What’s it like when you become the oldest generation in your family?

[YougoyourWay]

I have lost all grandparents, one parent and one sibling and several aunties and uncles. My other siblings are in poor health and I had a health scare myself recently at the age of 60. It has dawned on me that as my older relatives are passing away, I am fast approaching being the oldest in my family. I don’t like the thought of it! How does it feel if you are in that position?

Oh this really resonates with me 😞 and I struggle with this 'being top of the current family tree'
I'm 54 and have lost both parents, both IL's, all grandparents and some aunties and uncles. I now feel a certain pressure to be the host at family occasions such as Christmas as it is now my duty to keep the family together and to continue making the memories that I have from my parents/grandparents. I do enjoy this new position I have found myself in but oh boy do I miss having that someone to turn to and lean on in difficult times - an older and wiser someone!
It's also the stark reality that we are all getting older and I hate that.

I hate it , it’s surreal, don’t really understand how its happened. 😂😂 In my mind I’m still a young woman. I think the worse thing is that you enter ‘ sniper ally ‘ health wise. Two of my close friends died last year and you inevitably think about your own mortality a lot.
I’ll never accept old age, yet here we are.

I’m 58 and we have just MIL left and her brothers of that generation. My parents had me at 40 plus so have been gone for a while. It feels odd and it feels like peeking over in to the chasm of mortality.

@Runmybathforme I have had three friends die and DH has had one die, all under 55.

I still feel like my mum's child and I'm nearly 50. She's still hale and hearty and still does mum things for me, but I know the time is fast approaching when she won't (she's 77). The thought of being without her and me being "an orphan" makes me feel very lost! I don't feel emotionally ready for being totally responsible for myself. Crazy isn't it?

Do we ever?

It’s really odd. Lost last of my parents’ generation over Covid. I am only 51 and eldest of all my siblings and cousins. Now I am going through breast cancer and realising that even though my parents generation drank like fishes, smoked and didn’t take care of their health they could quite possibly have had longer lives than I will have. I’ve always taken care of my health. It seems really unfair. My siblings are all freaking out too. If I go soon, they will feel really close to their deaths even though they may have another forty years.

Oh that's really hard for you 😔.

Yes I'm not ready but it seems to be looming

It's sobering and I can't quite get my head around it. I didn't feel like an adult until my mum died almost a year ago, I'm 62. As the eldest daughter I'm now the head of the family so to speak. I'm lucky in that I'm in pretty good health but I'm starting to lose an awful lot of friends and acquaintances all too quickly. Also a lot that are experiencing ill health. It certainly makes you stop and think about your own mortality. I often wonder how long I've got left and what I'll die of. I realise that all sounds very depressing, but I'm by nature an upbeat positive person and am making the most of the time I do have left. There are advantages to getting older, more time to myself, more holidays, more disposable income quality time with my grandson. So it's not all bad.

I became the oldest person in my family at 42. Is strange tbh, wish it was different and that my children had living grandparents. Am grateful for the family I have though!

This is likely to happen to me too, I have two very unwell parents and when they are gone I'll be oldest. It mainly makes me sad for the lack of family around us, Christmas is so quiet.

I’m glad others feel the same.

I’ve just worked out I am the eldest of the cousins as well as the siblings.

I find it very weird and it’s only just dawning on me after a few recent losses and some morbid thoughts.

Have I got to start doing anything differently?!

I’m 80 and have an even more ancient SIIL of whom I am very fond but I don’t really count her as she is not a blood relation.

I love being the matriarch of my famlly.

When I lost my sister, knowing I was the oldest of the cousins was weird, she was supposed to always be the oldest.

Not sure whether this is what you mean but I guess for me the time I felt 'properly grown up' was when I had to support my elderly parents, with everything really I suppose. They passed away a couple of years ago now. I still have a couple of older aunts and I'm making an effort to visit them more now as I don't know how long they've got left.

I am the eldest of my siblings and the cousins in my dad's side, and now on my mums side since my cousin died two years ago. He was only 18 months older than me.
I don't have any grandparents left, in laws are gone too, and it's actually the youngest of the aunts and uncles on both sides who have died, bar one.
I was talking to my oldest friend about this recently, about our friendship group and how we haven't lost one of them yet (we are a wide age group of friends but we are amongst the eldest). We have lost someone we were at school with, but didn't keep in touch so I don't count them in our friendship group.
It is an odd feeling and one I don't like, thinking about who might be 'next ' and worrying it could be me. I have always had a huge fear of dying, more the not being here but also the pain. It used to wake me up in the night.

Yep, it's a lonely homesick feeling. I got to the top aged 39. No one to ask those questions to about the older generations, and also that feeing that the family history and knowledge sits with me so I feel that burden.

I am the eldest child and the eldest cousin. Only one parent living and very elderly now. It has hit me hard that I’ll be the oldest and most responsible person soon. It feels very lonely, since I am not close to my siblings and don’t get on with my surviving parent . I never used to be afraid of dying at all, but lately I’ve been dwelling on it a lot, especially as so many people I know have become ill or died. Snipers alley it is.

I’m 43 and I’ve had no grandparents and only 1 living parent since I was 18. I’m NC with my parent, so have essentially been the oldest in my family since late 30s.

It’s funny because I actually don’t think about it really ever. Having no family and being the only one I have to rely on (other than Dh and my dc) is so ordinary for me. It’s more that sometimes it hits me that most people in their 30s/40s DO have loving supportive families still and do have people who remember them as children and can fill in the gaps in terms of family medical history and the family tree. Whereas I literally have no idea and no one to ask about any of that stuff. I’d love just to be invited to Christmas dinner with family or visit my family home from childhood, that sort of stuff.

My elderly aunts dying within a few weeks of each other, made me the eldest in the extended family. I went to a genealogy talk where they gave out a little questionnaire leaflet to take to your 'oldest surviving relative' and get as much information as you can.
Hmm - that would be me, then...
What it's done, is to make me closer to my cousins - we always got on well, but now there's an added dimension. We're in our early-mid 60s.

This. It is too soon to have the responsibility of being the one with all the knowledge and advice. I was 35 when it came to me. I have no siblings either, so nobody to reminisce with about my childhood.

The only things it did OP was make sure I'd sorted my will and have a good clear out of unnecessary paperwork. Both parents had reems of outdated and pointless documents saved up. Getting rid of my similar piles was an easy win as I knew what I was looking at - not so when it is someone else's!
I want to declutter further throughout the house so my DCs aren't left with such a big job were something to happen to me & DH, but it was an uphill struggle as it feels like we're in an accumulation phase still with DCs' ages, so I have shelved that for a few years.

Not quite at the top yet but I still look for a responsible adult when a tough decision needs to be made.

Then I remember that the adult is me 😂

I've started sorting through all my paperwork.

Silly things I've kept that will mean nothing to my children.

got rid of it all.

This was after an older cousin died and my sister pointed out "we're the oldest in the family now "

I am now 80 so definatly the oldest in my family.
My DH passed away nearly five years ago.I am the oldest of five siblings saying anymore would ''out'' me

It was a jolt when my mother died( my father having died a long time before ) to realise there was no longer a generation above me.

But reading some of these responses has lightened that a bit as I’m not the youngest in this generation by a long chalk - my brother is 9 years older and I have cousins up to 20 years older. When they all go I will feel it more, I think.

DEATH whispers to me (I'm a terry pratchett fan)

I became the oldest at 24, when my last parent died, I was a mother of a toddler and pregnant at the time.

I am the attic full of kids drawings, the only person my younger siblings have to ask about childhood stuff, the keeper of the memories and photographs, the one who has to organise the get togethers and host the parties and be the centre.

It’s a lot, and it separates me from my remaining family, my friends, my peers, and my partner who is in his 40s and has two living parents which utterly blows my mind.

My siblings’ partners treat me like their MIL.