My parents have become insufferable.

@ClairDeLaLuneyou and your husband are still quite young. It is definitely more likely that older people will succumb to this crap.

Stop derailing the thread with more cries of ageism - i and others have already addressed this if you RTFT.

Agreed. The PP was demonstrating clear racism lumping everyone together as if they are the same.

My mum is early 70s and AWFUL for commenting on other people's bodies.
She'll literally watch a stranger walk past and then turn and stage whisper to me, "Goodness! She's FAR too blubbery to be wearing THOSE trousers!"
Like, why do you even care?!

Och you were doing well until you threw out unfounded and incorrect accusations of 'facists' (guess you don't understand it's meaning) and 'gullible / bit thick, or both'

There's absolutely no empathy towards the housing difficulties of permanent residents. I'm on Merseyside, I never thought we'd see the housing issues we have. It won't be believed but around three council houses come up in our area a year, because immigrants are homeless, they got them. There's two immigrant families in new build, they aren't working in local hospitals etc (which used to give you preference). If you come under the asylum/immigration act you get priority for dentists. There's lots you can tap into. They are seen as particularly vulnerable. I'm from immigrant background and it can be difficult without family, but these days, lots of people don't have family. People who have bad teeth are sneered at on here, but what are people on low wages supposed to do? The catering staff, porters, cleaners in our hospitals? Even the admin etc don't earn much more. The posts praising Axel Rudakubana parent's, but condemning the WC mother of a lad who stupidly joined a march were off the scale. Now we know his parents aided and abetted him. But it's that automatic non UK = parent's trying hard. WC low income family (of any colour)= failure, judgement that people are hitting back at.

We are early 70s and nit like that at all. My younger brother though, watches
GB news, reads the S*n, and has very string opinionated views. He doesn't listen to anyone else's views, and rants on. The rest if us, 3 other siblings, are not like this at all. He is the only one who stayed in our small hometown, and I just think he is very unhappy and bored with where he lives. He is a lovely bloke, took his grandson in when his own daughter's husband kicked him out, takes care of the GS medical needs, taking him 30 miles to hospital apps, and driving him all over the place. He just has this GB news mentality. Its odd.

He probably thinks you have a Guardian mentality.

But this is far from the NHS at a whole. You don’t need to worry too much.

Agree. Life becomes a lot easier when you don’t try and “win” every argument. No one opinion on stuff ever changed by having a row. Just move the conversation on or don’t be in their presence for them to have the conversation.

mine have always been racist so no change!

people should have empathy for racism and bigotry? ok.

people should have empathy for racism and bigotry? ok.

I agree it always seems to be people unhappy with their own lives taking these attitudes on. Much easier to project the hate outwards to minorities, immigrants, left wingers and so on than take a long hard look at themselves.

"The Older Generation (TM)" have been getting accused of becoming small-minded and bigoted since time immemorial. Which has made me ponder on it a bit, so please, bear with me as I explain my thought process!

So, broad brushstrokes and sweeping generalisations incoming ...

Let's compare two people aged 60 and 30, just because it makes the numbers easier. There have been massive changes in the last 10 years. For the 60 year old, 10 years are only a sixth of their lifespan, and they have 50 years of memories pre-change. They therefore still regard the last 10 years as 'not the norm'. For the 30 year old, it's a third of their life and they have only 20 years of memories pre-change, so the last 10 years are very much their norm.

Memories can become rose-tinted, so the pre-change time becomes 'better times'. For the 30 year old, those 20 years of rose-tinted memories is childhood, teenagehood, uni / first job, social life. Basically the time when you're quite focussed on yourself rather than paying massive attention to how the world outside your immediate circle works. This makes the post-change even more of their norm. For the 60 year old, those 50 years of memories are going to encompass the more recent memories of work and raising a family and building a home, dealing with schools, watching their offspring enter adulthood, worrying that it's harder to get a job than in 'their day', housing so much more expensive than in 'their day'. Which reinforces the rose-tint somewhat!

Then add in that most people really don't like change, never mind massive and rapid change. The 30 year old is genuinely less aware of just how massive and rapid that change has been, because it has effectively been their whole adult life. The 60 year old is acutely aware of how massive and rapid the change has been simply due to having been an adult in the pre-change times. They have something to compare this post-change world with, and the downsides will be very apparent whilst the upsides will have slipped past silently.

So, although the 60 year old and the 30 year old are looking at the same world, they will inevitably have different experiences of that world and that will colour their opinions of where the world is now going. The 60 year old feels the need to 'warn' the 30 year old because in their opinion the 30 year old is sleepwalking into ever-accelerating uncontrolled change that will give them an even worse life than what they had and what the 30 year old has now. And this is what the 30 year old sees as bigotry on the part of the 60 year old.

Please pick my thought process apart. I said up-front "broad brushstrokes and sweeping generalisations incoming" so pointing that out isn't enough!

@WhereYouLeftIt
Nicely said!
As an oldie, I'm concerned for my children & grandchildren - what kind of world are we leaving for them?
Thank you for your thoughtful post.

My parents used to buy The daily Mail for the crossword and I think it just slowly worked some kind of evilness on them that changed their views for the worse. Didn't help but the closest people to them were the same. It was weird though because they've used them didn't make any sense so they lived somewhere very multicultural were had a lot of friends of all ethnicities and backgrounds and yet would spout Daily Mail claptrap. It didn't put me off visiting them it was extremely frustrating.

It’s only ageist if you generalise from it, so the OP isn’t really ageist but, if people start saying most older people are the same, it becomes ageist. Perhaps people are jumping in too readily in saying this is ageist but MN in general is rife with ageism.

@Anonymouseposterpeople are jumping onto all sort of threads hijacking them accusing ageism when the OP’s post was actually about a completely different issue. The Irish name one recently was a great example.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5577738-wow-the-casual-racism-of-some-people-is-shocking-isnt-it?page=9&reply=154759479

Older posters clearly don’t like the fact they belong to a population of people (if grouped by age) which is significantly more likely to display either the behaviours discussed on that thread, or those on this one. But that doesn’t make it untrue - or mean we can’t discuss the issues, some of them quite serious and which affect our lives.

It’s really tedious having threads distractingly derailed like this.

Should people have empathy for ageism, oikophobia and bigotry? ok.

That's exactly right. In less ageist and bigoted societies the elders were held as the holders of wisdom, by dint of their longer life experience. In the west, it's the opposite. Young people think they know everything, and despise the views of anyone who doesn't agree with them.

And it was ever thus. It's not just the young people of today, you can look at Victorian novels and find this idea of old=bigoted young=disgusted. This really is nothing new. What the old are supposed to be bigoted about, the precise subkect may change through the years, but the main concept, that the old are bigoted in the eyes of the next generation, is eternal.

I'd think exactly the same about any racist bigot or GB News loon whether or not they are 13, 20, 60 or more FFS. This is not an ageism thing. But you seem to want to make it one.... I am guessing I touched a nerve

I can’t imagine being so sanctimonious, rude, and condescending as to say this to any adult.

You're the one displaying ageism here.

"Young people think they know everything... despise the views of anyone..."

This is about racism. Not about old people but the prejudiced views loved ones hold. The irony...

I followed that link and had a quick look. The first sentence of the OP says that “ an older woman” made the comment.
Actually the descriptor was unnecessary and probably there because there is a bias towards thinking an older person might be more likely to say something prejudiced. It’s very subtle but if you read through an AIBU thread started by forty year old and one started by a 65 year old you will see a difference in the responses and assumptions.
If she had said “ a fat woman “ “ an Asian woman “ or “ a disabled woman “ everyone would have quickly pulled her up on the irrelevance.

Calling this thread "ageist" is whataboutery and a distraction technique.

Pure and simple.