To be annoyed by the 'in my day' comments

[Citycat1]

I'm 40, and it seems I am encountering more and more comments from people above 60 saying life was so different 'in their day'

Examples:
L.A issue a heat warning on FB. Relative starts a rather negative reply about how in their day, in the summer of '76 they used common sense. Yes, I get it, and I LOVE the heat, but there are many vulnerable people that may suffer or end up in a&e and the NHS is put under strain. I'm thinking frail elderly as one example group. So I cab see why warnings are in place.

My DD currently has chicken pox. I ask a lady (staff in boots) for some zinc oxide cream. She says there's no calamine lotion. I explain politely that actually that's not recommended anymore as it dries the skin and makes itching worse. I get 'in my day it was fine' and a roll of the eyes.

My mum regularly tells me how things in the 70's were so much better. I'm sure some things were....but some were not. And to berate my whole generation because you don't understand the next one is belittling.

I'm sure it happens in each generation but it just irks me. Or AIBU and things really were better 'in their day ?

I'm going to keep my lip zipped and just wait for the OP to turn into a "daft gammon" in a couple of decades' time.

Every generation of parents does their best for their children. They follow the up to date advice. That advice changes over time; sometimes it even changes back again.

I’m 67 and I agree with you OP.

I belong to several ‘older People’s’ FB groups and am always pointing out that the World has moved on and things are different now…..not better, not worse, just different. We used to get the same old bollocks from our elders in the 1960/70s and we should have learned from that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Totally annoys me too- I get the ‘I put you and your siblings on your side and you rolled around the car with no car seat and you turned out ok’
BUT
I wonder what the next generation will be looking back with horror at us for and will you be able to resist the ‘we did it in my day’ comments when you are 70.
Imagine if putting your baby in a sling is a complete health risk and no one would ever do it, You never take a child under 1 swimming due to health issues, it’s dangerous to put babies to sleep on their backs and now side sleeping is best, pregnant women should never drink milk or eat wheat, sleeping bags / gro bags are a total no, disposable nappies are completely banned and people 30 years on from now simply can’t comprehend that we ever used them, babies were fed on a strict schedule as new research shows feeding on demand is actually not the best for baby long term at all. Young children should never be baby led weaned and what the hell were we all thinking giving them non mushed / puréed foods before the age of 1.
Just could be anything. Let’s see if you resist in 30 years. I hope I do!

There was still poverty and people did things we now know not to do - like sunbathing while sitting on tinfoil in the park, or dunking the baby's dummy in advocaat to make it sleep. Although that last one might have just been my nan!

😂😂😂

There's still poverty and people still sunbathe even though now they know not to. Although I'm not sure how many of them slather the homemade mixture of olive oil and vinegar over their legs to make them fry like my school mates and I used to do!

My favourite tweet this week:

'Anyone around from the 1976 heatwave who can tell us how they coped with it? I bet it was probably by catching nits, playing on train tracks and drinking mercury or something? They could just deal with it then. Not like kids these days who have vegan smartphones for hands.'

@AnybodyAnywhere thank you. It's not that any generation is better or worse. Just things are different. I can already see how different things are for my children. I need to educate myself on some things eg social media. No idea about tik tok for example. But I'm not thinking 'well in my day we didn't have this' I'm just thinking 'well this is different, let's get clued up on it'

You might be surprised to know that many people over 60 think just the same way as you

I don’t know. It’s daft to think no times could ever be better than others. I mean on this thread we have people saying music today is just as good as it’s ever been. Really? The two decades in which Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Cardi B and One direction have been the most popular groups were better than the two decades that brought you the birth of Rocknroll, Elvis, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, The stones, Hendrix as well as old guys like Sinatra? I mean cmon, the old times were obviously much better in that regard. That’s true in many instances.

Then there’s changes that some like and others don’t. For instance when I used to work in a supermarket If often here older (not that old though) ladies complain about women in managerial positions or else someone’s daughter working too much etc, for them the new times were a drag because they enjoyed that kind of family life so probably so many broken families and two parents working does seem much worse. Then there are the other women of their generation who weren’t fulfilled in that time who probably wish they were born later.

Its not as simple as all generations say that about the next at all.

Same shit but different really, it’s not ok to call someone a “snowflake” or a “gammon”. On bonfire night, DD’s guide troup made them wear gloves and stick their sparkler in a carrot, would have preferred it if the guide leader had been able to make an assumption they’d all seen a safety advert.

I remember the days of go to work on an egg. Eggs were regarded as a good food. Then they became the devils food. They'll give you cholesterol and kill you. Now were back to they're great and actually a healthy power-pack.

Low fat diets were de rigueur. Now, the wheel is turning and scientists are moving against that. Carbs were healthy for diabetes sufferers, now the advice is to cut carbs. It's very confusing to know what to believe.

There really isn’t.

Of course things were better for them, they had their youth & nothing will beat that feeling.

I see many many comments on here about how easy it was for the boomer generation? Are they acceptable?

In my day, cheeky whippersnappers were sent to their room without supper. Off you go. No arguments.

You're the age of my dd. And five years younger than my love-interest. Am I supposed to take you seriously? 😂

@sweeneytoddsrazor
Any application of the term 'boomer' is unacceptable.

I'm one of the older people here and lots of things are definitely better now, though there are a few things that are worse.
Politics is worse - when I was young we were going into the EU and now we have sadly left it.

Interesting thought though - if it was easier for the “boomer” generation as is often claimed on here then does that mean they have more justification to say things overall were better in their day?

I was a teenager in the 1970s and I used to here this all the time " back in my day " etc , got it off my parents "you lot don't know your born yadayada" got it off old biddies in the supermarket, got it everywhere. So it's by no means a modern day thing.
I should think every generation gets earache from the "oldies" 😂

”too many do-gooders these days”
Oh I’m sorry, when did doing something good become a bad thing?

Same twats that use woke as an insult.

I love ‘it never did me any harm’ and you look at them and think um yes it did 😂

I’m with you OP. I always found that calamine lotion was drying my DD’s skin too much.

As to ‘olden days’…. my friend usually says: ‘ of course, it’s better because you were younger’

Maybe if you’d not tried to educate a woman working in Boots with some rubbish, but had asked politely she may have responded differently.

I'm 73 and I can honestly, hand on heart, say that I have never ever used the expression 'in my day' in a 'things were better in my day' way.

Some things were, some weren't and, as pp said, everyone's youth is seen as better regardless of what was going on at the time.

I had a whale of a time in the 70s even though there were strikes all over the place and problems everywhere.

Interested to see that calamine lotion is no longer used for chicken pox though, as when my son had chicken pox in the early 80s it was the go to treatment that was supposed to help with the itching.

Did it hell. It made the itching 50 times worse. Stopped using it after the first use when I realised the poor kid was better off without it.

Can't believe it's taken this long to ditch it.

It’s two degrees hotter, and for a much shorter time. It was over thirty degrees for sixteen days in a row in 1976.

Sorry OP give it time and one day you will hear yourself uttering a sentence that begins “well in my day…..” you’ll hear yourself saying it and think oh no, I’ve become one of them. 😬

Well that’s exactly how it should be used. As you’ve just shown, it’s pretty much completely about virtue signaling rather than doing anything virtuous.