AIBU to admit I hate spending time with my parents.

[SummerLover01]

My parents are in their late 60s, both retired a few years before the pandemic and I think the daily reduction in interaction with people after leaving work, combined with lockdowns has resulted in them losing any notion of an internal filter and they've become this true, unfiltered version of themselves.

They've become so bigoted and narrowminded and judgemental in the last 3 or 4 years.

If it's not all working class people are lazy it's:

People in council estates get everything handed to them on a plate

Young people could easily buy houses if they didn't have expensive mobile phone contracts

There's millions of immigrants coming here to live the life of luxury on every benefit under the sun and stay in hotels like they're on holiday

Autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety..... Etc...are all a product of people being too willing to give in and people just need to get on with it

Interest rates were 15% back in their day and people are fussing over nothing

People on strike need to get back to work, if Rishi says there's no more money left then there's no more money left

Brexit is a good thing

Climate change: well, it is what it is

God, as I write it all out it makes me so angry. Feels like any time we spend more than 5 mins talking my parents come out with home dreadful viewpoint, they completely lack empathy and are openly proud of their financial position (house, pension, savings) - most of which in reality have been achieved out of a combination of circumstance and good luck and seem to think that other people who aren't achieving the same level of "success" just aren't trying hard enough

Not sure why they're like this, my friends parents are retired and aren't at all like this, my aunts and uncles are all of a similar age and seem to be decent people...... just not my parents 🙄

Has anyone else found their parents seemed to have changed a lot after retirement and how did you cope with it?

Young people could easily buy houses if they didn't have expensive mobile phone contracts

Please please can you ask them to let me know where I can get a house for £12 a month!

Mil is like this so I unfriended her on FB. Some of the shit she spotted was bordering criminal. Much happier with her now. Mil proudly declared one day she will speak her mind at her age then turned into a raving racist. Who ironically doesn't have white or British family. But finds any prejudice towards them unbelievable.

My mum has always been like it. It astonishes me that she still thinks I will bite.

My FiL is like this. If it’s in the Mail it’s gospel. He is really quite racist, homophobic, hates people on benefits etc. He has always been like this though. He has been told by DH he is categorically not allowed to say anything racist or homophobic in our house. If he does, he won’t be invited back. And he has stuck to it. Doesn’t change his views but it stops us being angry about it and our young DC hearing his crap as well!

I would plan time limited get togethers that have a clear focus, e.g. a walk, a visit to a particular cafe or pub, whatever works for you and their life. Steer away from those topics, talk about family etc. Don't stay too long, don't add in alcohol, don't get bored basically as that's when lazy moaning conversations come up! Don't stay overnight. If you have DC try and focus on them and the 'little' things in their world, it can be a great buffer between you and parents. If the conversation does go to those things make sympathetic noises, be non committal and change the subject asap, don't get drawn into a debate it's not worth it! I get it, it's hard.

Many of my family are the same. I also wonder what I'll be miserable about when I'm old XD

I think it might be to do with being old and feeling a lack of control and sense of overwhelm. A lot of it covers fear and sadness I think.

Apparently everywhere if you just adjust your expectations and stop aiming for 4 bedroom detached houses that you just can't afford.

Oh, and I bet you've got Netflix.... And probably smoke too!

Honestly Hygge, you really need to knuckle down. 😂

I feel seen by this thread! Solidarity in the fact that there are so many of us! I manage my sanity by infrequent visits and handing the phone to the kids during the obligatory phonecalls!

It does sometimes make me feel a bit sad hoping that my kids won't feel this way in 30 years though...

I think it depends on your relationship generally. My parents are DM fans, racist, bigoted and homophobic. But they were also spiteful, uncaring and unsupportive, so it was very easy to end the relationship (and leave them to the golden child).

Likewise here, I empathise with all of you !

Ways that can help us cope with elderly parents / PILs are:
Take a game (cards, jigsaw, other game) that can be done together
Take / save a couple of "intersting news stories" that you can use to turn the conversation. "Oh look at that, there are beavers in Somerset now..."
Have a couple of stock phrases "We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.."
Have some topics which are "safe" - garden ? weather ? what was last night's supper where you tried a new recipe ?

One of the things that really upset me at Christmas was when I described being in our local supermarket where they had set up a wish tree where disadvantaged kids had written gift wishes on notes and you could take a tag, buy a gift, stick the lebal on it and put it in a box at the checkout

Some of the requests were heartbreaking - kids asking for colouring books and pencils etc... I'm getting teary now just thinking about it.

Mentioned to DM about buying a couple of things and how tragic it was.

And was met with a barrage of stereotypes about parents with sky tv2 and no jobs and new cars on credit and there's very few people in actual hardship and it's all a product of their poor life choices

Awful

Yes, my brother and I have had a tough few years coming to terms with our childhood and the very cold standoff-ish way we were raised. Yes we were fed, clothed and housed but on reflection there was very little in the way of nurture. Just a very functional unloving home.

As many have said, I don't think their views/personality/empathy are new, they've just been significantly heightened as they've left employment and have much more time to themselves to feed off one another

I think that you have to take into account that society has similarly changed and views which even 20 years ago which would’ve seemed middle of the road are now taken to be extreme right wing or even fascist by some younger people. I do know there are some things I don’t even talk about with my kids because I know my own views will rub them up the wrong way and we don’t want to have an argument. The best way to avoid an argument is not to have one in the first place and not to choose subjects where we will disagree. I think the best thing to do is to have a chat with your parents and say there are certain subjects you would like to avoid because you don’t want to spoil your time with them. There are surely a lot of things you can talk about without going into politics and whatever.

My FIL avidly reads the Daily (Hate) Mail and then quotes it back to us. I honestly think he would have a better view of the world without it. He dropped a couple of mildish clangers last time we saw them, a Donald Trump quote being amongst them! I avoid many topics of conversation with him because he is otherwise ok.

To be fair, given their views, you must have known that this would be a red rag to a bull. You can do your bit to keep the peace by not serving up targets for them to lash out at. A pp was right - this is all about their fear and unhappiness that their influence on the world is waning. They are trying to feel good about themselves and what they've achieved -are they smug or is it a type of toxic insecurity? Is talking about the past an option or do they turn everything into a rant?

My mum is like this and actually I do engage because I think, why should I just accept her ridiculous views? And they are ridiculous. (Eg voted Brexit because she didn’t like David Cameron, I mean come on).

So I am polite and just ask questions and counter her arguments and say I disagree and why. Much as I would with peers.

For some their views are a new thing, influenced by their world being smaller and the media they indulge in. We are from a non EU immigrant background. My Mother's two husbands were non EU immigrants. Like a pp it didn't stop her spouting racism. When I talked it through with her, she got it. I don't know if critical thinking gets less as we age. I had to challenge her. We've lived with racism all our lives, it was a strange phenomenon.

My late DH’s elderly aunt used to say “I never knew a nasty old lady who hadn’t also been a nasty young lady”.
I don’t think people suddenly transform into shits when they retire, they were probably always that way inclined!

I’m in my late sixties, and get on really well with my DDs who are both in their early thirties.
I’m a lifelong Tory, one DD is the Women’s Officer for the local Communist Party.
I’m a Christian, one DD is Buddhist and one atheist.
I voted Remain, one DD voted for Brexit. But we all happily agree to differ, and love each other to bits.

I have a family member who said she voted for Brexit because her neighbour down the road couldn't get her kid a place at the nearest school because "all the foreign children took the places"

The family member in question is not affected in any way by school places as she doesnt have kids and is past retirement age.

If I see her now I don't engage in any talk about anything like that, I just make myself busy with making a cup of tea or seeing to my daughter or something like that.

I think they hold two separate lots of views ones that are definitely racist etc and ones that are just more right wing than yours, there is a big difference between anti-semiticism and thinking that Brexit was the right choice,
since Brexit and the Scottish independnce vote I think people have become less tolerant of opposing political views instead of being able to have a robust debate then a hug it becomes too personal, whether it is echo chambers or social media I'm not sure but to me there just seems so much less tolerance

Tolerance by definition means putting up with stuff you don't agree with and / or like, if you agree or like it, it's not tolerance

My parents are like this too. It's one of the reasons I'm not planning to retire early if I can help it- I think staying out in the world keeps you in touch with things and open to different ideas.

Agree with pp about trying to keep conversation to family news, friends etc. I also find it helpful when my parents go off on one to try to think of myself as an interviewer, not a debater. It's not my job to try to win the argument or even to engage with the argument- rather, I can participate in the conversation just by asking questions (and not questions designed to prove a point either). I'm basically David Dimbleby.

This came after many years of actually trying to persuade them around to my view, and realising that it was never going to work and just caused upset. They have their views and I have mine and that's ok.

(All this only works for differences of political opinion, not eg racism which I would find much harder to cope with.)

I hear you, I thought my mum was quite liberal when growing up. Then she retired, started readying the Mail, and watching GB news. Before I expressly told her to stop sending me them, I used to get random ranty WhatsApp messages from her, on everything from Covid conspiracies, to Meghan Markle. Why she cares about what Meghan Markle does is anyone's guess, she's never met her and likely never will, and I didn't think she was much of a Royalist. I think she's just totally been sucked in by the RW media, because she's doesn't seem to realise it's not moderate. That combined with posts on Facebook from people she knows with similar views, and it reinforces the idea that her views are shared by everyone, she doesn't realise that they're not. I guess she must agree with those RW views to a degree, or she'd read/watch something else. That has been a very disappointing realisation for me.

We don't spend much time together anymore, and we don't often talk. She may be entitled to her views, but I think less of her every time she expresses them, she's just not very nice. I've tried to politely debate, but it makes no difference, conversations are short and strictly family related now.

Can you engineer to meet at things so there’s something to talk about eg national trust - talk about flowers & cake in cafe or a show to keep conversation to a minimum.

You have my sympathies, OP, had to deal with similar comments from relatives yesterday.

• All of the hotels in Liverpool being booked up for Eurovision would otherwise be full of illegal immigrants.
• People only stay on long-term benefits because they’re lazy.
• And also an entirely random outburst about Eddie Izzard, apropos of nothing.

It’s quite exhausting, isn’t it? It also feels like no topic can possibly be safe, because they’ll quite happily divert into completely unrelated rants. I braced myself when they put the football on, but fortunately it was another presenter and not Gary Lineker, so we managed to dodge that one.

Yes I don't think there's anything wrong with different political views, but in the case of my mother, the views are often based in bigotry. I don't think that's OK, that goes beyond just a difference of opinion. My problem is that my mother often doesn't realise she's being racist, or that the news outlet of her choice is racist. If she met a non-white person, she'd be very pleasant, she wouldn't intentionally think less of them, but the prejudices are there.

I think you are being a bit unreasonable as it seems from your updates you only see them once a month for about 45 minutes?

Surely in that time you can just keep the conversation to general topics, update on what you have been doing, tv, weather, gardening etc.

You young people have no resilience if you are feeling under a cloud after 45 minutes 😂