AIBU to think care homes need more age-appropriate entertainment?

[myislandhome]

My MIL is 91, born 1935. She has recently gone into a care home. So far, all of the entertainment in the home has been so dated - lots of WW2 focus, songs including roll out the barrel and white cliffs of dover etc. I do realise it's currently the D day celebration but it hasn't been just this weekend.
It's driving me mad, MIL was 10 when the war ended. She was in her 20's in the rock and roll era in the 50's. My own mother, who was in a nursing home until she died, was born in 1940 and had the same experience in her home; despite being in her prime in the late 50's/swinging 60's
AIBU to think that nursing homes need to up their game with their entertainment themes?

I remember the same attitude when I was in school. We did an entertainment for the people from the care homes in the town. This was in the late 70s, so all our songs were First World War themed rather than Second, but even so I couldn’t understand why the people planning it were so fixed on one period, as though our audience hadn’t experienced life beyond a war that had ended 60 years earlier.

Because many homes are staffed by young people who aren’t actually very bright and think all old people were fighting Hitler.

Fair point

I want to be in that care home too!

Lol same .😂

The war ended 80 years ago, so residents if any were very small kids then, it is an odd thing, same with bingo afternoons, why assume as you age you’ll like 1940s music and play bloody bingo!

The flip side of this is that Nirvana and Limp Bizkit are now on the classic rock stations!

Have you mentioned this to the management OP? You're clearly not wrong. My GPs were the war generation and they've been dead for 20 years.

I suppose it’s a generational thing.

if care homes are run by Gen X, those in their 50’s now, their experience of their own grandparents is that of people brought up in the war years.

my grandma was born in 1901 so that war time sing along was very much her genre.

many people must see “old” as “wartime generation”. Without thinking were another 30 years past that now and the current elderly generation were the 50’s and 60’s adults.

tbf it’s slightly scary, the 60’s wasn’t that long ago!

I know even to just about been able to have fought in the dying days of the second world someone would have to be nearly 100!

My mother was in a care home until she died last year, she was born in 1935 too.

They played some 1940s music but also loads of more recent stuff - Lionel Ritchie, Abba, Tina Turner, Queen, Status Quo etc. My mother loved it all and would sing along.

The residents definitely did respond well to the 1940s songs, they probably trigger childhood memories.

So IMO, my mother's care home got it right.

I'm a Gen X and these are my parents gen in homes now.

This could be my business idea. A care home for old clubbers! I want it to be full of old ravers like me, with a soundtrack of House/Rave and Trance classics. Sunday sessions of chilled Ibiza sunset sounds.

I will call it ‘Old’s Cool’ 😎

I suspect "what old people like" is handed down through the care team. And they probably pull out last years plans, so gradually get out of sync with what the people in homes actually like.

Ask to speak to the activity coordinator and bring up the issue!!

That's unfortunate.

I don't know if it's typical

My mum has had two respite periods in a care home. One of them coincided with an anniversary, so we did have wartime music for that but that's different.

Apart from that, they had a couple of entertainers in who played a good mix of music before taking requests. Requests were pretty varied. Mum asked for George Michael "faith" from the guitarist, I don't know what she requested from the pianist. I do remember her telling me what songs they had and it wasn't really old stuff. She also said someone else requested a Taylor Swift song but she couldn't remember which one it was.

They also had a music quiz which covered 80s till now. I went along for that one but they politely requested that me and mum weren't on the same team - I think that was to get people to mix more? We didn't mind anyway! Mum won the quiz with the help of a lady in her 30s I think. She was pleased lol.

There was lots of stuff on, but I really noticed that the lady who coordinated it all was brilliant. I think that one really motivated person who thinks everything through carefully makes such a difference.

I remember visiting one when I was in the Brownies and we were the hit of the place. We were like celebrities

I think the UK has a massive hangover whereby anyone old = world war 2. Growing up in the 1980s/90s, yes it was a given that elderly people were part of the wartime generation...but we really need to get past this.

Care homes do need to move with the times but my DM is in her 90s and her mind is now very much stuck in her childhood. Most memories she talks to us about are from the war and her family home. She is not yet in a care home, so it’s not like we are pushing that era on her.

talk about this with my mum and dad who said it would drive them to insanity. They are in their early 70’s and listened to northern soul and punk, bowie etc in their youth. Were born over 10years after the war ended. They really need to start mixing it up

You are absolutely spot on. My mum is 86 and used to attend a weekly social/ luncheon club run by a charity. A new manager took over and changed a lot of the entertainment to war time stuff. My mum left in protest. She was 21 in 1960 and loves Mowtown, Tina Turner, Bob Marley. Dame Vera Lyn was her parents’ generation.

YANBU - bring it up with the care home. The one my mum was in played quite a lot of 60s and 70s music, ABBA was popular.

But no doubt it will be Kylie and Rick Astley!

It’s not the long until most of the residents of care will be born after the Second World War. I agree they should at least try 1950s to 1980s….

Not universal. At my dad’s care home they get a lot of music from the 60s and 70s. It’s lovely watching them sing along and even dance.