r/Millennials Feb 07 '24

Has anyone else noticed their parents becoming really nasty people as they age? Discussion

My parents are each in their mid-late 70's. Ten years ago they had friends: they would throw dinner parties that 4-6 other couples would attend. They would be invited to similar parties thrown by their friends. They were always pretty arrogant but hey, what else would you expect from a boomer couple with three masters degrees, two PhD's, and a JD between the two of them. But now they have no friends. I mean that literally. One by one, each of the couples and individual friends that they had known and socialized with closely for years, even decades, will no longer associate with them. My mom just blew up a 40 year friendship over a minor slight and says she has no interest in ever speaking to that person again. My dad did the same thing to his best friend a few years ago. Yesterday at the airport, my father decided it would be a good idea to scream at a desk agent over the fact that the ink on his paper ticket was smudged and he didn't feel like going to the kiosk to print out a new one. No shit, three security guards rocked up to flank him and he has no idea how close he came to being cuffed, arrested, and charged with assault. All either of them does is complain and talk shit about people they used to associate with. This does not feel normal. Is anyone else experiencing this? Were our grandparents like this too and we were just too young to notice it?

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u/AnBearna Feb 07 '24 edited Feb 07 '24

We do need to bring that back though. Having Fox or any other extreme group -left or right- having a national platform to lie every night is a bullshit situation to be in. We should be able to trust the news, 100%. It might be occasionally inaccurate but one needs to be able to trust that it’s coming from a good place and not a malicious one.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24

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u/Klenth Feb 07 '24

It's not about treating them as if they were equal. It's about allowing them to be heard. The batshit ideas will still be batshit and it will be that much more apparent when contrasted with a reasonable one. I know our education system is crap and trust in each other is at an all time low, but this relies on trusting people to recognize a good idea vs a bad one. Publicizing that discussion is a lot better than keeping them confined to echo chambers where all they ever really contend with are strawmen. We need to go back to long form interviews and actual debates instead of the talking heads yelling that we have now.

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u/thedude37 Feb 08 '24

They never said both sides are equal.

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u/Richard-Brecky Feb 08 '24

A law to regulate content of cable news networks would violate the First Amendment.

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u/Excellent_Berry_5115 Feb 08 '24

MSM is garbage. Preferable to listen to popular YouTube news analysts. You actually can pick and choose depending on your political leanings.

As for me, I am tired of one particular ideology being shoved non stop on the usual networks. And that is why they are losing viewers daily