How old do you have to be before older people stop saying...

[UnquietDad]

... "when you are older you will understand/ feel the same/ see" ??

Because DW and I are 38, and yet my mother STILL says it to us. As if we are a pair of teenagers.

And all because we dare to challenge her bigoted, ill-informed, Telegraf-regurgitating views on the ways that "THEY" (i.e. - nebulous, homogeneous swarm of immigrants) are swamping our country, draining our resources and stopping "decent" people from getting houses and healthcare.

How bloody old do we have to be, FGS? Surely when you get towards middle-age you've pretty much crystallised your views on most things. You may make minor changes but it would take something pretty seismic to shake them up.

If she is implying I am going to start thinking like her when I "grow up", shoot me now.

That's just you I'm afraid. My mum stopped doing that when I was 18 because I replied: 'when I'm older, I'll have learned not to complain as much as you'.

Actually to be fair, my 80+ MiL does say things like: 'you wouldn't understand, it's not the same where you are' (90 miles away) to describe her Daily Mail reading views on the local community.

Perhaps you could foster a contrarian line to whatever your parents say just for the hell of it and see if they eventually get bored and give up?

how old? About 10 years older than whatever age you are at the time you try to make her justify her point....

I think the answer with my mother is "never", because we didn't live through the war, you know, and can't understand.

(Did you know we are being invaded now? By stealth? It was news to me.)

I must be lucky then because, my parents don't do this to me but, then I am a very strong minded person anyway. They probably long ago gave up trying to impose their views on me!
My fil does it though, I find rolling my eyeballs in a way that says 'Yes, whatever you doddery old git', conveys my thoughts perfectly.

So nobody else's mother makes a "comment" every time a black person appears on TV? Insists that immigrants are repsonsible for all gun and knife crime? Cuts out carefully-chosen articles with highlighted bits which back them up? Claims we are being "invaded"? Accuses them of being "brainwashed" for putting another PoV?

My dad is from a former eastern bloc country, so (ahem) no!
Fil does though but, then he's fairly small minded, bless him

My nan, if she was alive would probably be the same. She used to switch off the TV, should a black person have the audacity to be on it

My parents are likeminded but my MIL has some truly chilling views. Jewish people should "move on" from what happened during ww2 (she is German). Romanian immigrants are thieves, England is being swamped (ignoring the fact that she herself is actually an immigrant) etc etc

I didnt know people really held these views as no one else I come into contact with does (thankfully).

Update on this:
My mother has written a Letter. Oh god. She writes Letters when it is really serious and she intends to have the last word.

Gist of it (over 3 sides) is: yes, I agree we should not have this conversation again, as anyway "you will find out the hard way" as you get older. But watch the news, you know, because it's all there, and because why would people in authority lie? And by the way, And if you shout and get angry at me, you know, then the children will pick up on this and think it is the way to behave. Oh yes.

Has she learnt NOTHING? Did my storming out on her not give her pause for thought AT ALL? And is she not worried about her grandchildren "thinking it is the way to behave" going to school and making breathtakingly uninformed, racist comments?

I'm glad it's not just mine... You get the same old stuff time after time, so much that you start to convince yourself it's you that is being the unreasonable one.

My father needs 24-hour care and is in a home, so she has had a very stressful year, ash she keeps reminding us - but that doesn't excuse it. She was always like this. Now the fact that he isn't getting everything she asks for (therapy etc) is being put down to all the resources going to "the immigrants".