To be fed up with the amount of old bashing that goes on

[CAM]

Its illegal to be ageist now

My 15 year old stepdaughter looks at me with frank disbelief when I tell her that I had no heating in any room of the house except the living room which was heated with a coal fire (same goes for my dh). We had tiny electric bar fires (bought second hand and ancient) which we would use when it was very freezing for short periods. In the morning in winter there would often be a layer of ice on the inside of my bedroom window. We had no fitted kitchen, no fitted carpets upstairs, all furniture was second hand, except our Habitat sofa - a cause of huge pride. Is that what your students expect to have? Or maybe to live like my grandparents, living in a two room East End tenement with their two children or a tiny two bed council house with two children? I'm 43 btw and dh is 49. Yes, we have quite a nice house in London, but we didn't start out like this!

if we think what they've lived through though, everything is advancing so fast. my mil is 79 and loves to look at ebay, but she gets angry that we work hard just to stand still.

I know what you mean, Pruni. My gran is one of those old racists in fact. and I do tell her what I think usually. I know I'm unusual, but isn't the tolerance of intolerance thing more of a way of avoiding family rows than anything to do with priviledges of age?

Aloha, I vividly remember having to defrost the toothpaste one time!

Interesting thread. I have an utterly delightful niece who lives with her parents at 23 because she cannot afford a place of her own. In actual fact she could. What she means is that she can't afford a place as nice as her parents!

When I was her age loved in grotty shared houses that were in a worse state than my parents. But I accepted that as the norm, and part of growing up.

my mil is an old racist too

i used to go to bed with a fan heater under the covers to keep warm. i'm lucky i didn't set myself on fire.

absolutely, mb. there is "can't afford" and "can't afford"

See, exactly what I was talking about, our concerns are just not taken seriously

Blu - you are quite right, middle aged people seem old to the young!

Old people, middle-aged people and young people can be racist and set in their ways.

Bt I do think it is harder for old people these days - technology has moved on so fast in the last 10 years that many people can't keep up. My mum's current concern is the digital switchover and will she be able to watch her videos?

I'm not entirely sure of the answer myself tbh.

On the other hand my mum says she would hate to be the mother of young children today. Mainly because every aspect is competetive.

We used to get ice on the inside of the windows when I was little. My brother and I used to beat each other up to keep warm. And I'm only 29

mercy - yes she will.

but anyway back to the op, where is this old bashing of which is spoken?

my mum could never understand why i had to go back to work when my ds(13) was a baby. i'm the youngest of 4, and they heydays of the 80s were behind us.

Sp - I know! It was a rhetorical question in one sense - but my mum is concerned

but you said you weren't really sure of the answer!

i'm pleased to see this thread. i suggest we always challenge ageism when we see it.
so many people see an old face and make assumptions; they don't realise that the person inside is just the same as a 20 year old, 30 year old or whatever. yes, there are generational differences but they are generalisations. and among the elderly, there will be people with a wicked sense of humour, people who speak lots of languages, people who hate other people, people who love travelling, people who are just plain nasty. fgs why all the assumptions?

this thread keeps amking me think of the madonna finger licking discussion for some reason

All those saying "Life has always been hard" are just no different to the older generation that young people find so patronising. The young people that Upwind is referring to are incredibly disadvantaged because house prices have trebled in a very short space of time. They are quite rightly worried that they have no prospect of the same quality of life as those only a few years older than them, because they didn't buy while housing was 'affordable'.

I think the reason for the impasse between old and young is that generations no longer listen to each other and no longer mix very often. I regularly have to put up with tirades about immigration from old people living in a 100% white areas in the country, while I live in a functioning multicultural community with many friends and work colleagues from different ethnic groups.

They criticize young people for working while their children are small etc etc. What they are really doing is benchmarking the current generation against what they experienced when they were that age.

Equally younger people may underestimate the impact of losing half your family in a war or to disease.

Lack of understanding between generations is just one symptom of our modern society. Neither is right or wrong, but we do not understand each other, and we are becoming less respectful and tolerant both ways.

but housing was unaffordable in 1979 too and there were practically no rental properties as it was before the buy to let boom

and you had to have an established relationship with a building society to be considered for a mortgage you couldn't shop around you couldn't get 100% mortgages

now the housing market is much more flexible

btw did you know if you were a woman in the 1970s trying to get a mortgage you would be asked to get a man to guarantee it for you. my dm had investment property in her own name but when she went to the bank to get a mortgage for a house of her own she had to ask her ex husband to guarantee it. she was not pleased i think young women don't realise that it was only a few decades ago when there were lots of restrictions on what women could do

But zippi, the difference being that in 1979 there were many social problems - housing affordability was a symptom of this. We had suffered a decade of mind-blowing inflation and I have vivid memories of the 'Winter of Discontent'.

Whereas now, these young people see everyone else in society saying "I'm alright Jack" and they feel totally excluded.

Final salary pensions, student loans, housing windfalls, utility shares. You name it, the government of the time have always gone with the voting majority - and these young people (statistically less likely to vote) have so far been pretty much left out in the cold.

ok, fair enough SP - but you took me very literally

But I did mean I get confused by the fast pace of technology, let alone my mum.

Anyway, this middle-aged menopausal woman with a toddler is off to bed soon.

Not all old people are technophobes.

My Dad rang me the other day, very pleased because he'd just found out Tesco were now delivering further than 25 miles from the store, so he can now shop online.

He's 97 next month.

Blu - yes that is probably how she sees it

elasticwoman, we have tried to get her to have one, but she feels she has noone to 'alert' if she has an accident. And when my parents said they would be her 'alertees' she refused tearfully on the grounds that she wasn't 'their' problem and it was too much responsibility for them...

Zipi - Back in 1979 social housing was still an option and tenants in private rentals had security of tenure making it a reasonable option for a family.

Nowadays, if you want children you are under pressure to buy a home because of the poor standard and insecurity of the other options. Who wants to have to move house every year or so with school age children at your landlord's whim?

Think of your home and how much it would cost you to buy it now. Divide that number by 4 and consider what kind of person earns that figure as a salary. Do the same for the next two bedroom flat you see in a rough area.

No wonder so many young mothers feel they have no choice but to work to pay off the mortgage. Although it seems to Grannycrackers like she has much more freedom now, young women do not necessarily feel the same! They are just too worn out to campaign about it while older people do tend to have the time and energy.

I think Cloudhopper has a good point about the generations not mixing - any ideas why that is? Was it always the case in Britain?