My parents have become insufferable.

[PleasePleasePleaseDontProve]

I am really struggling with my parents. Both are mid-sixties, retired. It seems since retirement they have become quite bigoted, insufferable and insular in their viewpoints. Every time I meet up with them conversations revolve around:

• Illegal immigration / people on benefits / Reform and Nigel Farage. Essentially focussing around the latest GB news story (which they watch religiously).
• Their latest or ongoing health ailments and how poor, in their view, the NHS is.
• Unnecessary and rude descriptions to describe other people (could be random strangers) or people they know. For example, ‘our fat neighbour has put on tons of weight.’

I used to have a fantastic relationship with my parents, particularly my father, and I’m sure he wasn’t always like this. I’m starting to dislike meeting up with them as their attitudes seem to have changed towards life and people in general, and they constantly want to discuss the latest GB News story.

Has anybody else found this has happened to their parents?

Mine are late 80s, never watched GB News and are exactly the same about immigration, although not the NGS tbf. Maybe someone released an asshole virus?

Don’t worry!

Reform has launched an app to track small boats to see how many migrants are coming into this country every day and how much it’s costing us - to protect the public and be honest with us.

Although weirdly, they’ve stated a 670% (not a typo) increase in the actual figures - it’s not like them to lie 🤦‍♀️

Are they literate though.

My parents are exactly the same. GB News on constantly in the background, terrible bigoted views. we’ve all said we can’t stand to be around them any more. It’s so sad, they are, deep down, kind and lovely people. We call it being “captured” by Reform. Many of my friends’ parents are the same. I feel for you.

It's not ageist to discuss this... I am Gen X myself and we have noticed some 60's aged friends of ours get really radicalized... It was COVID when a couple of our friends went off the deep end... One got bound over by the Police for ripping facemasks off people! He also tried to bring up the matter again at a funeral of a mutual friend and I literally had to talk him down when he wanted to check with the dead person's family!! (the cause of death was nothing to do with vaccines) And the other called me crying telling me not to take the vaccine or give it to my children as it was a death sentence... (I had almost died when I had COVID because it gave me lung clots, you couldn't get me in there fast enough...he told me it was a hoax) The same person posted a meme about Michelle Obama being a man (using a doctored photo) and just last week was celebrating the masked wankers in Portsmouth. Saying that all immigrants should be locked up, you know, the protecting our women shit. I have known him for over 35 years, he was always a bit of a 'do your own research ' type but harmless really but that has calcified in him (my DH is an immigrant and his BF is one too) and has made him really nasty. I noticed all the people on his thread cheering him on were men of the same age. I cannot contact him again. I am done. This 24 hour news cycle and constant social media really harms some people, it is designed to be addictive and if it bleeds, it leads... we love the bad news. Another friend's Mum is an avowed GB news watcher and online all the time and seemingly hates everyone and everything and is really Islamophobic despite not having ever knowingly met a Muslim person! It is a thing and nightmarish if it is your own parents, it's bad enough when it's our old friends.

@Clocksgobackautumngirl Have you gone NC with them? It's very difficult when they were loving parents growing up.

My parents are early to mid 70s although don’t watch gb news their Facebook seems to be feeding them fake or right wing news all the time so yes I have noticed rather alarming statements. They also had limited education normal at that time so not sure if they can fully tell fact from fiction. I’ve encouraged other interests which seems to help.

No. My mum is nearly 80 and quite liberal. She's been the same as what I remember growing up.

A kind, understanding an tolerant woman (if a bit too much of a people pleaser)

She didn't suddenly become a pensioner and start watching and agreeing with very bigoted views.

I'm of the mind nobody suddenly his mid sixties and thinks 'actually, I hate brown people'. I believe it's views they've always held but never voiced them.

Funny really, the generation who are now in their 60s (I'm one, my generation) came of age with with punk, Rock Against Racism and the Anti Nazi League. Very sad if substantial numbers now espose the rhetoric of GB News, but maybe they were always like it and its now acceptable to express, which says something. My core beliefs haven't and won't change and I'm sure I'm not the only older person that applies to.

No, i wouldn’t dream of it. I just call them out on it every single time. It’s exhausting, but I love them. I only see them once a week now though. Otherwise it would drive me mad. We all feel sad about it. I just hate Farage.

My DH and I have some elderly family members like this. My DH asks deliberately controversial questions while I drink lots of wine to get through it!

My parents still work (early 60s) AND work in social services and are like this 🥴🥴🥴 (I work in the NHS in a professional higher level role and they make out like I am an idiot lol) I’m now no contact, as their relationship is really codependent, emotionally immature and every contact with them was just them moaning about someone, calling someone fat, moaning about people at work, asking for favours, dismissing my own knowledge or opinions etc. and just really fuckin negative. they both have no friends (more because he has isolated my mum from people as he’s morbidly jealous) and they neglect their own health but moan about the NHS waiting lists etc. eg my mum fell down the stairs drunk and moaned she hadn’t heard from physio but refused to phone them to chase it up?
it’s not an easy decision to go no contact and sometimes it’s painful, but childhood experiences meant I was on edge during every interaction as they blow so hot and cold and it’s is the lesser of two evils for me to not speak to them now.

"Mum was 21 in 1960 and so they lived through the 'swinging' 60s with peace, love and flower power. They had friends and colleagues from all races and religions."

In that case, your mum was likely a very unusual person.

At the time of the 1961 Census, the population of England & Wales was 46,104,548.

Of those, 192,031 (0.42%) were from India, Pakistan or Ceylon (nowadays Sri Lanka). A further 171,293 (0.37%) from the British Caribbean Territories. There were also 35,461 (0.08%) from British African Territories.

In addition to this there were 179,338 (0.45%) from other Commonwealth areas and 722,160 (1.6%) from foreign countries and 762,203 (1.7%) from Ireland.

Now, I wouldn't exactly count the Irish as foreigners (although they technically are) so, leaving them out, in 1961 there were around 1,300,283 (2.8%) people living in the UK who were born in a different country.

Or, to put it another way, 97.2% of the population were white British.

That your mum knew multiple people of different ethnicities suggests that she was living in one of very few places in the UK where this could be true.

These places included Birmingham 38,260 (3.46%), Islington 29,074 (12.73%), Wandsworth (26,044) 7.5%, Willesdon 22,777 (13.32%), Lambeth 21,747 (9.72%), Paddington 21,329 (18.24%), Hackney 19,840 (12.04%), Manchester 19,730 (2.98%), Hendon 17,830 (11.74%), Bradford 14,872 (5.03%), Leeds 14,013 (2.74%).

Outside of these few northern cities and parts of London, the UK in the 1960s was overwhelmingly white British (and even then, even Birmingham was 96.4% British and Bradford was 95% British)** .

.

"I'm in my 60s and grew up in the 1980s under Thatcher where we (myself and my friends/cohort) were extremely politicised - we marched for miners, "

I'm very likely a very similar age to yourself. The first time I voted was in the 1983 general election and I voted Conservative. I've voted at every election since then, I do believe that it is important to vote.

I remember back then speaking to a couple of girls who were slightly older than me who had been at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. We had quite a spirited debate and eventually agreed to disagree.

I'd just point out that just because a person disagrees with your politics or your point of view that does not mean that they are "racist, right wing bigots who vote Reform and hate 'foreigners' "

[EDIT]

Curiously, the areas with the absolute highest percentage of foreigners were Huntingdon, Mildenhall and Hunstanton. With around 25% of the population being born abroad.

Although, in these cases this was down to the local US air force bases which had thousands of US servicemen. Although, they were just here as expats rather than immigrants.

Er no.

DH & I are mid-60s & continue to hold quite liberal views.

My parents- late 80s - are the same.

They read The Times, but don’t like its editorial stance. We get our news from the Guardian & BBC website . We would never dream of watching GB News.

My Mother was not living in the UK in the 1960s. She and my father lived and worked all over the world. HTH.

@Clocksgobackautumngirl I just wondered. My strategy is to let it wash over me and change the subject! My Dad is nearly 90 and unwell so I try to be gentle with him, I couldn't cut him off at this stage in his life. Tbf he mainly moans about his ailments, less about politics.

I think you are right that level of education had a lot to do with it.

I used to be like lots of the people on here, tutting at their parents’ views, the things they talk about etc. Now I’m older and can see how much I’ve changed over the years. I never thought my politics would change, let alone just how much, but they have. I guess age, time, life, experiences, the world around us, they all show us things as we go along so it’s not really that surprising that things like this change as we age.

I just agree to disagree with my niece now. But it is like looking back at myself 30+ years ago!

It’s probably because it’s all they’ve been consuming (and it won’t change unless they change their feed, really).

Yes, it rings a bell. I’m actually the only one in my (birth) family, who voted remain. My dh is from the EU and my mother just presumed I was pro brexit. I had to explain that my husband is from there. Former SIL - oh yeh, I didn’t think of that. My dad died years and years ago. He was left wing, so idk what he’d have made of this as he was relatively young.

My mother is in her 80s. She and her now partner witter on and on. Personally I can’t stand the supercilious prick. He has been insufferably rude to me and I think he makes her even worse. He thinks he has class or sophistication or whatever, because he has a posh accent. I humbly disagree. Some of 18 yo dd’s teen male friends (just comparing men here) have more of both in their little finger than he will even have. Rant over.

It sounds like we have the same parents! Following for responses as struggling with it myself

Mine are in their 80s. My sister would like to NC them but I won’t let her. They are good, kind people. They are just vulnerable to that crap because they’re very old.

So not exactly a typical 21 year old then? How many people in their twenties were living "all over the world" in the 1960s?

A rather different experience from a typical 21 year old growing up in the 1960s in say Nottingham, Derby or Gloucester for example?

Not my parents but my elderly aunt and uncle. I have to brace myself for everything they are about to say - especially around my youngest DC. They were not like this when I was young!

Not my parents but my elderly aunt and uncle. I have to brace myself for everything they are about to say - especially around my youngest DC. They were not like this when I was young!