This thread has made me appreciate my Boomer Mom who just visited. Thanks for being environmental responsible, politically active, cooking from scratch, using real plates and cloth napkins, wanting to try new food, walking places, doing a bunch of house chores, and not blaring weird shows on TV, Mom!
Checking in with parents that: use paper plates, buy single serving peanut butter containers, buy bottled water, don’t recycle, use when they drink a pot a day, and have the TV constantly.
My mother looks like I’m drinking out of the toilet when I fill my water bottle from the tap.
Post by morecoffeeplease on Oct 30, 2018 5:34:51 GMT -5
I’m laughing at the printed out mapquest directions. Lol!!
My parents get stressed out with the newest technology. Like when we got my mom a wireless DVD player so she could use it for Netflix and prime, it was like I could see her physically shut down when I said it wirelessly connected to the internet. She also hates chatting online to solve customer service issues and would rather wait on hold on the phone for a million hours. I’m their tech support.
They are good about no paper plates, recycling, etc. Growing up my mom always got on us about using paper towels because they were expensive compared to using a napkin or reusable napkin or dish cloth. They reuse everything and use things down to the last drop. I asked my mom if she had chapstick this weekend when I was visiting and she gave me a tube and told me “to dig in there” with my fingers because there were like two specks left.
Beyond that my parents are pretty normal and not typical boomers. Maybe it's because they are pretty young boomers (they turned 60 this year). They probably use paper plates more often than I do, but it's definitely not the norm. My dad drives my mom bonkers with his need to have the TV on all the time. I definitely think that's generational and my mom is the odd one there. It seems pretty common among all of their peers as well. In their current house my dad can go into a den and shut the door to watch TV, which has made retirement much more pleasant for them both.
As someone who is *this close* to being a boomer, I can say that I have the TV on all the time too--I've developed tinnitus, and the background noise from the TV cancels out the horrible ringing in my ears (for some reason, music doesn't work as well). Of my friends that also have tinnitus, many also use the TV to block out the noise.
My boomer MIL brings a cooler full of bottled water to our house when they come. They live 1.5 hours away and usually stay for about 3 hours max. WTF does she need a cooler full of bottled water for? She brings it into our house too- never leaves it in the car.
I will gladly rant against Millennials! I wonder if my interns are considered Millennials, because they have done some shit recently.
Regular convo between my dad and me:
Dad - millennials are the worst!!! The ones at work just did XYZ.
Me: dad, some people consider ME a milennial!
Dad: well if you do X at work then you probably are.
Me: do you know what we say about boomers??
Dad: what can you say about boomers? We are amazing!
Rinse. Repeat. Lol.
ha! My office is pretty evenly split between boomers and millennials (and to make it worse, all men, all Bernie Bros, etc). The loudest of each bunch always go back and forth with the same conversation as above. I just sit and watch.
I feel fortunate that my very much boomer parents are extremely liberal, out working on social justice campaigns, produce such little waste it puts me to shame (they have 3 compost bins for their garden!) and do not know how to use screens, lol. My in laws however are pretty similar to everything posted about previously. But I love them, regardless. (I do shame them for the LOADS AND LOADS of bottled water they buy. They live in Vermont! No need for bottle water!)
Since I did sort of shit all over my dad, I do feel the need to defend him by saying that he bought everything we asked for to make our trip easier - string cheese and applesauce pouches and diapers and wipes and so on. He means well - they even turned off the TV when we asked them to do we could try to rock babyharpy to sleep. I just don’t think he really gets me, you know? And it makes the stuff he does that is comically stereotypical Boomer stand out more.
It just became clear to me from our recent travels that I click so much more with my mom. She still of course has her parent habits that make me roll my eyes, but I feel like she embraces progress and change more.
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
I WFH and I sit in a blissfully quiet house all day, just me and my dog.
When DH gets home, after he eats dinner the TV comes on and stays on until we go to sleep. When he gets up on the weekends, it's 1) coffee and 2) TV. Sometimes he throws a radio station in, too, so he'll have Sports Center on in one room and NPR in another, and he might not even be in either room (and then I go around turning things off in rooms he isn't in).
It drives me absolutely batty sometimes. Not that I don't have my own addictions -- I am almost always on my phone reading/playing games/browsing while he has the TV and/or radio going -- but mine are silent. When DH goes out of town, sometimes we go days without turning the TV on at all.
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
We usually only have it on for a couple of hours in the evening, max. We don't watch live TV (just stuff on the DVR) and often times I'd rather listen to podcasts if I'm doing stuff around the house or in the kitchen.
Ah! We’ve turned the corner into husbands! My H is turning into an old man before my eyes: he’s started to repeat the end of everything I say as a question: Me: “We need to stop at the hardware store.” Him: “The hardware store?” Me: “Yes. The hardware store. I need some seedling pots.” Him: “Seedling pots?”
Grr. Also he’s starting to find things like saying “turlet” funny.
When DH gets home, after he eats dinner the TV comes on and stays on until we go to sleep. When he gets up on the weekends, it's 1) coffee and 2) TV. Sometimes he throws a radio station in, too, so he'll have Sports Center on in one room and NPR in another, and he might not even be in either room (and then I go around turning things off in rooms he isn't in).
Same, without the coffee. Usually when he gets to 3 things making noise I ask if one can be turned off. I rarely watch tv on my own.
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
We don’t even have a tv on our main floor. We have one in our bedroom that is turned on once every few months if I want to watch something and fold laundry. If not for kids I wouldn’t ever turn on the tv. I seriously have like 3 shows max I watch on a semi regular basis.
When DH gets home, after he eats dinner the TV comes on and stays on until we go to sleep. When he gets up on the weekends, it's 1) coffee and 2) TV. Sometimes he throws a radio station in, too, so he'll have Sports Center on in one room and NPR in another, and he might not even be in either room (and then I go around turning things off in rooms he isn't in).
Same, without the coffee. Usually when he gets to 3 things making noise I ask if one can be turned off. I rarely watch tv on my own.
YES. We were having a conversation last night about what sort of sausage we're making this year and how much, I'm like, taking notes, we're flipping through cookbooks and our notes from previous years and running downstairs to check remaining inventory - it's an intensive exercise....and he turns on HGTV.
WHY? You're not watching it. And I'm VERY easily distracted by screens. if you want me to focus on the conversation we're having, why would you turn that on? do you want me to lose my train of thought 6 times? He complains all the time that I get sucked into the TV and don't notice other things, but he's the one who turns it on!
He just likes to have the background noise I guess.
I can rant about my Husband's Secret Old Man tendencies a lot more than my mama. She's a young boomer and most of her friends are younger than her, so in social tendencies she's more of a genxer.
When DH gets home, after he eats dinner the TV comes on and stays on until we go to sleep. When he gets up on the weekends, it's 1) coffee and 2) TV. Sometimes he throws a radio station in, too, so he'll have Sports Center on in one room and NPR in another, and he might not even be in either room (and then I go around turning things off in rooms he isn't in).
Same, without the coffee. Usually when he gets to 3 things making noise I ask if one can be turned off. I rarely watch tv on my own.
This is our house too. DH usually has the TV on, and one headphone in his ear listening to a podcast or something on his phone, and he's looking at an iPad screen. It hardly ever occurs to me to turn the TV on when I'm alone. He turns the TV on as soon as he walks into the house. Inevitably, I go and turn it off 10 minutes later when he still hasn't made it back to the living room.
We only have 1 TV in our house. And no cable. My parents and ILs do not understand how we function. My parents often have 3 TVs going on the first floor of their house (where it's just the 2 of them), all within 15 steps of each other, and all with the volume too high.
Anyone else have a Boomer who watches all the Alaska/gold Rush/ice road trucker stuff? Or the super depression vet shows on animal planet? Fil is always calling dh "did you see last night's gold Rush?" Or will tell me that the vet guy is rescuing a dog that fell down a well while trapped in a burning shoebox on tonight's episode. Dh always reminds him we don't even have those channels.
And they will turn the same show on in the living room and in the kitchen, you can literally sit on the couch and see both of them. But somehow the kitchen tv is about 15 seconds behind so it echoes.
Which of the Alaska shows has the Kilchers? My mom is like, “Jewel! Remember Jewel?! It’s her family and they live in the middle of nowhere Alaska!” And she falls asleep blaring that or house hunters in her bedroom. She can’t fathom that H and I don’t even have a TV in our bedroom.
I can't remember the name of it but that's one he watches and I always forget it's her family and have to ask dh why his dad know so much about jewel. Lol
Same, without the coffee. Usually when he gets to 3 things making noise I ask if one can be turned off. I rarely watch tv on my own.
This is our house too. DH usually has the TV on, and one headphone in his ear listening to a podcast or something on his phone, and he's looking at an iPad screen. It hardly ever occurs to me to turn the TV on when I'm alone. He turns the TV on as soon as he walks into the house. Inevitably, I go and turn it off 10 minutes later when he still hasn't made it back to the living room.
We only have 1 TV in our house. And no cable. My parents and ILs do not understand how we function. My parents often have 3 TVs going on the first floor of their house (where it's just the 2 of them), all within 15 steps of each other, and all with the volume too high.
My husband also always has the TV on, and I could go days without turning it on. My in-laws have it on ALL THE TIME, but I don't think it's really because they're boomers. Technically my FIL is not a boomer (born in 41). I think that's just how they've always been, because one of my SILs does the same thing, and her kids have been watching TV constantly since birth. My other SIL (H and above-referenced SIL's youngest sister) has mentioned that the screen time probably isn't healthy. To me and H, probably not to anyone else in that family.
My in-laws, though, at least always have it tuned to kids' shows, food network, sports, news, Jeopardy or MSNBC. My FIL will record like 3 different local news programs that are on at the same time and watch them all in a row - and fast forward through whatever he doesn't like. Still, they would never watch Fox News, because they live in Massachusetts, after all. Small favors.
Another one with a mom (born 1955) who loves Blue Bloods and Law & Order and DWTS. She also pays a shit-ton for a cable package that somehow includes NOTHING. I seriously think she gets just basic channels.
Dinner is usually on real plates, but the food is always bland and overcooked. No spices used except salt and pepper.
My H loves to have music on at all times. I prefer silence.
I grew up exclusively using paper plates, paper bowls, and paper cups. My parents still use them daily. For 30+ yrs they've been kept in the bottom cabinet next to their CLEANING PRODUCTS and trash bags. Barf.
Both my parents and ILs always have a TV on. MIL will flip the TV on the minute DS walks into their house, and attempts to plop him down in front of it. There's very minimal interaction with grandkids at my parent's home and my IL's home.
I think laptops and iPads are the new "TV always on." I'm a SAHM and when I'm folding laundry, loading the dishwasher, etc., I often have Netflix or YouTube videos playing. I have a MacBook so my text messages also pop up onto the screen. When I'm not watching I close my laptop, though. I can't imagine going back to a life where there's noise in the house from a TV all day long.
I can't imagine going back to a life where there's noise in the house from a TV all day long.
I just really struggle to focus on anything else with the flashing images. I WFH a lot and silence would drive me bonkers. But I listen to music or podcasts because it doesn't require my visual attention. That's what I listen to while doing chores, too.
I should probably spend a little more time with silence for mental clarity or something.
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
We don’t even have a tv on our main floor. We have one in our bedroom that is turned on once every few months if I want to watch something and fold laundry. If not for kids I wouldn’t ever turn on the tv. I seriously have like 3 shows max I watch on a semi regular basis.
this is earth shattering to me lol. We live in apt, have 1 huge tv in living room and 1 medium size one in bedroom. When we are home, they are on all day long. If I wasn't cheap, I'd get one in the bathroom and back office. My DVR is always busy.
Glad to know I'm not alone in this. DH constantly has the TV on while watching a video on his phone, with both at high volume. It literally makes me want to scream, especially when both kids are talking and/or crying at the same time. And he rolls his eyes at me every time I ask him to turn off one or the other.
Also when the baby starts crying in the car he'll turn up the radio to try to drown her out. That doesn't work; it just makes the car louder!!!!
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
Ditto. My TV is always on (no kids). I need background noise. I don't pay attention to it a lot. I have always been like that - used to do my homework with the TV on growing up.
Timely - my boomer parents fly into town on Friday.
Except, my folks don't act so much like the boomers described here. They aren't American, though, so that might be some of it. I'm really looking forward to the visit.
My mind is blown seriously that people don’t have their tv on all day. 😳
I, literally, cannot remember the last time *I* turned on the TV. Not to say I don't watch, but it's maybe once or twice a week for 30 minutes with H. He watches more (after DD goes to bed) but I could care less about TV.
My H likes to turn on a movie or a TV show - often something I don't want to watch - and then leaves the room to do little projects and then comes back in and says "What happened?" or rewinds to watch again.
And then if I put in headphones or go to another room he complains that I don't want to spend time with him.
Which of the Alaska shows has the Kilchers? My mom is like, “Jewel! Remember Jewel?! It’s her family and they live in the middle of nowhere Alaska!” And she falls asleep blaring that or house hunters in her bedroom. She can’t fathom that H and I don’t even have a TV in our bedroom.
I can't remember the name of it but that's one he watches and I always forget it's her family and have to ask dh why his dad know so much about jewel. Lol
Has anyone answered "Alaska: The Last Frontier" yet? (Only read the few following and didn't see a response yet. And no, I don't watch it. I've seen ads and Googled it but my H, who is a GenXer, would watch Ice Road Truckers and The Deadliest Catch right alongside Shark Tank. He's truly more of a Boomer than I am. And I'm actually, technically the Boomer in the family.)
I need to have the TV or the radio or some white noise on. I have ADHD and cannot function without distractions to keep me from getting distracted. But I turn to Alexa for music and podcasts as much as the tv for HGTV or SVU white noise now.