Dare To Ask Talk And News About Our Differences - This topic has 8 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 9 months ago by
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Many older people (i.e. those who reached adulthood in the first half of the 20th century or soon thereafter) seem to have an unexplained, free-floating bitterness, anger and in general sour disposition. I have to wonder: How much of this is due to repressed childhood and young-adult sexual trauma? After all, in that era, these things were not spoken of in public, and this generation was trained practically to worship its elders, so that a ‘molester uncle,’ for instance, could get by with pretty much anything and the child would not have been believed, anyway. Likewise, those with homosexual attractions simply went ahead, got married and essentially lived a lie. There seem to be so many irritable, grouchy people among this generation, and I can’t believe it’s all due to old age and illness. They seem to be acting out something they can’t go back and erase.
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Name : Augustine23409, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 40, City : Columbia, State : SC, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,I find it interesting that you picked two topics of a sexual nature to explain crankiness in older people. I suppose there might be some truth to what you say, but people are different and as such might have myriad reasons for why they are irritable. For instance: severe personal set-backs, loss of important loved ones, a general feeling that life has not been easy, the perception that life has passed them by. The reasons for their attitude will be as different as the people you notice. What I have found is that cranky at birth, cranky in old age; happy in youth, happy in old age. The human personality is a complex structure yet has general traits that last throughout its existence. Try to soothe cranky old people; it is filled with good karma. And who among us doesn’t need that?
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Name : Matthew21853, Gender : M, Age : 43, City : New York, State : NY, Country : United States,I think some people in this age group are simply viewing the world through a prejudice-laden paradigm that was instilled in them. They have been inculturated with racism, sexism, ‘white is right’ and many other ‘hates.’ They see the world and know that ‘the world as they know it’ is dying. Can you imagine the fear they have when they view all the multiculturalism that exists today? They see this as a Doomsday-type phenomena. They are ‘shocked and shaken’ at what we now accept in sociey. I don’t believe it has anything to do with sexual repression. After all, these people did create the number of children associated with ‘baby boomers’. I agree this anger is not just a manifestation of age-related problems. I would like to think that some of these people are upset by their own reality of exposure to truth. Hate is a common response to something you don’t want to accept. It would also be hard to admit that your way of doing or thinking was wrong. It is again common to simply ‘get mad’ over it. College has taught me there is a ‘white’ reality that has nothing to do with the truth. I am sure you have had exposure to the truth as well. These people are just seeing the results without benefit of knowledge concerning multicultural people. My dad was 76 when he died, and he died with the idea that whites were superior biologically to blacks. It was his culture, and he was mad all the way to the grave about any arguments about it.
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Name : Rhonda, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Baptist, Age : 41, City : Connersville, State : IN, Country : United States, Occupation : Social Worker, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Maybe growing up in the Depression and reaching adulthood fighting in World War II have more to do with it. While all the things you mentioned might be true, growing up in very tough times and now seeing the world as spoiled may contribute to general grouchiness. My mother, 74, recalls her very earliest childhood memory as her father yelling at her mother for spending too much money. This would be early Depression years. I also think that aging and seeing your destiny as not what you expected or dreamed about is a general phenomenon of aging and may make people slightly sour as well.
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Name : Steve27699, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 45, City : Houston, State : TX, Country : United States, Occupation : American Ready To Fight, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper class,I know, I know, don’t ever mention it … but I really do think the reason for the bitterness of this generation that I, too, have noticed, may also be found in the fact that they spent their childhood during World War II. From my mother I know that even this year she spent a night sleepless on our holidays in the Middle East, because the planes flying overhead at 2 a.m. had the same engines as those German bombers she remembers when she was 4. She was drenched in the morning. Add to this experiences of famine, death, rape, loss of home, suddenly missing adults or getting lost themselves, and you have a generation of children in Europe that grew up traumatized. In the United States I think the situation is only slightly comparable, because though families worried about older brothers/ fathers dead overseas, the immediate trauma, the closeness of war, wasn’t so great. Then again, the Cold War paranoia (building shelters in the back yard, etc.) was greater. Still, I was pleased to find the majority of ‘oldies’ in the United States comparably cheerful, kind and open when I went overseas.
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Name : c.t., Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Atheist, Age : 32, City : Munich, State : NA, Country : Germany, Education level : Over 4 Years of College,I have noticed this as well, but I don’t believe it’s due to ‘hidden sexual trauma’. I believe they have a disdain for a world that’s totally different from the one in which they grew up. The world they knew was quite a bit more conservative. As one of the previous posters mentioned, there were certain subjects that were simply not spoken of in public. In today’s world, everything that was ‘taboo’ to them is out on display. I also think they see themselves as being disrespected by the younger generation. They’re not given respect simply because they’re older, as they were taught to do. Finally, I believe that economics may play a part. For example, I’m 31 years old and probably make more money now than many older people have ever made. I’m sure this situation is true in many cases. We youngsters may be seen as undeserving of our success because we didn’t ‘put in our time’. Even though we now live more in a performance-based world than a seniority-based one (as far as the workplace), they still have a seniority-based view (this could also tie into the respect issue). All I’ve said basically comes down to this one statement: they’re having a very difficult time adapting to a fast-changing environment.
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Name : Jeff31195, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Age : 31, City : Franklin, State : VA, Country : United States, Occupation : Senior Systems Analyst, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Why would one automatically think that unhappiness is due to sexual abuse? Are there no other reasons for a generation to be unhappy? Perhaps the fact that they grew up during the Depression and then had to go to war and save a world that then turned around to hate them has something to do with it. Perhaps the fact that the children for whom they worked their butts off to give a better life then turned around and betrayed their parents by denouncing all moral values they (the parents) held dear. Perhaps the children who accused their parents of raising a dysfunctional family should look at themselves. The older generation did the best with what was available to them at the time. Maybe they are cranky because the efforts to give their children a better life than they had have now returned to bite them in the a**.
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Name : Kathy26693, Gender : F, Age : 49, City : Springfield, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Medical field, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,What kind of old people are you hanging with? I am old and am a happy person most of the time. I believe you are born with a happy or nonhappy gene. My mother and two of my sisters were for the most part unhappy people. They always saw the dark side of life. My other two sisters and I were always on the happy side. We have lived the longest.
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Name : Margaret, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 68, City : Sterling heights, State : MI, Country : United States, Occupation : retired, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,Older folks that age generally have a lot more health problems, often chronic pain problems that make it harder to smile at life. Also, they’ve probably lost close friends and/or spouses, which is a tough trauma. Middle age and old age bring a diminishment of physical and sometimes mental prowess which is discouraging. There could be lots of reasons for bitterness and unhappiness. When I was a teen, I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was really like to be old. Now I do. Just Curious
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Name : ShirleyAvery, Gender : F, Disability : none, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Jewish, Age : 52, City : st. louis, State : MO, Country : United States, Occupation : writer, Education level : 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class,
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