Five normal things in your home that your mother wouldn't have had a clue what to do with

[sadpapercourtesan]

Excluding obvious tech stuff like mobile phones, Alexa etc. I'll start:

Olives - we always have at least 2 kinds, my mother would have thought they were poisonous berries

Cat tree/electronic cat toys - one did not provide entertainment for cats when I was growing up! Ours have more stuff than the kids

Different oils - extra virgin olive for salads etc, sesame, sunflower. I don't remember mine actually having any, she didn't really cook with oil

Trainer socks - one of my DC will ony wear these. My mother would have been utterly confused about socks which stop at the top of the foot and leave your ankles bare. She was obsessed with pulling your socks up and not getting cold ankles

Sour cream - I seem to get through so much of this for various things. She would have wrinkled her nose and thrown it out!

What an ageist, patronising thread. I'm an old gimmer, so my mum was born in the 1920s. She cooked a damn fine curry, had travelled widely so was adventurous with food, once one of the early proponents of the natural childbirth movement (had a much-thumbed copy of Grantly Dick Read), was v interesting on the politics of breastfeeding and commercialisation of formula (her baby rearing days spanned the 50s, when BF was the norm and BF mothers were well supported in hospital, and 60s, by which time FF was heavily promoted and BF mothers were just left to it).

She also lived through the 60s sexual revolution as a woman old enough and with enough maturity and experience to see its pros and cons - contraception, bloody brilliant, free love - mainly worked in favour of men who could now shag around without consequences - and that aspect, in particular, was just window-dressing so long as women relied financially on men (she divorced her first husband at a time where women couldn't get a mortgage without a male counter-signatory).

These threads always have more than a whiff of "my mum's Hyacinth Bucket, ha ha, is yours?"

None of these, she's 80 and changes and adapts with the times like we do. She has a smartphone and tablet, her spice rack is as well stocked as ours, she buys new gadgets, is very widely travelled and reads broadsheet newspapers so keeps up to date with everything.

My mum is only in her 50s but my Nan is 89 and has the same breakfast (shredded wheat), lunch is chicken/livers/beef with potatos and veg and tea is a sandwich, orange and yoghurt. She eats the same food every day. She knows of lasagne etc but would never eat them in a million years.

My mum is in her 50s and my Nan is in her late 80s and I don't think there is anything.

My Nan uses Facebook, WhatsApp, has a computer, iPhone. The only thing perhaps is some of the kitchen ingredients because she hasn't cooked for herself for years

Spiralizer
Bread maker
Electronic scales
Actifry

Roobios tea
Gravy granules
5 different types of salt

Another one for olive oil being in the medicine cabinet!

I'm bewildered by all of this. My mum is 76 and we got a dishwasher when I was about 11 so in the early eighties.

My mum has a roomba, ipad, iPhone Amazon prime, Netflix etc. She drives a hybrid. She eats the same food as we do. Last night she was about to have noodles when we FaceTimed.

We had a microwave in the 80s, I think my mum got a dishwasher in the 90s. To suggest she wouldn't know what to do with one, if she visited a friend is weird. She knows they wash dishes.

I just have visions of these women like Tubbs in Royston Vasey staring at the hair straighteners in horror and wondering what use they could be to local people.

My completely working class 82 year old mother is familiar with all those things. She has her iwn Facebook and instagram accounts, does video calls with family, buys crap from Amazon, eats normal etc

We do have a tendency to 'other' older people sometimes.

Glad others are agreeing that this thread is ageist. I keep coming back to it to see the ridiculous items others are posting.

I was just now on FaceTime with my dad (same age as the queen) discussing whether he should get online banking. He was multitasking knocking up lunch in his soup maker.

I'd have expected him to be out in the garden, chasing planes away with a broom and muttering about robotic geese.

We had a microwave in the 1970s not middle class

@DDIJ

My mum is a really great cook so she would be familiar with different foods but cleaning products. Once I had a bottle of Method spray (I do not use this any more) and she found it in a cupboard and kept asking where I got it, over and over. She was absolutely furious and insists I have to use the same products as her.

Once she went through my bedroom and found chocolate body paint and she put it in the lounge room and interrogated me about that so I would have to say that really.

😁. Did she think you were going to paint the walls with it?

Crikey, my mother is 84 and I think the only thing she’d find difficult is my induction hob.
However, my MIL, who died last year at 89, would have found loads of things challenging. Sky TV. Electric reclining chair. Electric oven. Seat belts in cars. Cash points. Debit cards. Microwaves...

I can remember my late DM (83 at the time) saying to me in 2010,that she'd learnt how to use a cash machine! Aw bless her.

My 83 old mother is wizz on WhatsApp; emoji etc! Long story but only persuaded to use a smartphone about 5 years ago and is now an expert - changes profile pic, attaches you tube links etc.
For someone who never 'worked' in an office environment she's now a very quick typist and sends pics / links to "t'interweb"; which is great because she lives on a different continent.
Sorry to derail thread but did seem be going in that direction anyway!

@Wearywithteens

“Hate the casual ageism on here sometimes.”

Absolutely this. Ffs - wait until you’re a middle aged woman OP - this sort of patronising shit will make you murderous. Check yourself.

I'm a middle aged woman too. Why should this make me murderous?

I don't see the thread as ageist in itself. My parents are in their eighties. They are totally against computers and technology. They are convinced that people their age neither want nor need any form of technology and they do say that themselves. They are always gobsmacked when they encounter anyone their own age who uses it.

They would regard a dishwasher with great suspicion and would more than likely just never use it. There have been dishwashers in the occasional holiday rental they have been to which they ignored in favour of washing up.

All of those sorts of things are for younger people according to them and they want none of it. They actually say that. It does irritate me, but they won't change.

An eyelash curler

I'm a total makeup junkie, mum treats cosmetics very functionally, I.e. she will wear makeup but wants to put the least time and effort in possible.

Whenever I visit her, I go through her mascaras and throw most of them out (I replace with new) as they are inevitably dried up and crusty. Also sharpen all her eyeliners as they are always completely blunt to the point they're unusable. Last year I made her throw away her hideous scratchy makeup brushes from the 80s, one had lost its handle so was literally just a brush head 😂 I got her a new set for Xmas...

I thought the other night that I wonder, once the brain ages, how people would juggle the 3 hand controls I need for the tv - I hope they develop one with a simple on/ off and volume control for when dementia sets in for me. How on earth would someone with reducing mental ability remember which little button does what let alone which controller.

My DM back in the ?2000s managed fine with her tele and the video recorder. She watched but also recorded Morse, then if she fell asleep, or didn't follow the story would play the video later to catch up.
Then everything was digitalised - she was stumped then. It was a big loss in her life.

Not my actual mum but she’s the same age as my mum and a great friend. She was rating and made us lunch- she’d found almond butter and thought it was just an alternative to ‘normal’ butter- the ham sandwiches tasted weird but I didn’t have the heart to say anything!

I thought the other night that I wonder, once the brain ages, how people would juggle the 3 hand controls I need for the tv - I hope they develop one with a simple on/ off and volume control for when dementia sets in for me. How on earth would someone with reducing mental ability remember which little button does what let alone which controller.

It isn’t just dementia. Parkinson’s, sight, strokes etc. My elderly father has huge difficulty with the numerous remote controls.