AIBU to Think MNHQ needs to tackle the ageism on this site?

[LastGoldenDaysOfSummer]

The venom and hate aimed at older people on some of the Covid threads is disgusting. If the same was aimed at disabled, TW or BAME people then the posts would be deleted immediately, and rightly so.

But because it's the elderly it's left to stand, even after being reported. This isn't new, MNHQ has always been a hotbed of ageism but it's usually dealt with when reported.

But not any more. Should they be doing more?

@Mumisnotmyonlyname

I don't like these bullying anti Xenia posts. It isn't pleasant. Get over yourselves.

I've noticed I often disagree with Xenia on various threads - but I respect her because she's always very open, honest, and upfront about her views. No disgenuity either. She (as a young person would say) owns her opinions.

@Mumisnotmyonlyname

I don't like these bullying anti Xenia posts. It isn't pleasant. Get over yourselves.

I go by the post, not the poster and wanting to take pension credits and heating allowence from skint pensioners strikes me as particularly heartless.

@DynamoKev

I certainly support things like removing the triple lock and abolishing heating allowance etc for pensioners I don’t. Decent levels of state pension and a chance to keep warm in winter were hard won and should not be easily surrendered.

I remember my own Grandmother’s freezing house because she was terrified to heat it. I am convinced she’d have lived longer if she could have kept warm.

Agree with you @DynamoKev The wealthier affluent pensioners are ok yes, but the larger majority of lower income pensioners (lower middle-class and working class) would struggle without that little bit of hard-earned support.

The problem as ever is some people (not all) from one small group (affluent middle-class) seem incapable of seeing outside their own very narrow life experiences.

so cheap housing when they bought it but now worth a fortune due to no effort of theirs

The value of my house is of no use to me, because I need to live in it. It will, hopefully, have value to my adult children when I die.

And no, downsizing isn't an option to release capital. I don't know why everyone thinks boomers live in big houses. If I moved to the house next door (one less bedroom, a little bit less living and kitchen space) anything I made on the sale would be swallowed up by the cost of estate agents fees, legal fees and moving costs.

@gamerchick
Yes I agree. Completely wrong.
I like think it comes from ignorance rather than malice. I definitely don't agree with much of what she says but she has the right to her views. Views she's honest about. She owns them.

so cheap housing when they bought it
Who's 'they'? Not the many poor of that generation - who lived in rented slum housing.

Look at Shelter's website. You'll see the slums poorer people had to live in during the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Nothing much has changed but it certainly wasn't any different then. As ever the affluent middle classes were ok. But they don't represent the whole of their generation (even if some think they do).

[quote SheepandCow]@gamerchick
Yes I agree. Completely wrong.
I like think it comes from ignorance rather than malice. I definitely don't agree with much of what she says but she has the right to her views. Views she's honest about. She owns them.[/quote]
Right and so do the rest of us. There are few topics on here that are kind to ignorance. Are the elderly exempt? Considering the topic of this thread, there might be a bit of irony there..

Or maybe irony is the wrong word.

Goodness. Well, for those who have mysteriously missed the ageism that is threaded into a good 90% plus of all Covid-related threads (along with a level of casual eugenics about 'the vulnerable', in general, that would make a Nazi blush), there is enough on this page alone to show that it really is a problem here, and elsewhere.

@CayrolBaaaskin

I should clarify that of course people will contribute different amounts throughout their lives and that is to be expected. However there is a cohort of current pensioners who benefited from low state pension ages, high house price inflation (so cheap housing when they bought it but now worth a fortune due to no effort of theirs), free education and so on. I do think it’s unfair as my daughters generation will pay for the majority of this.

Yes. The affluent middle-class cohort. Then there's the rest of their generation. The majority. Who didn't go to university. They left school at 14, 15, or at a push 16. Straight into work. Lived in shabby lodgings and retired younger- but also died sooner. Because they smoked. Perhaps we should do the same. Higher pensions received for shorter periods, paid for through smoking taxes.

Like I said yesterday. We have a simple solution. 🚬 and 🍰 Smoking and cake. Stress relief, higher tax revenue, shorter life expectancy so lower pension payouts (and no social or care home costs). Win win.

And yet we have an ageing population. And yet the average age expectation has gone up with that generation. And yet buy-to-let happened, and now house ownership has fallen and the average age of first time buyers has gone up.

I am not just speaking from statistical generalisations. The statistical generalisations back up observation everywhere. Do you think we do not see our parents and grand parents? Do you think we don’t see all our neighbours? I do not know how many trolls there are making mischief or people who are seriously blinkered but irl most admit that life is harder now.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes
You clearly fail to see the overlooked members of the middle-aged and older generations. I don't expect they exist in some people's narrow little middle-class havens (note, this is not a dig at the middle-class as a whole, just the narrow-minded who refuse to acknowledge the world outside their bubble).

There was a report published shortly before the pandemic detailing how the over 40s are the fastest growing group in private renting. Unlike younger people, they're in dire straits. No Help To Buy tax gifts for them.

Inequality and poverty exists amongst every generation.

The ones who profiteered from right to buy or buy to let are a minority of their generation. Who do you think rented off the buy to letters? Magic unicorns? It was other less fortunate people of the same generation.

Someone posted a link upthread. Data on the million plus pensioners living in poverty. These people exist. They're real.

I see that you are happy enough to generalise widely about strangers without one shred of evidence yourself. Yet you, as other baby boomers, do not like the generalisation that everyone can see for themselves. It does not wash. And it never will.

Want to be like previous generations?
Don't go to university. Leave school at 14 or 15 and go straight into (often) manual work. No sick pay, no maternity pay (in fact, don't work if you're a woman).

Live in unsafe lodgings with Rachman style landlords who'll beat you (or your husband) up if they want you out, have your children taken off you if you become homeless or even just a single mum. Rent a shabby flat with no gas, fire, or electrical safety.

Oh - and smoke.

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

I see that you are happy enough to generalise widely about strangers without one shred of evidence yourself. Yet you, as other baby boomers, do not like the generalisation that everyone can see for themselves. It does not wash. And it never will.

I'm not a baby boomer.

It's interesting how so many people judge how life was lived by previous generations by doing some research on the internet. Unless you were there you really haven't the faintest idea. People don't seem to learn the history of their country by listening to the stories told by older generations any more, but think they know better because they read a report. Reports don't reflect the actual feelings and struggles of those who were there.

Live in unsafe lodgings with Rachman style landlords

Yes - my mum has stories about her lodgings in the 1960s that would make you shudder.

The area was eventually condemned as a slum and she was rehoused in a tower block, which she said was marvellous by comparison.

So many saying 'But if it were BAME'.

Racist af. If you think there's an issue with ageism then stick to that, nothing to do with BAME. Racism creeps in everywhere. Unable to stick to discussing an issue without bringing race into it. Ridiculous, and bigoted.

Unless you're thick enough to think Black women are somehow ageless and never reach 50, or 70, so ageism can never affect us too. The irony of being racist 'yeah but BAME's, yet complaining about ageism.

There was so much racism on here that a Black Mumsnetters section had to be created. Do the maths.

So many saying 'But if it were BAME'

Why not? Comparisons are helpful for clarifying the debate. The same goes for the way MNHQ jump all over the trans issue: it's holding MNHQ to account.

@DeeCeeCherryn- you really do t get it, do you. So racism’s is not ok in your book but ageism somehow is, which is why the substitution sticks in your craw.

The bbc series on Harold shipman is interesting and a premise of it in part is that shipman was only able to get away with what he did because they were elderly and attitudes to elderly

I now cannot help, when reading the ageist posts, substituting ‘jew’ for ‘elderly’ and goodness the post then become gasp worthy in their blatant ageism

@HebeMumsnet. Thanks for clarifying. The point though is not the more egregious ageist posts - which are readily capable of deletion - but the strong ‘othering’ of the elderly and dismissal of the value of their lives and that permeates the covid threads and seems to be in the DNA of so many posters. Where the whole premise of the post (or thread) is ageist.

I guess some ‘isms’ shock us to the core - eg I don’t think I’ve ever seen posts complaining about BAME covid patients clogging up hospital beds unlike the complaints about the ‘oldies’ clogging up hospital beds.

It has become more noticeable over the past 6 months, but I think some of it is down to the current Covid and fear for the young.

Like racism can be a fear that non whites come into the uk and take our jobs?

'Life is harder now'

Try watching Cathy Come Home,
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-51100189

That is the world I was born into.

I didn't realise I'd be banished to grans net at 50 my youngest will be 7 😂
I have noticed the ageism as well on her especially on COVID threads . If some posters had there way I'd be forced to isolated , how would I be able to do my job as a nurse though 🤔
Mumsnet need to sort this out as it's very obviousl