Mean Old People

There's something I don't like that I feel we truly need less of on this planet.

Mean old people.

And I do actually mean senior citizens. The media paints a picture of old people as this kindly, snowy haired understanding and supportive demographic, when in reality a damn lot of them are just mean.

  And the thing is, it's the kind of mean that I totally am on the inside. The difference here is that time has not yet stolen my filter (though some people may argue that my filter is often defective).  So maybe I'm extra sensitive because it's a slippery slope?

  Take, for example, the husband's great great aunt.  She's well over 90 and just mean.  She's doted on the husband since he was a kid for his enviable intelligence and self-confidence (thanks genetics!), so when he brought me home as the girl he wanted to marry, I was immediately subjected to Cranky Old Person Critique and clearly was found to be lacking,  despite the fact that in addition to possessing intelligence, self-confidence and wit to rival or often exceed my husband, I also can find a trash can and operate a washing machine.  All my my ownself, ya'll.  And you wonder why I have designs on becoming Queen of the World.

  So my first experience of unpleasantness was the first time I met her. As time progressed, the encounters grew more and more ridiculous until shortly after The Squirt was born. Now, you ought to know that I spent the "floundering" time of my early to mid twenties nannying for a series of fantastic families in Atlanta and Richmond.  Through doing that as well as having babysat and camp counseled since I was 15, I am pretty comfortable with babies and kids.  They don't freak me out with their babyness.  When The Squirt came home, we were actually quite comfortable with how to take care of her. I'd done it with so many other babies that didn't come out of me that doing it with my own was pretty much second nature.  We were laid back.  And she was an easy baby (but now often a Toddler of Doom).  All in all, I've had a hand in raising 4 or 5 babies from very early babyhood on.

     So Madame Unpleasant comes over to see her Precious Great Nephew and the Chosen Child that he frivolously begat upon an Undesirable.  At the time, The Squirt was about a week and a half old, and settling nicely into a routine. When she arrived, Squirt was sound asleep in the cradle we'd set up in the living room so that she could be used to sleeping in a not-silent environment. She'd been asleep for about an hour, which is pretty good for a newborn.  Anyway, when she started making her "I'm awake and hungry now" noises, I got up to get her from the cradle.  Unpleasant says "You're going to have to take some parenting classes, aren't you, because you're already messing that child up." Thus continued a good half hour of praising everything my brand-new-to-this husband said or did with the baby, and disparaging me.  At this point I could have hauled off and punched the witch in the throat, however in the interest of familial peace I chose ice cream instead.

   So my question is this, why are old people so MEAN?  I mean, sure, they have the advantage of having lived a lot longer than the rest of us, but I don't think age gives one carte blanche to be rude.  I'm putting Old People in time out.