Do you have any elderly people in your fam that are so comfortable about saying what they notice that they are actually rude? Yesterday me and my mom and my sis go to see my grandma in the nursing home. Everything is good and its a nice visit until we are about to go and my grandma says to my sis that she's gained weight. She really goes IN on how much she has gained and my sis just rolls her eyes and plays it off like "Yeah Grandma I love you too!" But when we get in the car she goes to pieces and cries all the way home. It was sad because she knew she gained weight and didnt need to be reminded or criticized for it. My mom and me tried to calm her down and say "that's just the way she talks, she says that to everybody" but we could tell she was hurt. My grandma was being mean but probably didnt know she was and that kinda make it worse.

she knew she was being mean. I'm the "fat" one in the family. and my aunt and grandmother used to pick on me all the time. When I lost 80 pounds, I went down to a size 7/8, and guess what?? They STILL picked on me for being fat... and I knew I wasn't... they were just plain mean.

When my gram went nuts with alzheimer's, I took her out for dinner and a movie on what i thought was one of her good days. When I dropped her off and got her changed she looked at me all confused and said, "who are you, you look like my grand daughter rhonda (my sister), but you are soooooo incredibly fat".

It hurts, and some things you just never get over. But she is dead now, and i am not... and to hell with her.

I have a few older aunts and uncles who from time to time mouth off more than they should. Sometimes you have to just be thicker skinned when dealing with older people, because they don't always have the ability to filter their comments about what they observe.

I think it's just a case sometimes of "I'm old. I'll say what I want." lol

Part of the problem is that the elderly tend to not have as much to do to fill their time as they did when they were younger, so they nitpick on everything for something to do.

My Grandmother can be like that, but only in the sense that she'll make a big deal about the smallest thing, and blow it up to a major production, and I know it's because she sits around all day doing nothing but crossword puzzles and watching the lobby-cam on her TV monitor to see who's coming and going in the building.

I tried just a few days ago, to get her out and do something by taking her to a morning concert of family music, that's coming up this Thursday at the local college. I thought she'd have fun listening to the music and seeing the school choirs sing, but nope--she'd rather go to her doctor's appointment instead, which is the same time, same day, and I offered to switch for her to another day so she could do both.

You have to try to ignore them as much as you can. Most of the time they are bitter because of their elder status.

This was a long time ago, but I still bitterly remember a visit home when so many family members ~ Mom included ~ criticized me for being "too skinny". I have this credo about family: Being "family" is NOT a pass to be an asshole! So it got old quick.

I don't think I told anyone the reason why at the time but I left there so pissed that I didn't return for 8 to 10 years. I did tell my sister-in-law about it at some point, but the one that I needed to really address was my mother. .

Some of it might be generational too. My dad had an aunt who tended to not exercise tact when she spoke to people. A lot of it may have had to do with age, but some of it was just how she was brought up. I don't think back then people went out of their way to be subtle when talking to people they knew. They just shot from the hip.

My aunt (by marriage, she married Dad's brother) has a sister who is like this. She says whatever comes to mind and it is rarely flattering.

I am 35 and when I was 12, my friend's parents go a video camera and we made some stupid video describing kitchen products, trying (without success) to be funny. Anyway, this lady saw the video and was convinced we were into cocaine because we talked about flour. So, she still asks me if I am able to stay away from cocaine. Twenty three years and she still brings it up. Well to be fair the last time I saw her I was 33. And yep, she brought it up.

Bluesmama wrote:

This was a long time ago, but I still bitterly remember a visit home when so many family members ~ Mom included ~ criticized me for being "too skinny". I have this credo about family: Being "family" is NOT a pass to be an asshole! So it got old quick.

I don't think I told anyone the reason why at the time but I left there so pissed that I didn't return for 8 to 10 years. I did tell my sister-in-law about it at some point, but the one that I needed to really address was my mother. .

My grandmother use to say the same thing "too skinny" all the time.. Once a family friend was over, around the same age and she said "you should be nice and fat like this girl". Oh my god. I was mortified.

Old people seem to get hung up on weight!

Artemis wrote:

My grandmother use to say the same thing "too skinny" all the time.. Once a family friend was over, around the same age and she said "you should be nice and fat like this girl". Oh my god. I was mortified.

Old people seem to get hung up on weight!

I love it. Your grandmother insulted two people at the same time. Classic.

Ah shoot I still try to be sensitive to other peoples feelings. My grandmother was a hoot, my youngest uncle her baby was very prudish, at least when it came to all us female folks. So every time he was visiting she laughingly told me she would swear like a trucker, I understood and laughed along with her. Unfortunately others didn't quite get her humor. She ran around telling everyone that her son was giving her an 80 birthday party. So a neighbor called him to ask about the party. Well then my Aunt his sister told me Gramma's losing it. Then she told me about the party. I said well she's getting the party isn't she? Well yeah. Again I laughed like hell Gramma wasn't losing it the cagy old woman wanted a birthday party.

My stepmom and her sister are good at that. Sometimes I want to smack the shit out of them.

Oh, my bad. They're not elderly...just old as hell.

I have an older cousin who is my grandparents age who will do things like that. When I was 7 months pregnant she saw it necessary to point out that I now had a double chin. Now if I had responded by telling her that the bags under her eyes were buckets, everyone would have looked at me like I was out of line.

Not really. My one grandmother used to come up with some crazy shit but not mean.