Text messages and phone calls. I don’t need to see my boomer relatives racist posts.
That was disappointing, when you grow up thinking your parents are progressive and then as old age and its symptoms happen their guards drop and you find out that they always had some racist tendencies. I guess credit to them suppressing them for so long.
In my parents’ old age they’ve gotten more progressive. I reject the notion that people naturally trend towards conservativism as they age… I just think there are a fuckton of entitled “I got mine” boomers.
I recently read an article that claims people become more progressive as they age, but society becomes more progressive faster, so it just seems like they become conservative.
I’d live to read this study if you can find it
It was just an article I saw while randomly browsing, I wouldn’t know where to look.
i think it was just the case in the past because people tended to have more means and affluency as they grew up in the 70s and 80s, so they naturally gravitated toward people like eisenhower and reagan.
Yep. I saw a fairly recent study talking about this. The short of it is that they found no correlation between age and political leaning for ANY generation, but a strong correlation between political leaning and wealth.
As people begin to benefit more from the system, the more they support pulling the ladder up behind them.
The correlation to age here is that it gets harder to adapt to new information the older we get, so people are more likely to double down rather than change their perspective as society gets more progressive and inclusive. The best weapon against racism is experiences that put people in situations to meet people with different life experiences than them. Get them outside their little white suburban bubbles. This is why conservatives hate college so much. It’s often the first time kids are put in a situation where they’re both out from under the thumb of their parents and exposed to kids who grew up in different circumstances than their’s.
This certainly has the ring of truthiness to it.
Its not just “I got mine”, it’s " I got mine and I’m gonna wreck shit so you can’t get yours"
I am originally from the south but my mother joined the Air Force and we moved away after she divorced my dad when I was very young. I’m so glad that I was able to experience life outside of that racist bubble. I’m not sure how I would have turned out had I grown up there.
Same with me. It’s weird, during the end of the Mayan calendar my grandparents asked my dad to leave his wife and two kids to go into their bunker to prepare to fight off the minorities that all follow the Antichrist during the end times. The reason we were not invited to their crusade was my mom voted Democrat, and Jesus would not give souls to children who would live to see the end times as that would be to cruel for their god. He told them hell no. And it was weeks before they resurfaced again and pretended nothing ever happened. Could i have been conditioned thus if my dad don’t join the NAVY? Scary thought.
Probably racist as well.
Source: anonymous with an irrational hatred of the French, despite several generations removed from the French colonies.
i really must be lucky because my mum and dad are as liberal and accepting as can be. i guess i was just lucky to grow up in massachusetts and attend a pretty liberal methodist church. my pastor growing up even hand wrote me a letter when i came out as trans and apologised for how some of the church needs to change.
How close did you grow up to Boston, or did your parents live in a city for a period of time? The closer you get to a city, the more liberal the population becomes, and there are some pretty backwoods areas of Massachusetts. My dad was conservative until he went to Boston College and worked at the bank collecting loans from the poorer sections of the city. Even Cape Cod had MAGA protesters yelling at the Bourne Bridge about the plan to house immigrants on the Air Force base for all 4 years of Trump’s reign of terror, and I could probably still find the Trump 2016 flag that I used to drive by all the time.
i was always outside of worcester actually so i only got to go into boston occasionally i grew up in grafton, northbridge, and millbury and went to church in shrewsbury. :)
That’s pretty similar to me, though I grew up just over the bridges on the Cape. I always thought we were in a super liberal area being in Massachusetts (plus we were like halfway between P-Town and Boston), but as I got older, I was shocked by just how conservative it is there. It’s like a bastion of snowbirds’ summer homes and retirees who all care more about their property taxes than the kids who live there.
yeah millbury tends to me more democratic but then auburn and leicester is more republican :P
honestly i do want to move overseas just as a goal but if that doesn’t happen, i’d love to move to salem or northampton
We just didn’t see it in the past because we were all kinda racist. But we grew out of it.
FB got my sweet pre-school teacher who I never, in 30 years, saw be mean to anyone turned into a MAGA who hates people. The programming worked way too well.
This, but it was more surprising for other relatives, aunts and uncles mostly.
Like, Jesus Aunt Beth, I didn’t realize you religiously watched Glenn Beck and believe Muslims are trying to take over American by genetic conquest.
I’m the opposite. I don’t need to see my Gen Z relatives desperate pleas for attention.
My boomer relatives are relatively liberal and don’t feel the need to share more than the vacation they’re on, the cocktail they’re drinking, or their high score on candy crush.
Edit: I assume the downvotes are from butthurt Gen Zers. I don’t mean to generalize, I can’t imagine anyone doing that when discussing an entire generation, I’m simply offering my own personal experience. When my cousin is posting photos of himself in a banana hammock and my sister is posting daily cringe videos of her words of “advice”, AND IG keeps trying to show me this because the algorithm is trash, this keeps me off social media. Right, I should just not “follow” my relatives. Or, I could just stay away entirely. It’s fine.
Seriously, every time I see stuff like this, I just wonder if people have completely forgotten that you can text and call your family and friends.
This is the way.
There are also these crazy things called SMS and phone calls
I don’t. They have my phone number. They can text or call.
Same. I have no desire to be informed every time someone takes a shit, or does something AmaZIng!
Send me a text or call me. The family and friends I want to talk to will make an effort. The rest I don’t really need to know about.
Yeah we have one big group chat. And even that I have on mute. Some people glean energy from constantly seeing updates in other peoples lives. I’m the opposite, if you need something from me just call or text. It’s been 6 years or so since I deleted my Facebook and instagram. Don’t miss it at all
I know where they live and have their phone number
SMS and telephone and IRL.
I haven’t used Facebook for over ten years. I was using Instagram for a while but the algorithm makes using it utterly pointless.
Do you really need to be on top of everyone all the time? Give your relationships room to breathe. Allow yourself to have engaging conversations with people to catch up and get to know them and the things that matter most to them. Allow yourself the liberty of not knowing the most ridiculous crap that they choose to share with the world.
Edit: Oh! I have a friend who I turned on to GroupMe a long time ago. He and his family still use it regularly. So, if you’re looking for something, give that a look.
I don’t use social media to stay in contact with family; I use various messaging/call technologies.
A private Signal group for nobody besides us.
Yeah it took a while to get everyone onboard but signal has been the only messaging app that I use. Now even some of my friends and family use it for chats I’m not part of.
I donate $1/year per person I convinced to use it.
Yeah same here, we even have a bunch of different groups like a sort of venn diagram. Works perfectly well including meetups.
They’ve been informed that if they’d like me to know something, they’ll have to tell me. As it turns out, the phone works as a phone too!
Seriously, has everyone forgotten what a “phone” is? I mean I have trouble hearing and don’t like to hold long conversations on the phone, but it’s still one of the quickest ways to get in touch with someone.
Do you have experience with Auditory Processing Disorder? I say that because I started noticing symptoms in my early 30s when I developed tinnitus.
Hadn’t heard of that one and had to look it up… but no, my problem is that I had a loud car stereo when I was younger and blew out my hearing in the upper ranges. I can hear better in my right ear, but usually put the phone up to my left. When it’s quiet I can understand people just fine, but when there’s background noise it makes them a lot harder to understand. If I’m watching videos at my computer I can turn down the bass and turn up the treble, then I understand the dialog just fine, but everyone else in the house complains that it’s now too loud.
I’ve had over 30 years to adjust and I make do, but don’t try to talk to me at a concert. :-)
My phone number.
And christmas cards every year.
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I don’t use any social media. I give my phone number to family members. They can call/text if they want to reach me.
Texting?? I also use this technological innovation called living with your parents.
Stay in contact with family? No thanks
Had to scroll too far down to find this. Amen.
Signal
Via my spouse.
Me too. And SMS since we are on mix of Android and Apple.
