Questions for people whose parents were much older than usual?

Question

Ever since I can remember, my parents were too old to keep up with me . Their attitude was always "Why go out and have fun when we can stay home ?" . They griped and complained every time I wanted to go to the movies, or to another town . I didn't like that, and I swore I'd never put my children through that . NOW -- if your parents are older than most, what kind of an experience was that for you ? Did your parents push themselves to keep up with you, or did you have to have to sacrifice so your parents could take it slow and easy ? Did your parents gripe and complain whenever you wanted to have fun ? Was having older parents a good or a bad experience for you ? Do you think it's okay for parents to be old ? Are there any difficulties with having older parents that I didn't mention ?

Answer 1

My dad turned 80 on saturday and my mum turned 60 on monday. I'm 21.
Mine were very anti-doing too. They hated traffic, people, and spending money. Everything I wanted to do was too far away, too dull for them, too much trouble or too expensive. But what they wanted to do was fine, no matter how far away it was, how much it cost or how dull it was for me. They were not social, didn't live driving anywhere and we always lived in rural areas so I missed out on having friends and extracurricular hobbies.
They never played with me as a child and never bothered much with me as a teen unless they needed my help. Dad slept a lot, mum only wanted to read, so I spent all my time while not doing school work (I did distance education) on my own amusing myself.
We never went anywhere fun unless it was for visitors, and if I finally got them to take me somewhere (usually only to school related events) and it was difficult getting there for them they were mad at me for it being my fault.
They are very very old fashioned and this creates a deep gap in understanding between us, and they don't try to understadn who I am or my life, they just ignor or gripe at what they don't understand or don't like and then ignore it.
They had issues all of their own that had nothing to do with age, and together it made my childhood pretty sparse with good times or nice memories.
I think people have a responsability to the children they bring into this world to be able to give them a good life, and that not only means food, shelter and love, but it means giving them a quality of life including social interaction, playing together, taking them fun places etc.
Sorry to hear about your folks, but your not alone :) And yeah, I would never do it to my kids either.

Answer 2

My parents were older, but they pretty well kept up with us. I actually liked having older parents because they were more relaxed than younger parents. My friend's mom was really young and she always tried to be our "buddy" and come to all our school functions and "be involved" which is fine, but sometimes it gets to be too much. My parents had great stories about when they were kids and stuff- it was always entertaining listening to them. They loved us very much because they thought they'd never have us and then we surprised them later in life.

The only downfall for me is that my mother passed away when I was still young. I would have liked more time with her.