My parents have become insufferable.

Ah the tolerant #bekind left. How come you are always the one's that start with the jibes. You are high and mighty and sooo right, everyone else is wrong and it is your way or the highway. Time for some of you left wingness to shine through but i doubt you even know what tolerance means.

I just read what you wrote about your mother said with an open mouth. Tells me all I need to know about your responses.

PS I will never have tolerance for racism. Never.

Hiyer fellaz! 👋🏼 It's catnip for you lot. 😂 Bisous!

I really don’t care about what you think so it’s a wa

I've just noticed your username. Dad was a big Sky Blues fan!

I think your parents are my in-laws!

I turned 18, did my nurse training in an inner city London hospital , got engaged and married in the 80s and it was a wonderful decade. I wish my daughters could experience what I did.
The wonderful freedom, no social media, the fabulous feeling of being young and invincible.
No work filled with endless policies and bureaucracy - we had so much fun together.
we took risks, we didn’t care about having hardly any money. If you didn’t experience it, you have no clue.

My phone froze as I was trying to respond to you. I don’t actually care what you think. Not sure what your response is adding to the thread either.

Loved the mid seventies and onward right through to the 00s.

😆 🤣 knew it before I even opened the thread.

Having read all of this thread, I think, I am absolutely amazed at so many posts complaining that parents, in many cases my age or even younger, have no occupation, rarely leave the house, and talk about little other than complaining about immigration.

I genuinely think that if people of 60-75 are doing this, there is something wrong.
I don’t think any of the moaners have mentioned health issues explaining this strange behaviour.

Do wonder whether posters are exaggerating the problem? If not, I think it’s very much on them to do more to change things. Don’t just stop visiting!

It Is quite funny to see so many DC complaining that their DPs complain! Is it a case of like parent, like child? 🤣

clearly a common thing from the number of votes / posts with similar issues.

"If not, I think it’s very much on them to do more to change things."

what are your suggestions on how these posters should change their parents behaviour?

I think it’s pretty obvious.
They could try engaging with what their parents are saying, ask them why they feel like that etcetera ; they could open up new topics of conversation. If this really is happening, then they should take an active interest in parents’ health- hearing, chronic illness like arthritis, possible anxiety condition, depression.
They could encourage them to find realistic outside interests, or go on outings with them.
get them a subscription to a paper magazine they would enjoy,
Ask if any medication they are taking is right for them,
That sort of thing.
Haven’t noticed the moaners mentioning the efforts they’ve gone to , to try and improve parents’ situation.,,,

I think you underestimate how much people DO try in these situations.

I think you underestimate how some (caveat - NOT ALL!) older people are incredibly stubborn and stuck in their ways!

They could try engaging with what their parents are saying, ask them why they feel like that etcetera (have done, cue racist rant for hours)

they could open up new topics of conversation. ("oh that's nice" then quickly ignored and diverted back again to pet topics or moaning)

take an active interest in parents’ health- hearing, chronic illness like arthritis, possible anxiety condition, depression. (my family's health must be 70% of our conversations!)

They could encourage them to find realistic outside interests, or go on outings with them. (my own parents never go anywhere and are happy not to. It leads to more issues than it solves, believe me! you get to a point where you can't face it any more).

get them a subscription to a paper magazine they would enjoy, (dad refuses to read any more, money would be wasted, mum would sneer I expect)

Ask if any medication they are taking is right for them, (I've discussed this 1m times with my mum, even ordered so many vitamins and supplements that got wasted and thrown in the bin as they never used them).

I think you just get to a point where you accept that you can't change people once they've reached a certain threshold, or it's incredibly difficult and given we all have our own responsibilities and families, it's easier to just accept it and pull back for our own sanity.

Their happiness is not my responsibility. Even though I try to do nice things sometimes (and of course I do!).

My own parents are the kind of people who I could try to help all day but the more you try to help or give suggestions the more they are likely to refuse....

so you give up at some point, and do the minimum to keep the peace but in reality it's healthier to step back and give yourself a little peace and keep some healthy boundaries in place.

I must admit, I'm baffled.
Of course, it's one thing when people really are old, sick, confined to the house, can't see/hear etcetera. Then, obviously there are going to be genuine difficulties, when I should have thought one needs to persist in trying to do one's best to help, without expecting too much in the way of rewards..
The scenarios discussed by complainers don't seem to be situations like that. They seem to be situations where the elderly (but not old) parents decide wilfully to limit their interests to their health and the four walls of their home.
I don't know anyone like that and don't understand why anyone would do that. I did notice, however, that one poster was outraged that her Mum had said she had a lovely day reading the newspaper, pottering around, making lunch and having an afternoon nap. That's why I wonder whether some of this is on the overly critical but emotionally idsengaged adult child.

I think your point about judging others' lifestyles (for pottering about etc) is fair to a degree. That said lifestyles really do affect behaviours and beliefs to a greater or lesser extent. So it was also fair that poster said she recognised how miserable her parents were and really didn't want to end up that way herself.

I'm glad you have upbeat and happy friends of your age. But just because you don't recognise this with yourself or among those you know does not mean it's not the case for other people - as so many others on this thread have testified that their parents are this way...

Also you can't blame the viewpoints of the parents on the children. Nor their level of happiness or lack thereof. Everyone is ultimately responsible for their own happiness and attitude. But it doesn't mean these people haven't tried to help. The definition of insanity? Do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. You reach a point where you have no more energy to keep trying to change people who don't want to change.

And with regards to "disengaging", who honestly wants to sit and listen to misery on repeat every time you see someone? Or hear the same story on repeat 50 times, like a robot? The adult child's mental health is just as important as is the parents.

I don't think anyone on here has said they went No Contact, all of them are lamenting and finding ways around it from what I have read upthread. Whether that's limiting contact, deleting things off their dad's Instagram, trying to take them out or get them to volunteer. But I think by a certain age most people have an idea who they are and what they want to do or not do, and trying to get them engaged in something else is very difficult, unless they decided themselves to do it. It's a fact that the ageing brain's neural pathways are more ingrained.

This person even came on here for ideas about how to cope with it...

It might help you to also understand how hard it is for a child who grew up with kind, thoughtful and happy parents to see them change into a miserable husk, who refuse to do anything about it or even recognise it. That's a big part of the real tragedy here.

It's a grieving process, the people you knew and loved replaced by someone you no longer really recognise, their happiness gone, replaced with ranting about GB News and hatred towards people of a different skin colour, it's sad and upsetting and incredibly disorienting.

So as retired persons they are a captive audience of GB news. Maybe it is radicalising them? There has been research on how susceptible people are to content. If they are not used to questioning things and thinking for themselves then they may well being unduly influenced by the content - which is why GB news do what they do ! I heard somewhere that the best approach is to not criticise directly them or how they are behaving / saying, but to say that the views they are repeating sound very (insert description). So to hopefully avoid the defensive response.

Another angle could be to point out the right wing billionnaires funding GB news for the purposes of 'influencing' peoples political persuasion and voting. Surely anything run by the super-rich deserves caution?
Sir Paul Marshall: A prominent British hedge fund billionaire, Brexit backer, and right-wing media mogul who also owns The Spectator and UnHerd.
The Legatum Group: A private investment firm based in Dubai (founded by New Zealand-born billionaire Christopher Chandle
If they like accessing the NHS, reform would be getting rid of it for an insurance system like the US and GB news is highly aligned with reform. Maybe thats an angle if you wanted to challenge them gently.

You see so many people on here who don't like people, who claim that they don't need friends, they prefer to be alone, only need their "little family" or want to spend time with their partner.

I think that this was how it started for my parents and a combination of COVID and retirement accelerated it. They were never this bad when they at least had colleagues. I even remember them being critical of my grandparents when they said racist things.

I'll never be convinced that social isolation is a healthy lifestyle choice even if people claim to be happy alone. It leaves you really vulnerable.

So as retired persons they are a captive audience of GB news

Could you unpack the reasoning there for us?

Because as a retired person, I don’t know WTAF you’re talking about.

I can unpick it. As a person who works with older people in their homes.

For most retired people, income falls on retirement. So you’re going to be watching free TV if you’ve got any sense.

Im sure you as a person are physically active, socially engaged etc. But lots and lots of retired people aren’t, or their version of social engagement is less than when they were working. There is a lot of time in the day in which they watch a LOT of TV.

GB News is right there, bundled into the free TV channels. It’s actually easier to find than the BBC News on most channel finders. I doubt that’s accidental, given how red hot focused the media and tech billionaires are on breaking up the BBC and cutting it off at the knees.

I think anyone who believes that they are not influenced by what media channels they have in their homes, even if in the background, is very naive about humans.

Interesting thread. I’ve skimmed through it. I’m in my 70s, I am gobsmacked that people my age and younger watch the tv all day!
I honestly don’t think gb news per se is the problem, it’s screen time, turning their brains (and bodies) to mush, dulling their faculties. I wonder what opinion these people have on screen time for children?

It could be the equivalent of the bored teenager during the summer holidays being groomed or radicalised because they spend too long online. We hear so much about the damage to young people's MH but I think the 24/7 news culture is possibly just as harming for retired people. The other thing is that people often say the mask slips a bit when people get older, or they stop using a filter. They are expressing their true feelings now not just the socially acceptable version. To me they seem far too young for this, I would think this phenomenon is more elderly people in mid 70s and 80s.

I don't think arguing or debating achieves anything but you could make it clear that you don't want to hear their opinion on certain things, an agree to disagree arrangement so to speak. At least visits and phone calls will be less stressful for you.

My parents are the same and getting worse. It's GB news and Daily Mail and their Facebook algorithm fans the flames as they keep getting fed AI videos and fake posts.
Agree with PP saying they need to keep busy. I can see how small their world has become.