends to bounce off, hear different views. But, if your parents are regular users of the NHS, I would have to agree with them, it's pretty bad now.

Sounds like mine hahahaha. Especially with GB News (as Sky News is too trivial and tabloid, while BBC is biased).

Yes. It's like the daily mail/ gb news brainwashes them. It's so sad

I find it bizarre when people apparently 'suddenly' become like this in their 60s. It hasn't happened to anyone I know.

My parents are well into their 80s. Mum was 21 in 1960 and so they lived through the 'swinging' 60s with peace, love and flower power. They had friends and colleagues from all races and religions.

I'm in my 60s and grew up in the 1980s under Thatcher where we (myself and my friends/cohort) were extremely politicised - we marched for miners, watched Boys from the Blackstuff, The Young Ones, Ben Elton, Jo Brand - a lot of very left wing, anti establishment comedy and drama.

Suddenly, according to some posters, my Generation X lot have become racist, right wing bigots who vote Reform and hate 'foreigners'.

It's not my experience at all - and I'd venture to suggest that people who are racists always were. You don't change to that extent as you age.

I agree with those posters who suggest they've actually become more tolerant as they have aged.

Mid-sixties!! Good grief, I'm 73 and would find them insufferable old bores. Just pray these various ailments carry them off early so you don't have another 25 years plus of this!

Yes with my dad and step mum. My mum is still wonderful thank god! Your description though is everything I feel towards my dad and step mum though, particularly the NHS. My dad would have died 20 years ago after a sudden serious illness, but he’s here because of the nhs.

i find it hard to be around them, there are flickers of the dad I knew and adored as a child, but for the most part he is hard work. My stepmum I’ve always thought was nice but dim unfortunately, she’s got no clue about the world and gets the wrong end of the stick all the time. We limit contact.

My parents are 75 and 80 and they are nothing like that at all.

I don't think it's so much age but I think it can be a result of social isolation. With my own DP I noticed that this really ramped up when they retired and the number of people that they spoke to in person dramatically reduced.

All you can do is try to distract them and talk about other stuff.

God forbid anyone having different views from you.

My dad is becoming like this! Early 70s - it’s getting painful. He’s gonna get himself punched or worse.

Did a big whole extended family holiday this year. At the resort, he kept making comments at full volume:
”Can’t believe the place is full of bloody northerners, since when did they have money?” (We are from South East)
”All these f-ing people with money and no clue how to act” (said with no reason to say it)
”Amazing how much money benefits now pay isn’t it. Didn’t expect to share the hotel with parasites” (said when anyone with a tattoo / northern accent / bit of sunburn / backwards hat / child who was speaking lifer than a whisper went past.

I was ready to absolutely smack him in the on within a couple of days. He was so arrogant and rude and that was to any other British holiday maker - we weren’t in the UK - then of course the comments about anyone non British were escalated.

Also join those of you with a lot of empathy for “no one else can be ill or have problems” - mine can’t take it anymore, I don’t even mention hospital appointments (I have a couple of issues) or job woes or life woes to be frank because I literally get yelled at for causing them worry and stress…….plus the assumption that I’m always free. “We’ve got a roast for us all on Sunday” - I’m actually busy away with a friend on Sunday” Cue huffing and puffing.

My mum has radicalised the other way and keeps picking fights with nasty extreme right accounts on X and threads.

She does like to talk about herself and her own illnesses, can not get a word in. She has that in common with your parents.

Mine are much older - late 80s and almost 90. My poor mum has some dementia now, and is not really herself. My dad has gone more to the left as he's got older. He worries about the world a lot. So what you are seeing isn't inevitable.

I agree that this is right to focus on the media. I’ve seen and heard discussions about cults and MAGA and it seems that people change completely once they’re taken away from their media sources. I imagine that their world has narrowed considerably and it’s simply a question of repeating all that they see and read.

From what I’ve heard, the last thing you should do is challenge them. You have to engage with them, genuinely ask them about their thinking, ask where they got the information from, ask how they know it’s true and how they would know if it wasn’t true. If you can summon up the inner reserves to do any of that.

It was a shock to me when I realised that I had completely different views to my own parents. In some ways, I’ve never got over that.

I feel for you. But not all people in their 60's are like that. I'm 63 and a fully paid up member of the guardian reading, tofu eating, wokerati. Both DH and I volunteer in the local community and can't abide the views you describe.

Could have written this myself word for word

Exactly. Thats why it’s in AIBU and not in the elderly parent section 😉

I would laugh if this wasn't so true. My mum's favourite topic of conversation is illness/aches/pains - not jist hers either. Does my head in.

I think retirement can have a negative effect in this way if you don't make an effort to get out into the world- if you just watch TV news all day and have no counter-balancing experience then that will change your views of the world. It's not age in itself (although age-related cognitive decline of course doesn't help- not everyone has that though)- it's the result of getting all your information about the world from a single source.

With my mum, at that relatively young age, I would have the argument.

I would say to them, you taught me right from wrong, fact from fiction, not to moan and whinge (or whatever they did teach you). These days you are a right pair of Debbie Downers. I challenge you to block GB news off your TV for six months and watch some proper news - whatever you like as long as it’s not Russia Today or Fox or any of the other propaganda channels. Offer to block it for them, I found instructions on how to do it by googling. If they will accept the challenge, do it and see if things improve.

Prople love to believe they are too clever to be manipulated but we aren’t. None of us are. GB Pablum is an unadulterated stream of shite beamed straight in to our brains. Don’t accept it.

You’re not wrong.

As far as my mother is concerned, if you had a black cat, she’d have a blacker bugger. Everything is a competition.

They need to get busy

Mid 60s is quite young, but if they are behaving like old people, maybe they are living old people's life. They need to be active, to travel, even volunteer if they want.

Retiring is fantastic, but only if you do something with yourself.

Busy and active people are happy and don't have time or care to be bitchy about others.