My dad refuses to use contactless because of ‘trust’ and stepdad refuses to buy bottled water ever as it’s a scam. What weird, out of touch, conspiracy driven or paranoid behaviour do you face with older relatives?
Edit- wow a lot of people hate bottled water. We lived in Australia and he still never bought a bottle say at the beach. What about when in foreign countries etc too?
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>stepdad refuses to buy bottled water ever as it’s a scam
Well, yes. You can get fresh water from the taps.
That if they’ve seen something on Facebook, it must be true.
My mum is one of those people who seems to massively, massively overestimate the prevalence of transgender people amongst the younger generations. She reads The Times though, so perhaps it’s not surprising. Pretty much every time I go to her house and flick through the paper there’s at least one (usually negative) article on trans people.
My in-laws buy 2 copies of the Daily Mail and spend 2 hours every morning reading one each and ‘discussing’ it…yes, they are those people
I am a boomer but the weirdest people in my family are in their 20s. We have 2 anti-vaxxers and 1 who sleeps under a silver impregnated sheet to protect from something or other. Weirdness is multigenerational
People who won’t drink tap water are victims of a conspiracy theory. Tap water is safe to drink and bottled water creates plastic waste plus it’s not clear if plastic leeches into the water.
Bottled water is a scam. Water is free, you’re just buying plastic bottles from companies.
Mine won’t use online banking, because he doesn’t trust it. Still writes cheques for Xmas presents and things instead of just transferring money.
Wouldn’t mind, but I’ve been working in IT for 30 years after he introduced me to computing as a small child in the 70s!
Mum won’t do contactless payment “because of all the hassle”.
And then grumbles every few weeks about needing to get to the bank during their limited opening hours to get cash. (Apparently cashpoints or paying by non contactless card is too much hassle as well.)
“Mum, just wave your card at the reader”
“I cant be bothered with all that”
Also has a lot of hatred for :
– Immigrants, but only “the bad ones”.
– BBC contractors with a limited company, because they don’t pay as much tax. But all the other contractors with ltd co. seem to be fine.
– LGBTQ+ people for various reasons seem to cause anger. Except for the pleasant lesbian couple, who we meet walking their dogs
– Israel. This is a new one, no doubt fueled by a Daily Mail article about the war.
My dad and aunt both have an irrational hatred of great thunberg. “she’s so arrogant” according to my aunt and my dad was making comments about flying to Australia business class and going “take that greta”. He used to bring her up all the time without being promoted until the rest of the family told him to shut the fuck up.
Also, yeah, having the money to fly to Australia in business class. That’s pretty boomer
My mum is convinced that Vitamin C tablets cure all ailments – she stocked up when COVID first hit and pumped me full of it when I eventually caught it.
My inlaws watch GB News. Like constantly. They truly believe all the shite thats pumped out on it too.
Mom still thinks me and my brother shouldn’t have kids before marriage. She’s old school but not religious. I don’t ever want to get married after my experience last 6 months
My mum keeps her phone in a crisp packet “so her Facebook doesn’t get hacked”
Edit: Fwiw I think it was cheese and onion flavour Walkers?
Gets up at 6 am on holidays, then proceeds to shame everyone for waking up past 9. But takes zero accountability or shows self awareness for said shaming – oh he’s not shaming, he’s just saying! Also repeating stupid stories over and over again, mostly boastful ones.
Stahanovism, thinking work is life, the more you work the better person you are. Ech, no thank you.
When I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to draw the curtains during the daytime because ‘the neighbours might think that someone has died’.
Only uses the 30 minute rinse option on the dish washer no matter the load, which causes the build up of food stuff in the bottom of the dishwasher and needs constant fixing and cleaning every month because of the smell and blocked out flow. He’s been doing it for 30 years, month in, month out, constant battles with the dishwasher.
They think young, hot French women would just randomly just contact them on Facebook for ‘dating’. Because 30yo women love dating 75yo men 🤦🏻♀️
Let’s see, my egg donor is emotionally abusive, ableist, anti vaxx, scared of 5G, extremely racist, has the delusional belief that she worked for the ministry of defence (to justify her racism), she’s extremely Transphobic and homophobic too. Been no contact for almost a year, glad to get rid of that dumpster fire
my mother is convinced Ronald Reagan is still manipulating the world economy from the Great Beyond. my mother in-law is convinced Jimmy Carter is still manipulating the world economy via the New World Order and that he is, in fact, a lizard person.
as one might surmise, we haven’t had a joint family gathering since early 2015.
Has an iPhone but won’t have WhatsApp, telegram or anything that uses data because of the risk of getting hacked or stalked. Refuses to get a contract with data for the same reason, which is actually pretty hard to come by now! Won’t even connect to WiFi with the phone.
Also turns the Internet off whenever she’s not using it because she believes that someone is more likely to hack it that way. I’ve tried explaining that this is slowing the speed down.
Complains she doesn’t get sent family pictures …
I mean, bottle water is a scam in the UK. It’s the ultimate of paying for branding.
My parents still think it’s easy to buy a house.
My mum still tells me to just “drop a CV off at school” when I’m looking for another school to work at. Just enter a school and give the receptionist a CV.
My dad needs glasses but won’t get them because he doesn’t “want to be the kind of person who needs glasses”
My dad sent me a fw fw fw email that advised that if you were ever held at knife point and marched to the cashpoint to withdraw money, just type in your pin backwards – the police will be alerted and arrive within a few moments.
i asked my dad if he’d ever consider going on holiday to morocco, his reply was “you know.. uff.. uh, black people you know…” this was like a month ago. hes so fucking stupid.
My mum started going to the nearest church to put holy water on her head when she has a headache.
Everything is “tradition”. Just because it’s tradition, it doesn’t make it right. Fuck tradition.
They don’t do the online. They disconnected the house phone because it was mostly spam calls. The only way I can get in touch is to call an old flip phone from the 00’s that is charged 40% of the time.
My mother in law was antivaxx, then became a COVID vaccinator, then is now antivaxx again. She used to be a dentist (retired now) so it’s not like she’s not medically qualified either.
That leaving a European trading bloc would somehow mean all Pakistanis would have to leave the country.
MIL lives approx 40 mins drive from us, but doesn’t drive. She could get a train which would take 25 mins and cost around £7 return. But insists on getting 2 buses and taking approx 1.5 hours because she can use her bus pass. And still moan about how long it takes and how uncomfortable it is. But will then happily spend £100+ on craft classes like pottery & jewelry making.
My dad doesn’t approve of gay weddings. Except all the ones he’s been to.
Mother has tantrum if i go to bed without unplugging tv set – even if switched off atthe socket , seems convinced electrical demons will leap down the cable at night and set the house on fire.
My mum “doesn’t believe in mental health”, which has led to some interesting conversations, as I’ve experienced depression and PTSD, am training to be a counsellor and volunteer for the Samaritans.
Don’t know where to start with my dear old dad.
Lost my mum about 10 years ago and it’s been a gradual slide.
Won’t watch the BBC and refuses to pay the licence fee. Is obsessed with the ULEZ expansion, and is convinced it’s Khan’s way of getting white people out of London (although quite how this works he didn’t explain)
The most recent and bizarre thing is that he recalls watching my kids at a church nativity play about 15 years ago and remembers some gaps in the roof letting light through. He claims to have been told recently that there were gangs of eastern European thieves operating around that time, stripping churches of lead, so now that’s definitely why he could see gaps in the roof, apparently it all makes sense.
Reads the daily Mail and watches GB news; repeats the drivel that they spout like a parrot in an echo chamber but insists it’s their “own opinion”
Doesn’t use contactless or card payments as they might be “tracked”
Smoke weed and will buy smoking gear with a fake name online (which is actually more suspicious lmao) to be “inconspicuous”
Cover the webcam on their computer with blu tack, but not their phone or iPad cameras for some reason
Believe that people on welfare don’t deserve nice things as their “taxes pay for them to be alive” and will avoid giving homeless people money for the same “drugs, booze or cigarettes” reason while partaking in all three of them themselves
They refuse to talk about money as ‘their parents in the 1960s didn’t talk about money either’.
Which naturally means they’re financially illiterate as fuck, have ZERO saved for retirement as ‘things have a way to sort itself out’, aka, beg from your adult children, and tends to get ripped off with glee.
My dad 110% believe that his boomer ‘financial advisor’, which only sells him scummy products has his best interests at heart. I casually mentioned that this ‘advisor’ has been ripping him off for 30 years now. A vampire dragged into sunlight would’ve had a better reaction than my dad did to that comment. He knows it’s the truth but invested the latter part of his life into believing that it isn’t.
They’re not changing now.
I fear for their future.
That one person working an average job can buy a house and support a family. Pissed me off every time
My FIL doesn’t trust satellite navigation, he’ll rattle off 10 different left/right turns you “need” to take and if you say you’ve got the directions already “no no no you’ll never get there, you’ll get sent the wrong way”. He’ll ask to sit in the front seat with a taxi driver to correct the satnav and demand he takes different routes because….. we don’t know.
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Doesn’t like immigrants but both parents where economic immigrants.
My mum still refuses to call relatives in London during the day because she says it’s dearer since it’s further away. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell her this hasn’t been a thing in years she still clings on to it.