I thought we were talking about how older people acted.
In my case, my post is something between a remembrance, a whine and a loving memory of my Mother.
Maybe not exactly what the OP wanted, but the thread seems to have evolved and it is enjoyable to read anecdotes of younger folks talking about the older ones.
I am really having a ball reading all the tales.
Keep them coming.
A half mile away is a Krogers. I love to tell my wife I am going to Chathams to pick something up. They sold out over 20 years ago. But there are 3 Krogers within 5 miles. When I say Chathams I am being specific about which one. The other 2 were not bought from Chathams. Besides it pisses her off, a bonus.
I’m 27 and talking to some of the teenagers who work with me makes me feel like a fogey from the OP.
My original purpose in the OP (which was originally posted to the Pit forum) was to vent about one particular clueless person who was such that what she prides herself about concerning her age is the same thing that causes her to be clueless.
The thread has evolved to be a general “ain’t old folks funny” thread.
My intention in my post to you was to engage you in the arguments you were making. I did not think them very good arguments, and I explained why. Do you have response to my criticisms?
Ah. I found your post arrogant, condescending and disrespectful rather than representing any type of invitation to engage. That was why I did not reply in any depth.
My time is rather short over the next little while, as I am on vacation. However, it is a topic that I find interesting. May I suggest we two bury the hatchet and start anew?
My point is that old people have a world view that is very different from young people. I don’t believe either point of view is inherently ‘right’, and I think there is much more to be gained from trying to understand the other point of view than there is to be gained from mocking it.
After all, an old person would feel justified in thinking that the current cohort at university is a pack of pampered, whiny wastrels bent on nothing more than self gratification, who don’t understand the value of a dollar nor the purpose of a day’s work. They are distracted by every shiny tech toy that comes their way, and throw their toys away when those toys no longer function. Then they preach about “reduce, reuse, recycle” when what they really need to do is learn about delayed gratification.
I don’t think the above point of view is any truer than the notion that old people are a bunch of out of touch technophobes, and even if all I can do is get you to question your own preconceptions, my point will have been made.
People like my father, who lived through the great depression and the second world war, knew a level of ‘reduce, reuse and ration’ that no one in North America has had to deal with for fifty years.
And on that note, I have to go for the moment; I have people in the room to talk to for a while.
Ah. I had found your post condescending and disrespectful as well. That is why I adopted the tone you mention. I was responding in kind.
It may be interesting for you to go back and re-read your own post in that light.
Sure.
I don’t know how to respond to this, because, (and I genuinely mean no disrespect here, but I can’t think of a better way to put it) in the above comments, you repeatedly insist on a particular point of view, and yet also repeatedly insist you don’t believe that view is particularly true. As far as I can tell, you’ve failed to commit yourself to anything, and so I have nothing to respond to.
Also, I don’t know what preconceptions you think I have, but I am almost certain that I do not, in fact, have them. What preconceptions do you think I have?
My grandfather (dad’s dad; not my “grandpa”) thought salt water was the cure-all. Specifically, sea water, which he’d weekly gather in a jug by going down to Huntington Beach in Orange County.
And then, he’d drink it. :eek:
And wash his hair in it. And, who knows, maybe used it as cologne.
Mind you, he died while I was a little kid, and didn’t know him very well, but he lived into 80s, maybe 90s (dad was 20+ years younger than his siblings, so we’re kind of out-of-phase with those relatives’ ages). Maybe he was on to something.
However, as I pointed out to him while a snotty kid upon seeing him drink the stuff, “Grandfather, fish pee in the ocean.” And while he may have been on to something, I know for sure that I was. So I skip the sea water. ick.
My mother has always, for as long as I can remember, called my brother and me (we’re both now 30-something men) by the names of her two youngest sisters. It’s funny now, but it was absolutely mortifying when I was 14 and my friends found out that I answer to “Debbie.”
Well, fish don’t really urinate as we do. Still they certainly pass waste. But your tap water had human urine it it at some point. (Nearly all water on the Earth has been recycled over and over and over and over, even through kidneys and such-like)
Hey, Frylock - I’ve gone through your posts in this thread. For what it’s worth, from your side of the discussion, you and your wife are right, and your mother-in-law is wrong - I don’t know if a Bachelor’s Degree has ever been a golden ticket to employment, but it certainly isn’t now.
In terms of long term relations, that doesn’t really matter, though. She is still your wife’s mother, and even when her opinions are completely unfounded, she will always have the power to make your wife cry. Or laugh, or feel proud, or whatever.
There is a book that really helped my sister and me sort things out with my father after my mother died in 2001. It’s called Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of our Elders. There may well be other books that have been written on the subject in the last few years as well.
So, yeah, I think I get it - this started off as a thread in the Pit (where I almost never go, so I didn’t notice it until this weekend.), you wanted to blow off some steam about your mother-in-law, lots of people joined in and it started to look like bashing the geriatrics to me. I’m only 47, but especially on issues of technology, I tend to side with the old folks - I’ve been on the losing side of too many tech changes to embrace any new changes with any enthusiasm.
It seems that you perceive old people as ‘having information that’s 30 years out of date’, seeing as those are your own words, along with ‘parochial and out of date and should shut the fuck up’, ‘bitchy and clueless’. Technophobic is not something you have mentioned; that was other folks. Maybe you just mean your mother-in-law, but for all that, your not starting out from a very good place to understand her and meet her halfway on anything.
So why the Hell should you try to understand her? I’d suggest you at least make the effort because of your wife - it’s not like she’s ever going to stop being your Mother-in-Law’s daughter, and it’s a huge pain in the ass when your parents are putting you through it every time you see them.
I’d suggest that logic and reasoning are not necessarily the tools you will need to deal with your mother-in-law. Forget everything we say on this message board about ‘the plural of anecdote is not data.’ - for your mother-in-law, it probably is.
It’s frustrating when someone who doesn’t know or understand the situation tells you it should be much easier than you say and you’re not trying hard enough, based on nothing but their erroneous impression. I just want to point out, though, that you did the same thing to me when you said
Your current experience may be quite different - my current experience with things like FreeCycle is that it’s a lot of people looking for free antques. Our experience in 2001 was that nobody wanted this thing, not even the auctioneer who sold damn near everything else in the house without question. That stereo was not something he even wanted to put in the moving van, saying “You can haul that to the dump yourself.”
I’m not bringing that up to piss you off, and if I just did, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to point out that you, too, can make assumptions based on your own experience(s) that do not hold true for the other person.
And on that note, I need to go for the day. Best wishes to you, and good luck to you and your wife, especially with your mother-in-law.
Hey, that was a great post, and thanks for it.
For the record, I try very hard to understand her. (As I try very hard to understand everyone. I teach, which to me basically means the same thing as I try to understand people.) But I find understanding her to be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever tried to do. Sounds like an exaggeration, but really it’s not. It’s like we’re from different universes. (Mine’s better. 
)
But your analysis was for the most part pretty much spot on, and I’ll admit, it feels nice to be understood, so thanks again for the gracious post.
By the way, the recipient of my OP’s pit sentiment is the same one I mentioned in some other thread who believes that there is a person in her town who was fined by the EPA for having an old refrigerator in his back yard–and that the way the EPA knew about this fridge was “because of satellites.”
Okay, it’s been long enough, I shall stop bad mouthing poor dear Mother in Law.
If ya’ll knew how generous she’s been with us in the past year, you’d think I’m not just an ass but a total ass.