Why do (some) elderly complain so much?

You don't sound suited for your job at all. That is a pretty shocking thing to have done.

You need a new job. I hope by you get the luxury of becoming old, not everyone does.

I can imagine that being very, very annoying.

What makes you think they didnt have to struggle? Not all husbands of stay at home mums had glittering 9 to 5 careers bringing home big salaries.
My parents scrimped and saved to buy a hiuse in the late 1950s, on one wage. My dad was a manual worker and had 2 jobs. My mum did cleaning jobs in the evenings. Child benefit not paid for the first child. No UC top ups for low earners. We didnt have a TV until I was 5. Didn't have a car. Ice on the inside of the windows. We didnt even have central heating until my brother and I were working.

Women had to resign from jobs on becoming pregnant. No such thing as maternity leave. Marital r*pe wasnt deemed a crime.
So if anyone thinks people had it so great back then, give your heads a wobble

Pain, frailty, bereavement, loneliness, acute awareness and dread of their own mortality, seeing what's happening to their friends their age, regrets, missed opportunity too late now ...

Things weren't easier for them. The reason so many were sahm is because they had no choice I remember my Mum going to uni in the 70s, my dad hated it and made her life very difficult. Plus once you were married, you had made your bed, so lie in it! No control of finances either.
I think some elderly people are tired, frightened and lonely for lost friends and families. I know many who are not like that at all.

Oh dear. You need a good dose of empathy and/or a career change.
When you are elderly you might be able to answer your own question very well.

The thing is you cant pay for everything you ever needed. If what you need is pain free limbs or no fatigue. Paying for things like cleaners feels great on one hand but it is also a reminder of what you cant do and its not done the way you like.

I also take issue with the idea that just because they never worked they never struggled. Theres a whole heap of struggles beyond work.

We 'all know' some of these wealthy older people are only wealthy due to changes in house prices and final salary pensions, which doesnt mean they were all living a life of luxury aged 29.

They may have not needed to work or had to struggle, but elderly women didn't have the freedom younger women have today. They likely got married and had children young, most never went to university or travelled the world or built a career like women do today. Maybe they feel frustrated because of that! They may have been reliant on a husband who wasn't very nice. Their lives weren't necessarily better than yours

Old age can indeed be wretched for all the reasons cited above.
Can people not be more understanding?
This is the fate of most people ... of everyone in the developed world.

It is the luck of the draw. There are a few David Attenboroughs bouncing around but most people have a painful decline ahead of them.

I have been hit relatively young by unexpected serious heart problems, painful spinal surgery, loss of leg sensation plus gastrointestinal crap from old cholecystectomy. It takes grit to carry on after nursing a sick late OH and watching him die. I do carry on ... in fact I run a choir and an arts festival, organise concert trips, do the bookings for village hall and design local publicity ... but no-one, not even my dearly loved DDs have the remotest concept of the effort that this all takes. I am not well enough to have a holiday or even sometimes a day out. I battle my way through every day through gritted teeth and with the prime aim of not burdening my family ... hark at me moaning away!

Come on everyone ... muster a bit of empathy!

This was yet another suspect goady thread where the OP states controversial opinion then doesn't return to join the conversation.

saraclara ... you are right.
Losing one's OH, watching friends die, dealing with health burdens and constant pain, battling to hang on to as much normality as possible, pretending to family so they are not burdened with the full extent of the misery, setting affairs in order to ease things for family when you reach the point of needing care or die, losing the ability to make a useful contribution to community as before ..... it is all shit.
Don't expect any old person to remain a picture of jollity in the face of all this! No-one, whatever their age, would be able to do this.

What utter rubbish…

I’m not sure why someone so ageist with a chip on your shoulder as yourself is in the job that you have. Maybe try working in a Nursery with toddlers, in a deprived area where there are only poor people?

It's awful to read day after day on here. Old people are regarded as a nuisance, hoarding their cash (that they have accumulated all their lives), willfully blocking houses so that younger people can't buy them, and are generally treated as if their years of expetience and life count for nothing. They are irrelevent.
And ss you say. The bizarre thing is getting old is not optional - it will happen to most of the posters on here who are so vocal about their many faults. I know most MNetters are convinced they will be a different type of pensioner, they won't be.

My partner’s great auntie’s coffin was put in the grave at a very slight angle. I could hear her saying “they didn’t even put me in straight”.

That. A year ago I wouldn't have understood it. But now I do. My body is letting me down. I'm increasingly lonely.
I do all I can not to let my life shrink any more than is inevitable at my age, but I'm very scared about my future.

I try not to talk about my health, but the alternative - keeping my worries to myself, is also damaging. I don't want to be needy, so I try not to let my kids know how sad I am when they flake on planned visits. I'm busy trying not to become a burden, and I'm ensuring that when I'm gone I leave everything in order. But of course doing that is depressing.

My children know none of this. But probably one day I'll no longer be able to keep all this stuff to myself, and become another of 'those' old people.

Getting old isn't for the faint hearted, as the saying goes.

I’ll stop it. Every generation has moaned about older people because older people are sometimes quite insufferable

is there nothing to do with today’s Young being worse than yesterday’s Young who were you and me.

I used to pass comment as to why so many people 70 plus seemed such grumpy gits and why so many couples of that age looked bored stiff , annoyed or miserable - now at 64 after a couple of health scares , still working full time and 30 years married I do have a little more empathy whilst really trying to not moan much and constantly adjusting my resting bitch face !!

I’m in my 50s BTW!
But still far too busy to hyper-focus like my DPs do, and my DGPs did.

It is worth remembering that for many elderly people their lives begin to shrink through infirmity and many of the things that gave their lives meaning have flown.

In a smaller life small things take on a greater importance and people grumble about small things because facing up to the big losses is too painful.

Have you not been on MN long? There are numerous threads on here every day with young people complaining about the most trivial things.

I actually agree with pps. Life often becomes smaller as you age, their friends and family will be dying off, they probably have health issues even if just aches and pains, and life is moving very fast and often they will feel left behind. I also question if you are in the right job if you can't find any empathy.

Plenty of younger people also complain constantly about trivialities. And plenty of older people don't.

Absolutely fear for their future and sadness for what they have lost

Given how much everything hurts at 43 compared to my 20s, I can only imagine how much low level pain people in their 80s must be dealing with pretty much constantly. I'd be a grumpy twat too.