Do you find that the older generation are not really taking this seriously?

[MySofaHasACatOnIt]

My parents are in their 60s and are very ‘yeah yeah whatever’ about this. My 90-year-old grandmother has completely poo-pooed my concerns when I suggested she stop going to the library every other day and to stay home if possible. Her response? ‘We managed to live through small pox during the war!’

All of my friends/colleagues who all have parents who are 60 plus have said that they’re not taking this seriously at all, with many thinking they know better than the majority if European governments. Completely not fussed about it, still going to mass gatherings, still traveling etc

Meanwhile people I know in their 30s/20s etc seem genuinely worried, are taking precautions etc. No one is panicking but they are being sensible, whereas the older generation I know are almost treating it all as a joke!

Anyone else finding this?

@loppy10
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Baby boomers were certainly non spoilt. You claim there parents wanted them to have everything. Women were expected to stay at home, food was still rationed. There was no money for extras etc.

DM is the same, only way I get through to her is my pointing out the risk to DDad, who might not be completely fine through having no time or patience to be ill
But to be honest I would probably be the same if I was her.

Yes !!

Mine are really worried and panicky, yet simultaneously fucking outraged at the suggestion they might have to stay in for four months.

My parents are in their 70s and have taken the decision to self isolate until the whole thing blows over.

They aren't prepared to take a risk with their health.

I'm taking it way more seriously than most of my younger friend and colleagues

@Loppy10 it’s my generation that have had everything, I’m in my 40’s and that was thanks to my parents, ie the boomer generation. Tell my mum she had everything when she was a child carer to my grandmother who was left with a disability after the 50’s polio epidemic. There was a social services of sorts but all they offered to do was put my mother and her siblings into care. They didn’t offer support.

Post war the boomers grew up with nothing, most were dirt poor, further education didn’t really exist unless you were wealthy, they left school and got a job, no central heating, many still had outside toilets, food was still rationed. Discrimination, domestic violence and child abuse was rife.

I think the only bonuses they had were house prices were low and you could leave one job and find another the same day.
Dh and I brought our first house in the 90’s, it was £30,000. My parents gave us the £3,000 deposit, the 90’s were still a time when you could get a job, start at the bottom and work your way up with little qualifications, this is what dh did. House prices went up and we moved to a bigger house several years later, it was £54,000, that house is now worth £270k. Most of my friends got a leg up financially due to their boomer parents. We are the lucky generation. Not them, they have seen hard times, I haven’t and neither have my friends who I grew up with.
You talk rubbish. I do not understand the hatred for boomers. Many are now helping out their grandchildren.

Thank you @ditheringdoris you are absolutely right.

To be fair to a lot of them especially in their 80/90s, they probably feel indestructible having survived many wars and god knows how many disease outbreaks.

Good for them i guess but it doesn't stop the younger ones worrying about them. This country would not be the same if it was not for the sacrifices our parents and grand parents made and we feel we have a duty to protect them from this virus because of what they have been through in the past!

I have nothing of any use to add to this, or any other of the dozens of threads. I'm sad, angry and scared though.

I'm 60 so officially one of the 'oldies' mentioned on another thread. I'm also one of the 'baby boomers' that another poster accuses refers as having plundered their generations' future. I've never known the utopia that these years are said to have delivered, gift wrapped, to my door without my having to contribute something to it for the good of everyone. I've been happy to do that. I've worked since I was 12, I had to.

My dad is 86 and has quite advanced dementia, lives alone and resolutely refuses to accept ANY help from outside the family. He will go out and about no matter what we do as he doesn't have capacity to understand and retain information. Social care and health services are unable to support him. To be honest, his quality of life now has made me wish that he will quietly and peacefully die in his sleep but he has COPD so he has a triple whammy and is likely to die in miserable and distressing circumstances.

I work full time in the NHS. In CAMHS actually. We often come under fire on MN for how crap we are at helping children, young people and their parents. I feel like we are fire-fighting at the best of times and everyone I work with who isn't officially off sick or self isolating is coming in and doing a full days face to face work. I'm one of the older and most senior member of my clinical colleagues (not including Consultant Psychs). The other day someone (a parent I assume) stole one of the hand sanitisers from the reception desk.

Ideally I would like to self isolate to protect myself and others. That would mean not going into work at all, but maybe working from home doing telephone calls if I stay well. It means not socialising, even with my children, unless online or on the phone. It means not seeing my dad. It means ensuring I can access a reasonable supply of food and medicines to last however long it takes for the situation to have been managed (and I swing between total lockdown and herd immunity approaches but I feel more convinced by the lockdown method).

It means ensuring I know that I can access vet meds for my cat who has HCM and will die an awful death if she isn't medicated - or if that is not possible to make a decison to euthanase whilst she is in a period of stability. All this whilst staying put in my home for as long as it takes.

A friend of mine, who I consider the calmest, most reasoned, well educated and sensible person I know, phoned me yesterday and asked me what I thought he should do about looking after his grandchildren, which he does to support their parents working full time. That he didn't know and was turning to me was a shock; it's usually me turning to him!

@Loppy10 has described my parents to a T! I love them but their entitlement is next level.

My parents are in their sixties and do seem to be taking it seriously. But i do think the older you are and the more you've lived through, the more you can put something like this in perspective. Part of the problem for younger people is that we don't really know what level of concern or preparation is appropriate. If you can remember doing nuclear drills during the cold war, or going down to the air raid shelter and listening to the bombs falling outside, you might be less worried about a virus.

That’s very true Ruffle. I remember the terror of Chernobyl, it puts everything in perspective.

My MIL doesn’t seem to realise that she is actually at risk - she is 76 and has breathing problems caused by smoking (which she still does - heavily) and has had a heart attack in the last few years.

I think the main problem is she sees the main evening news and that’s it - and I don’t think it’s given her a real appreciation of how serious it could actually be.

She just got back from holiday and is planning other trips around the uk in the next few weeks.

My grandmother is 85 and lives in a sheltered accommodation complex. They get hammered with sickness bugs etc every year, once it’s there it spreads like anything.

I dreading someone there getting it.

Absolutely, yes and it's so hard to know what to do.

My MIL is 70 and has just come back from mass where they've been told not to open the hall for coffee afterwards - which they're not happy about at all. She said they've all gone out together for coffee instead, saying happily "the cafe was packed!"

When we try to voice our concerns or ask her to consider limiting her exposure to lots of people she tells us we're scaremongering.

Well said @DitheringDoris

Post war the boomers grew up with nothing, most were dirt poor, further education didn’t really exist unless you were wealthy, they left school and got a job

I basically agree with your general sentiment. I think people forget how much quality of life has improved in many ways since 1950s. But this part about education isn't really true for the baby boomers (it was true for earlier generations). My mother's family definitely wasn't wealthy. Born in 1947. First part of childhood they all lived in grandparent's small, terraced house with yard and outside loo. Then they got a council house. But she went to free grammar school and free university (not if you didn't pass 11+ though)

Though until 1972 the school leaving age was 15 so many left then (so the cohort of bbers born before 1957) - I don't know what percentage, but I don't think it was insignificant. And in the early 1960s only about 5% went to university.

Post war the boomers grew up with nothing, most were dirt poor, further education didn’t really exist unless you were wealthy, they left school and got a job

I was born in 1953 and don’t recognise this at all. There was a burgeoning middle class and the reason most didn’t go into higher education was because there was no need to. If you left school with A levels, you walked into the kind of job graduates are fighting over now. At least half of my grammar school sixth form went to university. Grammar schools were a great leveller, they opened up opportunities to everyone, regardless of wealth - or the lack thereof.

Yes by late 1960s/early 70s the % going to university had gone up - although still only 14% of school leavers by the end of the 70s, interestingly!

I think the gap between grammar school and secondary modern in the 1960s was massive - CSEs rather than GCSEs, many leaving at 15, etc.

I do agree that these days you need a degree to get many jobs that used to be A level entry, and that has as Also suggests driven some to go to university these days who otherwise wouldn't have particularly wanted to.

We are above average risk so practising social distancing. However some people live alone and feel that if they have to stay in their mental health would suffer to the point where they'd kill themself so better to take their chances with the virus. If I was 90 I'd probably feel that way.

The panic and hysteria on mumsnet is pointless, I'm not going to join in. We have lived through a lot of problems, this is more serious than some of them, less so than others. We'll treat it the same way - I try repeating this

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Post war the boomers grew up with nothing, most were dirt poor, further education didn’t really exist unless you were wealthy, they left school and got a job

Well I was born in 1956 in a working class household. I went to university, fees paid and with a grant. A lot of my friends went on to FE and some also like to then to HE. In many ways going onto HE was much easier for working class people than it is now.

Ans those who left school to get a job found a job very easily. And often they were jobs with training.

Yes. I work in an outlet shopping centre and yesterday and the weekend almost all shoppers were elderly. Today I used a public loo and the (possibly) mid sixties lady walked straight passed the sinks after exiting the crucible. And the toilet was flushed, so she didn’t only re-adjust of tights or similar.