The weird shift that seems to happen with your parental relationship at a certain age

[Tagullah]

Sorry for long title I didn’t know how to word this.

DH and I and all of our respective siblings have noticed that more and more, our parents seem to become people we don’t recognise anymore. They are so far from our parents as children they are like strangers. None of them seem to have dementia or a cognitive issue, but as they got into their 60’s something changed about their personality we can’t put our fingers on.

Both sets of our parents have become quite over opinionated and suffocating in their own ways. Their worlds get smaller and smaller (not through lack of opportunities) and they repeat themselves and get obsessed by small things.

My mum is obsessed by American politics so this is usually something she will talk at you about for hours (we live in the UK). She decided to retire and become housebound age 65 so she just watches TV all day and also just talks to you about what she saw on TV as if it’s ’real world’.

But DH’s parents are on another level, they seem to be obsessed with their phones and send 1000’s of photos, links, memes, news articles to all of us all day long via every single platform they can access (WhatsApp, instagram, facebook, personal email, work email, text, phone call and in person). They also have no filter and say weird shit to us, constantly talking about people we don’t know (and over sharing other people’s private info).

DH and I in our 40’s now and just sit there sometimes and think who are these people 😂. We thinking of having an honesty pact with each other if we get like this but is it inevitable? What happens to parents in their 60’s?

Believe me, I'm not a chatterer! Far from it, so it's not like I go on a long tale about anything. And ever since I started travelling I've been terrified of becoming a holiday bore, so that's not an issue either.

DD isn't a teen. She's late 30s. So I did hope we could have normal adult to adult conversations at this point in our lives. But I think that just as there's an imbalance between parents in their 40s and their teens, it can easily tip the other way into an imbalance between parents in their 60s and 70s and their kids in their 30s and 40s. But for different reasons.

Yes completely concur with you
I too would expect these behaviours from much older folk & some mention "'in their 60s"' like they're saying in their 90s 😔

We get the out of dare chocolates and strange things that they saw and were a bargain, but nobody can actually use, too😂

Can you buy them some sort of activity subscription for Christmas? Something that takes them out of the house.

train travel, Restaurant meal coupon booklet, tickets to watch the tennis, golf lessons, photography lessons etc etc

One of my siblings got my DM a gift once which involved her reminiscing about the past and we had to read/listen to all of it, so boring. She loved every moment of it. In this she never once mentioned us as her children bringing any joy in her entire life at any point though which was very demoralising.

We have given PIL’s gifts and they go out a lot more, but never off their phones at any point. They would go to a full blown concert and FaceTime you during it and expect you to enjoy it with them virtually or just be fiddling with making videos and filtering photos of the event whilst at the event and spamming you with the photos on WhatsApp

the last holiday they went on they took at least 10 photos of every single meal and expected us to look at them all. We have all had to turn off photo downloading on our devices for WhatsApp. They frequently call DH round to ‘free up space on their phones’ as they brick up their devices every 3 months with excessive amounts of data they don’t know how to delete

Oh don’t, MIL keeps giving me shoes in a size 6 when I keep telling her I am a 6.5. Plus these shoes are very well worn and 20 years old why would I want these?

I went to a concert recently where the main demographic was older (probably late 60s, 70) and noticed so much phone use and filming throughout it. It struck me as so bizarre and excessive. Usually it’s young people who can’t seem to enjoy anything without filming it.
The root of their problems really does seem to be phone addiction. So sad how much it’s impacting their relationship with you.

I tried to help my Dad download photos onto his laptop so he could free up space on his phone... My goodness me. So many random photos of hills. Or pixelated photos of birds that have been zoomed in to be unrecognisable. And my favourite.... The blurred photo of a landscape taken out the window of a moving vehicle.

To be fair many of my photos on my phone are like that, plus random accidental screenshots and I'm early 50s!

My parents are a similar age (late sixties, early seventies) and I honestly don’t recognise anything in your posts. FIL is in his eighties and nothing like you describe either.

It’s not an age thing, it’s a personality thing.

Bless you, regarding receiving shoes too small & 20 years old
Really relate
It's not exactly the same, but if I concur to have lunch with my father he will consistently give me beans, when I've told him numerous times, not to give me beans
Then gets upset when I remind him
Honestly, I feel your in laws & parents are too young to use senility as an excuse
In my humblest opinion, it's just disrespectful, pretending to be forgetful when really (at least in my father's case) it's to control, have the last word, show whom's the boss
Otherwise why else do the exact opposite of what their loved ones request 💚

Completely Concur With You, Yes
It's a personality problem 💚

This!
Very patronizing and narrow-minded not to accept that they opinions are just as valid s your even though they are completely different.

Ahhh my mum used to do this but she’s been very ill this year and pretends to know what’s going on in a tv program but has no idea. I’m really sad I used to love discussing tv with her . She seems to think this is ok . She is much older than most here at 89 but the scrolling drives me mad when I’ve travelled 3 hrs to see her and the tv is on but she’s just scrolling face book constantly. My dad died last week at 98 and she is just in her world scrolling and saying platitudes thinking we are conned that she’s alert and awake to the world .
we used to have such fun .

I’m the youngest of 5 , only two of us left now! My other siblings died before 50 so I’m v kind to her but it’s infuriating as she truly believes she’s fully cognitive still . Sad face . I just want her to be mum again

@Woofie7 I am sorry for your loss xx

It is a sad situation and I hope that you can reconnect with your mum 💐

Well.. all this is worrying.. I, like (I think) @saraclara , wonder what I'm allowed to talk about now.. I do chat about politics, as it's something that affects us all. I'll tone it down a bit! Kids (anyone younger than me!) seem so.. wet now, we have to consider everyone's feelings rather than the right thing to do, sigh..

I don't live on social media & don't have a smartphone (the RUDENESS of folk who do puts me off, scroll scroll, click click..)
I don't watch soaps or indeed dramas so don't bore people with those! I have health problems (which I don't discuss unless asked, & reply with one sentence, other people's health stories are so boring!) So I don't travel, don't bore people with holiday chatter.. I think I'll sit in silence unless spoke to, so I don't say the wrong thing!

@Tagullah ironically I’ve found that they don’t understand what the hell they are talking about anyway when spouting their views - I’m more than happy to discuss this properly and I am not a radical ‘lefty’ either as they seem to think anyone with views to the left of Goebbels is - my Hs late 80s uncle who was a big fan of Enoch Powell , pots of money, never been anywhere in just 40 years and lives in a complete shit hole counting his cash doesn’t seem to understand the difference between illegal immigration and perfectly legal documented immigration - whether he agrees with it or not - it’s not illegal . He can’t seem to fathom that the Tory’s post Brexit allowed ‘legally’ vast numbers of non EU, non white legal immigration - plus family members - to try and plug holes in public service employment . He isn’t remotely interested in any policies that don’t affect him or his ‘investments’ -

Totally this. Your parents are decades older than you, maybe they know a thing or two about the world, maybe even more than you.

Whilst as someone in my early 60s I do partly agree , what I struggle with is the fact though that age hasn’t made them far less gullible to the snakeoilsalesmen of people like Farage and Tice or propaganda like GB News - I’ve met a lot of people like this in business over the years and basically they are astute in feeding people what they want to hear and sounding as if they have ‘common sense’ - when in my experience it’s all about power , money and corruption and with little fiscal weight to back any pontifications- very noticeable how they rarely mention all that cheap product we would be flooded with post Brexit and a total lack of red tape - so as you say I do have empathy for why many elderly people feel the right wing is the answer - I do think there is some naivety there as to what would actually be doable - if I can say I think exactly the same with the far left too

@hellowhaaat3632 we cannot presume all over 50s are wise beyond belief and should be listened too and know a thing or two more about the world - some do, some don’t, a wander onto the elderly parents thread on mumsnet shows plenty of people in their 80 s ( and not with dementia) showing the same range of foibles as people in their 30s

What does it matter to you what they eat?