Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think the Golden Girls had a great living arrangement

86 replies

Twinstudy · 01/08/2021 10:59

And wonder why more people don't do it?

I recently noticed golden girls was on Disney+ and remembered my mum watching it when I was younger so put it on for a bit of nostalgia.

Four older divorced/widowed women living in a house share just seems like a great idea to me. Lots of women in their situation find themselves lonely and struggling financially so this just seems like a perfect solution. Obviously lots of people would hate it and it'd need to be a pretty big house but in a lot of ways it seems ideal to me but it's not something I've come across in real life.

OP posts:
eightyfourandahalf · 01/08/2021 16:39

I'd go on a self-catering holiday with a couple of friends first. That's usually enough to put a lot of people off!

Waxonwaxoff0 · 01/08/2021 16:42

YANBU. I'm single, not interested in a relationship and I'd love that type of arrangement when DS moves out!

earlydoors42 · 01/08/2021 16:51

I always threaten my mum with Shady Pines! (joke btw)

AngryWhompingWillow · 01/08/2021 18:57

@Happycow37

It’s definitely a thing that people looked older back in the day. My Gran at 52 (in 1984 when I was born) looked like the Golden Girls, full head of white hair and wore wee old lady trousers, cardi’s and tops. But she did wear fashionable Reebok and Nike trainers. My mum is now a similar age (54) and looks nothing like a wee old lady. She’s let her hair grow into it’s natural salt and pepper colour but it’s cut in a trendy style. She wears the latest trainer styles. She definitely doesn’t wear any twinsets, although she did buy a full jogging suit during lockdown which I teased her for.

@CounsellorTroi

Absolutely. I'm 60 and my mother looked matronly at my age.

All of this. ^ Women defo looked much more frumpy and older 2 or 3 generations or so back. Well most of them anyway. Film stars looked fab, but 'ordinary' women looked way more frumpy than women do these days...

I mean, can you actually BELIEVE Hilda Ogden was 38, when she first started in Coronation Street.

This is how she looked at 38!!! Shock ^

Some women I know of 38, can pass for late 20s. 'Hilda' looks a generation older than her age there. I know it was just a character, but a lot of women - pre 1960s did (as has been said,) look much older and more frumpy than they do now.

To think the Golden Girls had a great living arrangement
To think the Golden Girls had a great living arrangement
PearlFriday · 01/08/2021 19:03

What age was hilda ogden in that photo?
She did seem to be an older woman for 35 years so it wouldnt surprise me if she were only 51 there!

PearlFriday · 01/08/2021 19:03

Oh, 38! Omg

AngryWhompingWillow · 01/08/2021 19:11

@PearlFriday

What age was hilda ogden in that photo? She did seem to be an older woman for 35 years so it wouldnt surprise me if she were only 51 there!
She was 38.

38!!! Shock

PearlFriday · 01/08/2021 19:14

No wonder it seemed like she was 65 for 40 years!

LadyLolaRuben · 01/08/2021 19:15

Yes, I've seen a few articles where families/people have joined forces and bought a massive house. Have private and communal areas. There's support and help around and peace and quiet too. I think its the future

AngryWhompingWillow · 01/08/2021 19:17

@PearlFriday

No wonder it seemed like she was 65 for 40 years!
Grin
FourTeaFallOut · 01/08/2021 19:20

Given the cascade of maladies that stem from loneliness and the sheer expense of living alone, I think it's a bloody brilliant idea.

Proudboomer · 01/08/2021 19:24

I couldn’t think of anything worse than living with 3 other menopausal women.
It also suggests somewhat that if you are past 50 you don’t have or want a sex life.

RandomDent · 01/08/2021 19:24

Agreed about women looking older. My grandmother died in her early 60s but always dressed like an old lady - grey permed hair (shampoo and set), big glasses, housecoat. My mum (her daughter) is in her 70s now and still looks younger than my grandmother was when she died.

AliceMcK · 01/08/2021 19:26

@ParadiseLaundry

I started watching it the other day and was shocked to see it described them as 'middle aged women' Shock when I was a kid watching it I always thought they were elderly! I suppose watching it now they were probably only meant to be in their 50s, were their exact ages specified?

But yes, I think it would be a great set up! All the midnight chats and cheesecake! Yes please!

Hahaha I had this exact conversation with my DH last night as I started watching it this week too. They seemed so old when I was a kid, but now they look so much younger especially Estelle Getty, it’s so easy to see past the wig and glasses now to see her features.

I lived in house shares like this in my 20s & early 30s, there was one with a house of 4 girls, it was fantastic as we all got on and would hang out. The only difference to the Golden Girls was we’d be up drinking wine and cocktails rather than eating cheesecake 😂

Ponoka7 · 01/08/2021 19:26

Re them being Widowed in their 50's, for that generation that wouldn't be that unusual. A few of the father's of my peer group had died of heart attacks by senior school, in the early 80's. People would drink drive and car accidents were more fatal, as were lots of things.

It worked for them because they didn't have grandchildren, only dated solvent men and had no other friends.

veeeeh · 01/08/2021 19:41

Extroverts would be fine, introverts who like their own company, not so much.
I would put myself in the introvert category and the thoughts of having to share at that stage of my life would fill me with dread. We are all different.
There will always be one person who rules the roost and is happy clappy up for everything and if you dare not join in, you are odd as two left feet.
Sorry for the negative vibe, but I am happy living alone in my three bed house with a nice view, great neighbours and so on. I am a little older now so am future proofing the house by adding on a downstairs shower room and utility and making the underused front lounge into a den/future bedroom. Sounds mad? Will be worth it for my way of life.
I will let out the upstairs portion and make a kitchen/living room out of two of the bedrooms and still have a bedroom and bathroom. Good income stream which I hope will be tax free under lodger rules. But even if not it will give me something extra in retirement. Upstairs will have their own door up the stairs from the hallway, it will be separate.
Sharing is not for everyone.
I LOVED GGs. My late mother spent her last days in a lovely nursing home and we never called it anything other than Shady Pines lol.

GreenClock · 01/08/2021 19:44

It wouldn’t be for me but I’d like to live in a neighbourhood with friends. Would need my own house though.

GetTaeFuck · 01/08/2021 19:51

I’m an introvert and I’d be fine living with any my friends, assuming I’d have my own bedroom.

No more than 2, though. Unless it was a fucking massive house.

GetTaeFuck · 01/08/2021 19:53

Having said that, if 6 bedroom houses weren’t eye wateringly expensive, I’d move in with one of my friends right now, kids and pets included.

eightyfourandahalf · 01/08/2021 19:54

Extroverts would be fine, introverts who like their own company, not so much.

I am not even sure. I'm rather extrovert, but I still need some privacy and my own space.

Original poster
Twinstudy · 01/08/2021 19:57

@Proudboomer

I couldn’t think of anything worse than living with 3 other menopausal women. It also suggests somewhat that if you are past 50 you don’t have or want a sex life.
I don't see why it suggests you wouldn't have or want a sex life. loads of people in their 20s and 30s live in house shares and I don't think it stops them having a sex life. Also if you've ever seen golden girls it certainly didn't stop Blanche 😄
OP posts:
Honeyroar · 01/08/2021 20:04

I knew a group of four gay guys at my last workplace. They were in their 60s. They’d just sold their respective houses and bought a huge seafront house together. It had a huge kitchen and living room that they shared, but each guy had a large en-suite bedroom with its own smaller living room. They’d enough money left over from their houses (they’d moved out of London) that they would hopefully be able to have a housekeeper/carer when they got older. They’d done it because none of them had family that would be around to look after them in later life. I thought it was quite clever.

BorderlineHappy · 01/08/2021 20:08

Paul Rudd is the same age now as Wilfred Brimley was in Cocoon.

Women certainly looked older years ago.
My mam never wore trainers and only wore sandals with tights
And had her hair Permed in her 40s.
She looked at least a decade older.

Taytocrisps · 01/08/2021 20:16

Sounds great in theory but of course, we never see them in the kitchen trying to cook dinner at the same time and in each others way. Or arguing because someone didn't do the hoovering/clean the bathroom. Or ate someone's food/drank their bottle of wine etc.

Also, the house belonged to Blanche and at one stage she got engaged and the others were wondering where they'd live if she moved her husband in. Blanche had a daughter and if anything happened to her, the daughter might have put the house up for sale, leaving the others homeless.

GetTaeFuck · 01/08/2021 20:17

There are photos of my Grandmother holding me when she was 52 and holding my DD at 72 and she looks exactly the same.