I’ve just been out for food with parents (60’s) and nana (80’s) and I don’t know why I go as they leave me disheartened every time damn time.
In the short span of a couple of hours they (mainly my nana but parents will have silly views too) managed to comment on the number of black athletes at the Olympics (somehow being a bad thing), shit on the upcoming Para-olympics (quote: disabled people should just accept their lot and not try sport), protesters (of any kind) and questioning if any protests have ever been successful, to which I answered the suffragette‘s we’re pretty successful.
Complaining about people being spoilt these days at the same time as my nana confessing she was given food in a bowl at my aunties and refused to eat it unless it was on a plate (seems pretty spoilt to me). Asking for things to be like when she was younger, to which I asked if she was a fan of Nazi Germany as she grew up post WWII.
I guess I am wondering how can I come from a family that seemingly has no compassion for anybody and even less empathy for anybody different than them. They make me angry at times and I know I can be annoying my always challenging their bullshit views, but I can’t sit there and let people take utter nonsense like this.
I haven’t even covered half the awful stuff they say and their warped ideals.
Edit: The other one that irritates me is them (two women ) shitting on female athletes. Like WTF if a female wants to be a footballer what skin is it off their noses. Unless they just bitter they people have more choice to be themselves now.
They grew up in a different era, and as people get older it’s harder for them to let go of backward ideas. Even my mother, a fervent feminist, from time to time makes transphobic comments that are born more out of ignorance than anything else. Sometimes she seems to understand and other times she doesn’t seem to want to understand. My father, on the other hand, is also generally a good person, but his machismo and homophobia are very strong. One day he had said that he would rather shoot himself if he found out that any of his children were Gay, that phrase still haunts me and prevents me from being more open with my bisexuality. I love him dearly, but he is far from perfect. I don’t know what my grandmother’s political views are, but she has always come across as loving and receptive. She taught me to Crochet even though I was a man, she insisted that I pay no attention to anyone who told me it was a woman’s thing. Despite this, she is a simple woman and very disconnected from the outside world, and from what my mother has told me, there was a time when she was terrible. Old people are… Complicated.