Becoming judgemental as I age

Sadly there is no increase in testosterone in menopause. Quite the opposite in fact!

Im the opposite. I am more interested in other people. Enjoy meeting new people and trying new things. I’ve loved my fifties. It’s been a real period of growth for me. Maybe the noise of my hormones switching off has allowed me to be calmer and more centred and think about other things.

I'm in my 60s and fighting a rearguard action against my own brain.

My mind is starting to find the world a scary place; mostly because new technologies and systems are constantly being brought into use, new laws, new regulations - all things I am expected to comply with without having the mental processing speed to be able to absorb, rationalise and practice.

Which means that I want to stick with the things I understand and am comfortable with, added to the fact that other people tend to get impatient with older people taking longer to absorb new ways of doing stuff. But if you've spent the last fifteen years doing something one way and someone suddenly comes in and says 'no, no, we don't do that now, we do....' and rattles off a list of instructions you can't hope to keep up with, it can be scary.

So I am trying to stay current but I fear I am failing.

Isn't it down to the loss of female hormones and the increase in testosterone? This gives rise to not actually caring. I care far less now about other people in so far as I have less interest in them. I’m not interested in someone’s children or pets. I only like exceptionally well behaved dogs which are few and far between. I’m not remotely interested in babies or how many grandchildren someone has. Your child has had sex, well done, who cares?
I care about the people I love and like. That includes family and friends.
I am more right wing now.
I feel lots of people are responsible for their own downfall.
Stop expecting others to fund your bad choices.
I like privacy , but then again I always have.
I hate having anyone in my personal space.
Ring doorbells were a great invention, no I’m not opening the door to randomers. No, I’m not answering the roof to trick or treaters.
I’ve done all that.
Maybe it’s just different life stages.

Haha yeah I would be all snotty and snooty (inwardly anyway) about things but life isn’t that simple, is it? And I also understand how often one bad choice or decision can lead to another and another and then it’s all a bit of a tangled web that it’s impossible to get out of. And while I think it’s becoming overused to the point of being meaningless I also understand ADHD and autism can cause a lot of issues as well.

I think the problem is that the definition of left has changed from championing working class people and genuine social problems towards obsession with whatever is the latest pet cause of the London middle class chattering classes and the Guardian has done exactly the same.

I am still left wing but traditional left, not the sort who find ordinary British people too boring to represent anymore.

I'm not at all cynical. I truly believe most (but not all) people are good kind people. I meet people from all walks of life, in their most vulnerable moments, with all sorts of political viewpoints and world views.

I do think there is an element of having life experience when you get older. It then becomes frustrating to see people make the same poor decisions or life choices. It can feel like society is going backwards or people aren't learning. Of course, young people don't have that life experience yet.

I think I can be judgy about people making ridiculous lifestyle choices, or decisions where they make their situation worse. Why do people still smoke in 2026? I don't judge people who are overweight or obese if they eat a relatively healthy diet, exercise well, or have a disability, medication issues etc. I know through personal experience that you can make the right choices, but your genes/make up/health problems/disability will mean you put on weight and can't help it.

I do judge people who are really really obese and choose to eat processed junk food, massive portions, take aways etc, all while not doing any exercise, smoking and drinking too much.

I am also intolerant of people with personality issues who seem to thrive on and/or create drama. I just don't have people like that in my life. They are toxic and unhealthy.

Same with me. In my youth I was a right little know it all & thought I knew best about everything. I now know we are all muddling through life equally clueless and I am far more likely to grant grace than to judge.

I definitely think its a stress response, being s sen mum is unrelenting intensity that no-one can really appreciate unless in your shoes

perimenopause with your own ND is a massive head fuck of emotion

be kind to yourself

I am much less judgemental as I age. I really couldnt care less about irrelevant things others do.

YANBU

As you get older, you have seen patterns of behaviour over and over again and it is not unreasonable to judge situations, because experience tells you the likelhood of what is really true.

The trick is to keep in mind there is always the chance of an exception to the rule.

I think the person you're replying to means that people tend to become more right-wing as they get older, which has been the case for as long as I can remember.

As for becoming more right wing , I’m going the other way, approaching my 60th

I'm 60 and have always been left of centre. However, aspects of the Left repel me. Such as insisting a man can become a woman and barge over our sex based rights. I also think illegal migration should be dealt with strictly and the rise of Islam curbed.

I don't think that makes me judgemental, just pragmatic. I don't want women's safety to be compromised and I want to live in a liberal democracy.

I'm less tolerant of, well, everything. I've stopped fighting it as I really can't be bothered anymore and my filter vanished with menopause. Fortunately my ability to care about that has also vanished.

However, if people do stupid shit, are incompetent, inconsiderate or ill-mannered, why should they not be pulled up on it? I would expect the same. No one is perfect, including me.

This is my experience too. I’m in my 50s, and have, if anything, become far more understanding of other people’s frailties and compromises. Life is tough. Sometimes we don’t appear to best effect.

I find I'm more chilled out and anything goes.

But I also have a little voice inside (that never gets spoken out loud) that says stuff like "look at the state of her" or "he's really fat and hairy" or whatever. That voice is getting more frequent.

My concern with this is that my internal filter is still on. I have these thoughts but don't voice them. But I've known people with dementia who lost that filter. Will I? Will I become that awful old lady who everyone hates because she's so judgemental?!

I was brought up by very judgemental parents (products of their 1950s upbringing with their Victorian grandparents living close by.)

Lately I have been thinking that is not such a bad thing.

Having a strict moral compass, automatically knowing right from wrong (and that more than 2 biscuits is greedy!) gives you a lot of security.

If society judged more harshly we’d see less of the frankly terrible behaviour that we are seeing from a lot of men currently - I’m thinking of men who father children and then aren’t around for them.

If you still had to get married before having children, maybe that would concentrate their minds.

You’re completely normal, OP. The scales are falling from your eyes.

I was a typical Guardian reading pinko liberal leftie for decades. Now, older wiser & more cynical, I realise my previous views were naive idealism at best and dogmatic ideological delusion at worst. I call this process being ‘mugged by reality’. I’m now old, jaded & cynical. This suits my basic personality much better.

I was going to say exactly the same. Couldn't care less and still believe people are, on the whole, overwhelmingly good. Yes, some of them may have views that are alien to me and make decisions I would not make but so what. I accept that there may be a good reason behind their views and decisions. And, either way, it is none of my business.
Life is definitely much easier when you don't sweat the small stuff.

I’m much more entrenched in my increasingly left wing views. I want the super rich (Musk, Bezos etc) to be properly taxed.

And I give no shits what others think (peri)

Yes, I get worse as I get older. I think it's because the world is changing and I'm now behind the times.

Honestly my experience has been the total opposite, but I was quite a judgey little cow in my twenties!

I am mid forties and far more understanding of people’s follies and foolishness.

Everyone is inherently flawed... that aside, why would there be a swing to the right now specifically, if it's connected to women reaching their mid-late forties? That's not logical. Unless you mean there are more women reaching that age now than in previous years. I think the boomers were a bigger generation - there isn't an upswing of women our age right now.

There is a general upswing of people becoming more right wing because of populism, a seismic generational decline in living standards, widespread online misinformation, a move from professional journalism to free-for-all rage bait bullshit, and very, very powerful people stoking the flames of facism and fear. Oh, and look out for the subcontracting out of brain taxing tasks, which will only make us dumber and more susceptible to this poison. People are people. We're a dreadful species. Awful, and wonderful, and just incredibly good, often completely altruistically. At this age, THAT is my understanding of humans. I expect them to astound me, for good and bad, and they still do.

I wouldn’t say judgemental exactly, but I’ve noticed that I really don’t care about other people’s lives. Renovations, kid’s, what non-sense partner’s or relatives have done, arguments with friends, holiday….
I just don’t want to hear anything anymore.

I don’t mean in a way that I hope anyone to be unhappy or anything like that, everything is just so repetitive and there’s no point of giving advice cause usually they do the opposite anyway…..

I do my best while listening but stay silent and hope they’ll stop soon.

Can I just say that I have become the opposite. I have fewer shits to give about what anyone else does or says. I’m very happy just floating along on my little bubble of Pollyanna optimism. I certainly avoid people or situations that I know will wind me up. Because I don’t care enough to bother with them.

As for becoming more right wing @Itchthescratch, I’m going the other way, approaching my 60th.