Please tell me we all don’t end up like this

[Queijo]

Just spent a few days with my parents who are now entering their 70s.

The FAFFING. It took 25 minutes(!) to serve up lunch because they couldn’t find the right teapot, and then, horrors of horrors, it wasn’t the right ham. So they had to have a very intense discussion about the properties of ham. Whilst I’m slowly dying in the corner from hunger and frustration.

Cups of tea take decades to make, is this the cup you want? Do you want decaf? No? Oh ok I’ll just get the special non-decaf pot down. Are you sure you don’t want decaf? Right. Sugar? No sugar?! Since when?

Can’t say no to cup though or there’s 3 days of fraught discussions.

Lunch at 12 noon dinner at 6pm. CANNOT under any circumstance deviate, and if anything is taking slightly too long to cook it’s the end of the world. God alive 😂

I’m exhausted. Please tell me I’m not going to end up this way.

LIGHTHEARTED before anyone starts! I love them dearly but they never were like this before.

When you have lots of spare time on your hands, you can drive and walk slowly, write letters to the council about wheelie bins and go through the Radio Times with a highlighter and check for TV/ radio programme clashes (and before anyone complains about my ageism, I'm referring to my own parents).
Faffing helps to fill the day.

Have they both been retired for a while?
I've noticed my Mum getting a bit more anxious away from home (finds the trains stressful, and won't leave her cat for long in case he misses her...by long I mean more than a few hours!) but she has an reasonably busy life..goes to yoga, choir, crochet club etc and she's not routine bound and hasn't used a tea pot in years
My step Mum is in her 80s and still doing an allotment, learning two langages and she certainly isn't faffing!

On the other hand I can see my own Dh (now in his early 60s) becoming a total faffer. Just walking the dog invoves him decided whether he needs his short boots or wellies, checking every pocket for treats, extra bags, and god knows what else and I'm ready to murder him before we even get out of the front door!

My MiL is like this. I love her but arghhhhh.
My parents aren't yet (though older) I think it is because they are so busy (they worked til their 70s and are always doing stuff involved in loads so don't have time to faff!).

Don’t worry, I think if you are like this, faffing and dithery it’s the way you have always been, you don’t suddenly grow into it.

I don’t know, they seem to have suddenly grown into it unless I’ve blocked it out from childhood.

Yes they retired in their 50s so I assume the faffing has been building up for a while.

I got asked about ham sandwiches 6 times in one morning. I did like them every time they asked. Everything just seems so fraught and stressful even though they don’t actually have any stress bless them!

Theres a guy on TT documenting his parents. They faff, its equally hilarious and maddening. They’re adorable.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGe5Wc6Cj/

This is why I actually don't think full retirement is healthy for most people (if you like and enjoy work anyway).

My dad is a big faffer now and gets het up about tiny things. That said growing old can also be such a vulnerable time.

God forbid that I arrive at DM house earlier than I told her I had told her. It sends her into a faffing tailspin.

The fussing drives me insane. And the need to consult each other about everything. My ILs are like this now. My grandparents lived into their 90s together and werent too bad, so there is some hope! I can't understand in supermarkets, couples go around the aisles together having a conference about every single item. Why?!

I get you. But some people are like this anyway. I stayed at my SIL's house and the FUSS about getting tinned soup into a bowl and onto a table!
My ILs are like that generally, always have been. I'm beginning to understand some of their little foibles, though I can't imagine making much of a palaver about a cuppa and a sandwich.

We’re not all like that! I’m mid-sixties and hate faffers with a passion. Faffers on the road, in the supermarket, clogging up the pavements…. If I ever get like that, I’ve given my children full permission to put me down. (Maybe it helps that I’m on my own, I don’t have anyone to lure me into faffdom…?)

It's so maddening, but I think it simply comes down to having so little going on in their lives, that they over- focus on the minutiae. It seems to happen to most older folk I know, sadly. Retirement is not always a good thing.

My parents have entered this realm too. Anything that deviates from their plans / rituals, it’s mountain / molehill time! Always thought it was my dad, but my mum is worse now!

Can confirm. And now it's happening to me. (Nearly 64.)

No, it doesn’t happen to everyone. My mum was a bit like this, though not as bad as your parents. In-laws much older than your parents and aren’t like that at all, and never have been.
I think some of these traits get magnified as people get older, but if you have always been brisk and efficient I don’t believe you get dithery and fussy just because you have got older.
I also think keeping active and keeping your brain busy helps. I had a friend whose (very intelligent and capable) parents became extremely obsessed with minute details of everyday life, could talk for hours about the price of sugar in the local shops, but just looked blank if she ever tried to ask their advice on anything, even things they were expert about. They’d just start talking about trivia again with each other. They had stopped doing anything meaningful or mentally stimulating, and their lives consisted of daily domestic routines, so that was all they talked about, over and over. There are plenty of elderly people who don’t do that.

I’m older than you, still working full time in a demanding job, and I’m absolutely bloody determined not to get like this any time soon.

The worst faffer I have known is MIL but I knew her when she was only 52, DH confirms she was a faffer even when he was a small child. She likes things just so.

That's what I thought.

I had a demanding job which I finally had to give up at 58 because of my late husband's health. (I had been his carer for some time and - before that - had cared for both my parents. At one point, I was working full-time and caring for my mother and my husband.) I found myself widowed at 60, exhausted and with no immediate family.

I organised a lockdown funeral, dealt with my husband's estate and then pretty much collapsed.

I started working part-time before Christmas. It'll be impossible for me to get back to the position that I previously held, but it's stopping all the days from running together. Nevertheless, my life has changed irrevocably.

No faffing here, drives me mad. I am 67 and husband is almost 72. I think faffers are born not made with age.

Oh the dinner at exactly 6pm, my in laws are like this! They’re both diabetic, FIL more recently and if food isn’t served at exactly 6pm he’s reaching, dramatically, for the jelly babies as though he is about to hypo because it is exactly 6pm. Even if food is served 2 minutes later. God bless those jelly babies.

Please tell me I’m not going to end up this way.

Absolutely not!!

As it happens, my husband and I are both 70. He still works full time, because he loves what he does. I retired several years ago because I wanted to do so many other things apart from working.

I'm not going to bore you with all the many things that I do. There aren't enough hours in the day. I work out seriously most days and I'm superfit. I don't eat ham and try to stay clear of processed foods.

I never faff. Too much else to do!!

I'm retired and I can't stand faffing, and can't imagine myself ever doing it. My DF was a faffer, my DM wasn't - it doesn't automatically happen just because someone gets older, they need to have elements of it all the time. It might not have been so noticeable earlier on, but it will have been there.

My parents are lovely, and we get on really well. When they come to stay with me, my mum brings multiple boxes of dried fruit, nuts, porridge etc. it completely takes over my tiny kitchen. The last time they came, instead of bringing a large suitcase. They everything was in separate bags. So they had no idea where anything actually was. My sister and I find them hilarious. 🤣

My dad isn't a faffer, unless you are trying to go out. But he's always been like that.

I've noticed encroaching faffiness with respect to visitors and food provision. I like things to be just so but with fewer visitors have fewer opportunities so begin to doubt myself that I've been a good host. All of this happens in my head though, not in my actions, so I'm the only one who is discommoded.

For context 69, two years retired and widowed. I live alone.

Will it happen to you, @Queijo? Could do. Keep an eye out.