To think that the attitude to older people, particularly older women on Mumsnet .....

[seeker]

......is utterly shameful, shows mumsnetters in a very bad lightand should be challenged more and harder?

It's always been and will always be "open season" on "old" women, i.e. over 50, and the US on MN.

I qualify for the second, I'm 7 years from the first.

It's not smart and it's not clever but it's the way it is.

do people care what mumsnetters say about them?

It isn't what people say about them - it is the general - as in 'the old biddy on the bus' when her age has no relevance to whatever the post is about.

"My own theory is if you can't take it, don't dish it out. But don't sit there and make a whole heap of offensive/ misinformed comments yourself and then cry "bullying" or whatever else when you get right back what you throw at others."

Inclined to agree. But how is this relevant to this particular thread?

Seeker, I haven't noticed this on mn at all.Maybe I read the wrong threads.

I suppose I have seen it,but I just think that if the poster is ignorant in that,chances are that they are ignorant in a whole lot of other things,and see it as the posters problem and poor them.

The world has always had 'old biddies on buses' - this is short for older women who pass comment on you and yours. It's a stereotype that people recognise and use as shorthand (an unkind one mostly)

Where the failure to self reflect happens is when people fail to realise that all the judgy threads on AIBU is what the 'old biddy' is thinking and saying.

People on AIBU are just saying it on the internet - give them a few years and that filter will go and they will be saying it out loud on buses.

people get personal here. instead of letting others post, maybe agreeing or disagreeing with the points they make, they get personal and make it an attack. they pick up on comments from other threads and carry them across. that's not specific to older women, it can happen to anyone who isn't part of the gang.

I suspect you know what alrightythen meant, seeker, but are unwilling to acknowledge it.

How very bizarre! I wasn't actually talking about people commenting on other people's ages on threads- I was talking about the way older people- mostly women- in the real world are referred to on here. But I do seem to have touched some sort of nerve- and I genuinely (sorry, springforward, but it's true) have no idea what some contributors to this thread are talking about. Anyone care to enlighten me? Or shall we carry on discussing casual ageism, the only -ism that seems to remain universally acceptable?

seeker - if you mean the thread about letting children sleep over at their grandparents, then yes, I agree there was a general attitude of "mum is getting on a bit so will probably get my PFB run over because they can't cross the road safely / burnt in a fire because they are too deaf to hear the smoke alarm / eaten by zombies because they're too slow to outrun them" type thing (I exaggerate, but not much). With "getting on" defined as 50+... But I am desperately hoping that much of the attitude on that thread is genuinely untypical, because otherwise I'm pretty sad just how precious some of the mums on here are.

More generally, I think MN is no more and no less ageist than then wider world, but perhaps I don't notice it as much as others.

I have never seen it as a personal attack on here. I quite regularly point out that I am older than the majority and although I have been attacked on a number of occasions and apparently have 'a chip on my shoulder' it has never been about age. However ageism is rife and it will be casually mentioned. Looking back there is one about a child getting shouted at in a swimming pool by 'an old bat' - does it matter how old the person was? Is it perfectly OK to be shouted at by a 19yr old or a 25yr old or even a 35 yr old? I doubt it. It is simply not relevant.

I haven't read the thread in question but lots of 50+ olds have their ownDC in primary school so I can't see why they can't cope!

I have also seen people post about 'an elderly woman' and you then discover she is around 60 yrs!

There is a thread in the relationships section at the moment about sex in later life. The few people on there saying 'eugh' strike me as pretty ageist.

There's a big difference between saying 'old bat' and 'elderly woman' though.

The first IS ageist, the second is just about perception.

If you're under 25 then 60 does seem elderly. I remember when i was about 16 working out how old i'd be at the millenium. I distinctly remember being horrified at how old i'd be. I thought anything over 25 was positively dotage

The only consolation is that when they get to 60 they will realise that it isn't elderly. I upset my mother when I was 10 by describing 40 as 'elderly'.

Oh I dunno, I think once you reach about 25 - 30 you can pretty much be expected to understand that 60 isn't old.

And if you don't understand that, I think you're a bit immature.

Shall we be ageist the other way, just to keep things even?

But why say "elderly woman" at all, if the age is not relevant? I am amazed that people are saying that they've never seen threads about old biddies, and old bats and their dirty fingers touching their babies, and their cat's bum mouths and their tutting and judging? Or the 50 year old's who are "starting to slow down"? Really?

I think OPs get jumped on they irrelevantly call someone old.

In the past, rather unpleasant attitudes towards crepey decolletages and older lady bingo wings was evident in the S&B threads, but I've see none latelyAND I SHOULD KNOW AS I'VE MADE A SPREADSHEET, NOTING THE OFFENDERS.

I made the last bit up.

Exactly. The only sure thing in life, sadly, is that we all get older. And the years get bloody shorter and shorter

As people are living longer and more healthily and women are no longer succumbing to the 'wave of beige' perhaps perception of what is elderly will slowly go up a couple of decades?

Sorry allot of x posts.

I was saying exactly to

The only consolation is that when they get to 60 they will realise that it isn't elderly.

I could just about understand a 16 year old being horrified at the age of a 55 year old. But surely by the time somebody is properly grown up they should have noticed that people in their 50s are holding down jobs all round them- might even be their doctor or dentist or the head of their child's school? Or starring in TV programmes? Or running the country?

Well, my husband and I were in our seventies when my son and daughter in law asked us to have their 4 year old for 4 days while they enjoyed a weekend holiday (a prize). We jumped at the chance, giving him first time experiences eg riding upstairs on a bus (they have no buses where they live abroad) and having his photograph taken with a British policeman.

Are we old? The older you are the further away 'old age' is.

A previous poster talked about her 'flexible' body. My husband started pilates, having the first session at home and I joined in. the instructor told me that I had a flexible body.

i'm 54. i don't care if 25 year olds think i'm old. or if 45 year olds think so. i don't give a damn. yes, i'm old. yes, i look at the world differently from you - that might be because i'm old or it might because my life experiences are different from yours.

in real life older people are not respected just because of their age. why should it be any different here?