Does anyone else have really old fashioned parents?

[Spoldge45]

My mum & dad are both 71, so not that old, but honestly, I feel as tho they are in their mid-eighties. They dont seem to have embraced anything post 1995.

They still take their camera film to the shop to be developed
They don't use the internet/have never brought anything online.
They don't have mobile phones (even tho not using one has caused issues in the past like last year when my mum fell over whilst out walking, & she was badly injured but had no way of contacting anyone. so had to wait to be found by a passer-by)

I'm just curious to see if this is so rare or if others have parents in a similar situation, who just refuse to embrace any form of technology.

My uncle gave my mum a mobile, but she wont use it. We brought them a tablet a few Christmases ago & spent ages showing them how to use it, but it just gathers dust.

As they are getting older I feel technology could be really useful to them. I worry about my mum going out alone without a phone as she has some health problems & is very unsteady on her feet, but despite my best efforts she wont use a mobile.

Is anyone else in a similar situation & do you have any tips? Thanks x

I don't really understand, why wouldn't your Mum want photos of her adult grandchildren, or you? It's up to you of course, you know your DM best. But if people don't want to have Whatsapp (my family contains several highly educated 70+ who live otherwise very full lives, who don't) that's up to them.

@MargaretFraggle

My DCs don't live with me (youngest two do during university holidays but the rest have flown the coop) and I don't tend to take photos of them now that they're pretty much grownups.

Since my mum was so unavailable for so long as they grew up (on a different continent and no Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, etc as mum couldn't manage it) the human connection isn't strong enough for them to go to the effort of photobox or any other means of sending photos now. They all used to have a few minutes weekly talking to her on the phone as children and up until they left home for jobs after university, but that's not really enough to keep a relationship feeling real and immediate. She has always been a distant figure, even though she has visited.

As adults the DCs visited her when they have done study abroad semesters, in London and in Paris, but lack of internet access at her house is an issue, and also the fact that she is training for the Olympic Cold House event, with high hopes of a gold for Ireland. She is opposed to keeping the house warm as well as all the rest of the conveniences of the modern world.

Yes, it's her choice not to bother with an app that would allow instantaneous communication and make the miles between us all disappear.

But ultimately her choice to avoid engagement with the available life-enhancing tech is also a choice on her part not to have a close relationship with her grandchildren, and frankly that's a choice that was foisted on the grandchildren by her. We would all prefer it to be otherwise.

Yes, and it drives me insane. Their lives would be so much easier if they embraced tech.

They still book their holiday at the travel agent.

Refuse to pay any bill direct debit "because you aren't in control of your own money",

Bills are paid in person via cheque.

They do have debit cards, but rarely use them. Mum goes into town every Monday and queues up in the bank in person at the counter to get the money they need for the week out.

The supermarket shop is done in person every Thursday by both of them in Sainsbury's and the treat it as a nice day out with a 'lovely' lunch in the cafe after the shop.

They have set days that they do things.

Dad still has a brick phone. "I don't need a phone to play on" rarely calls anyone on it because the charges are astronomical. It is payg and his £10 of credit has lasted him a good few years. Mum has a Nokia. They never answer their mobiles either.

I brought them an I pad for Christmas it is still gathering dust in its box. It has been out once, when I tried to show them how to use it.

Their house is set up and connected to the Internet, but it is installed for their older grandchildren.

They watch free view, but mostly dvds or video. They still have a working vcr.

They type letters if they need to using the 'new typewriter 'that was purchased c 1984

Realy do not know how they manage to live without modern tech. It is frustrating because I only want their lives to be better in old age. They are early and mid seventies.

sadperson16

Loving Stormzy sounds a bit desperate tbh.
I'm more of a Mantovani or Acker Bilk kinda person.

Sorry but Acker Bilk sounds far more tragic than Stormzy to me! Mid 50's here

My Nan was 80 when she died a couple of years ago and she had a tablet and a phone and was on Facebook. It's nice when my Facebook memories pop up from a few years ago and she's commented on or liked the photo, I also still have texts from her on my phone

My mum is 64 and my stepdad is a couple of years older and they're always buying smart TV's, new phones or tablets, I haven't got a clue what she's on about half the time

My in laws are early 70's and my FIL will buy stuff online and has a phone that he uses for WhatsApp and calls but my MIL won't go near one or a computer. She's only recently stopped giving us cheques when she gives us money as a gift lol, although she still won't do a bank transfer and gives us cash (not that I'm complaining haha) she doesn't have a clue how to use anything, I don't know how she would manage if my FIL was gone.

Also what's wrong with DVD's??

My mum has a smartphone, tablet and gaming PC (she uses it for a photoshopping online business she started). She ice skates, drives a big ford van, bluetooths her devices to the van, set up Alexa to turn her lights on, researches on the internet. she programmes communication software for DS, which I can't do. Younger people ask her how to do things. She is 70.
DF has a smartphone which he just about manages to use, and a laptop, but is otherwise a Luddite
DM is the breastfeeding, co sleeping, no smacking type of parent, which was ahead of its time when we were kids.

Love reading about some of the parents on here, I don't ever want to get left behind, embrace the future I say!

My mum is 82 and has a smartphone, a tablet and a laptop. She buys things online. However she is quite wedded to cash when she's out and about and the covid roolz on not taking cash have annoyed her (and it's embarrassing that when a cafe has a big sign up saying cards only, she still asks them if they will take cash, grrr).

71 isn't that old. Have they always been old beyond their years, OP?

It's fine saying people can go to courses at libraries etc but they are always pitched at a level which assumes some prior knowledge so it doesn't really work for someone who doesn't even know how to switch a computer on.

Also, I echo, what's wrong with CDs and DVDs? I've still got records too (and cassettes though I've thrown most out as they really were an awful format). You can watch something on Amazon Prime one day and on a DVD the next

I despair at how she would manage if anything should happen where I can't look after her

I'd stop humouring her. It's learned helplessness. If you refused to do everything for her, she'd have to learn or find a workaround.

My in-laws have no internet connection - FIL has a brick mobile phone which can get online but watching him use it is incredibly painful MIL has no mobile phone, though she does have a tablet. She has to give it to DH to download games due to the lack of internet though!

My dad refuses to have a mobile phone but is perfectly capable of using technology - he has a MacBook, shops online and uses a Garmin and FitBit etc. He's just convinced that mobile phones cause tumours!

Gosh op
Your parents are only a bit older than me
I’m not great with setting up tech but once it’s working I use it
Love to go to gigs and live music
I hope to be like sone o the late 80s mentioned here when I’m that age

I always use cash
I never want to see it disappear

My dad was the opposite to your parents, OP. Sadly, he died 11 years ago. He was 81 and left an impressive collection of computer equipment, games consoles and assorted games😂 He was a particular fan of Super Mario. He didn't have a mobile phone as he liked being 'unavailable' when out and about, but he bought me my first one when I was around 30!

My neighbours are in their 80s and use Apple Pay, Spotify, Zoom...

I don’t see this as old fashioned OP

I see it as a bloody minded refusal not to use internet / mobiles etc simply because they’re “new”. It’s illogical.

@shewalkslikerihanna

I always use cash I never want to see it disappear

I agree with this! I hope we never see a cashless society.

I like cash too
Great for helping with mental arithmetic too when out with children!

My Nan is 97 this month. She had a mobile when she used to get out but doesn't go out without my dad now.
She does however have an iPad, she has Facebook to keep up with family pictures etc, and over the past year she has been a whiz on houseparty and FaceTime to keep in touch with us when we couldn't see her other than to wave through her window!
She also now has a portal that we can video call her on as it's a bigger clearer screen!

My gran is in her 80s and completely adverse to any sort of new technology still only watches four channels and has a landline. Her twin sister on the other hand loves it has the newest phone with IG and Snapchat, has an iPad and a smart TV with Netflix.

Different strokes for different folks

My in laws still have an “insurance man” so lord knows how much they’re paying

They will only go into a bank to withdraw cash and the council tax gets paid at the town hall

If a scam call comes through the landline (to be honest that’s the ONLY calls that come through) we get contacted with every detail about how they’ve been told their Amazon account has been compromised. They don’t have Amazon!!

My mum is 88 and uses a mobile, has a laptop (we taught her to use Zoom in lockdown), regularly shops online and started selling on eBay in her 70s, so no, not in my experience. DH's mum is a bit more like that although she does now have a mobile phone. DH's dad is 77 and super techy - he can even programme his hearing aids through his iPhone

My mother (now early 80s) has been old for over 30 years and pretty pig headed to go with it, and our relationship has never been rosey. So as far as phones, this is how it played out:

We all (she, me, and my XH) all got our first mobile phones at the same time in the 90s (Motorolas in their lovely 'leatherette' cases ). At that point she would have been in her early 50s.

We all used ours and updated along the way. What did she do? Put hers in the bread bin and only turned it on about once a year to see if it was ''still alive'' I tried and tried to get her to use it but she never liked ringing on them and didn't like texting because it means you get to answer in your own time (and retain a bit of autonomy). She likes people to jump up and answer the landline when she calls. Her mates the same age as her got on board with it all and would text her birthday messages and hello's ect and she'd not get the messages for months and months and that was only back when she could still remember how to retrieve a text. Friends would only be responded to if they rang her landline on the proper day at the proper time.

So over the next couple of decades we used our landline less and less and just used mobiles for everything. So did everyone else and in the end DM and cold callers and scammers were the only ones to ever ring it. Half the time we just wouldn't answer (busy house, 90% cold callers anyway) and we went over to an answer machine to weed out the cold callers. DMs reaction to that was to wail ''helloooooooooooooooow? Hellooooooooooooow?'' down the phone at the answer machine and then a big loud ''humph'' and bang of the phone going down. Never left us any actual messages

We got rid of the answer machine in about 2012 and it's mobiles all the way on our side now. Over the years i've offered to buy her big button easy to use mobiles ect. to get her back ontrack with the rest of the world but she's dug her heels in so that's that really.

If she rings the mobile i'll answer if i can, and if i can't she has to wait

My GFIL is 104 and very teched up. Will never forget my SILs face when he started discussing the merits of Facebook and Instagram with her .

PIL are mixed , they do now use mobile phones but we have had some problems with them getting large bills for using data and subscribing to things accidentally . They won’t have internet coming into house for some reason and we are wary because they have history of spending on things .

My parents are pretty good , they don’t use social media but they do internet banking , emails send photos do Zoom. They are worried about being scammed though, that daily programme with Gloria Hunniford about scams does not help and is quite scary .

None of the parents have streamed TV , they are all the type to read, knit , garden, sew , bake, play cards so just aren’t bothered . And tbh they make me realise how much time I waste in screentime .

My parents are both 70.. my mum prefers a basic mobile to a smart phone, but calls and texts from it happily. My dad has a smart phone and uses WhatsApp, Facebook, etc though. They’re pretty capable online, eg shopping, banking, booking hotels and things. They learned zoom over lockdown, although they needed help to set it up. So I’d say they’re fairly average for their age. I also know some folk at 90+ who have embraced technology during the pandemic!