Older People Are Sharing Their Brutally Honest Thoughts About What’s Been “Normalized” In Today’s World, And Yeah, They Got A Point

As we get older, there are some things that happen in modern society that we simply do not like or understand. So when Reddit user PrestonRoad90 asked the r/AskOldPeople community: “What is normalized today that you don’t agree with because it wasn’t when you were younger?” I wanted to share their answers to see if you resonate. Here’s what they said below:

1.“Playing music out loud in public, especially when hiking or on the bus.”

—thriftingforgold

2.“People causing a scene in public. You keep your business to yourself, and if something is upsetting you, handle it privately and quietly.”

—PrivateTumbleweed

“I don’t know if that was always the norm. My mom ripped most of my dad’s clothes off and clawed him up in the middle of a church service when she found out he was having an affair with the pastor’s wife.”

—HairyHorseKnuckles

3.“Tipping for every mundane transaction. Tipping used to be for people doing actual service. Waiting your table at a restaurant, delivering food to your house, doing your yard care. Something that involved significant action or effort. Now, there are tip jars sitting in front of every cashier. For what it’s worth, I would prefer to just raise all service employees’ wages and get rid of tipping altogether.”

—UrguthaForka

4.“Politicians in democracies just flat-out demonstrably lie, and there is no accountability for it. Utility and insurance, etc, companies are ripping you off if you don’t shop around when your contract ends. Loyalty had a value, but now it is exploited as a weakness. Concert tickets costing hundreds, or even thousands of pounds. I get that physical album sales are a fraction of what they were, but I don’t remember them costing hundreds or thousands of pounds each, lol.”

—Flea-Surgeon

5.“Staring at screens all day.”

—TwpMun

“We had ‘TV time’ when we were little where we were only allowed to watch one show after dinner.”

—y45hiro

6.“People think their uneducated opinion is just as good as that of people who took the time to study and learn a particular discipline. I’m not saying we should blindly accept the word of every professional out there. By all means, get a second or third or even more opinions from other professionals. But no, watching a bunch of online videos isn’t the same as med school.”

—ValhallaMama

“This feels big, but I’m not sure how to articulate it. We used to simply accept expert opinions, especially in areas of science, as truth. I’m not sure if it’s because of the internet, and we are exposed to such a range of opinions with no way to check the validity, or if it’s a more basic lack of trust in what were once considered authority figures.

The fact that a significant percentage of the population can express a distrust of something like vaccines scares the hell out of me. But I’m old enough to remember when the number of polio cases and measles deaths were reported in the paper.”

—cabinguy11

7.“Adults, men and women, being perfectly hairless. No, thank you.”

—Emptyplates

8.“No failing grades in school. Just passed along to the next grade.”

—HD-Thoreau-Walden

“This happened when I was in school, but it was kept extremely quiet. My mom worked there, and I didn’t even know it was going on until years after I graduated.

The school would lose state money and its ‘excellent’ rating if people started not passing, people would get mad about property values, etc.

So, the kids in the ‘exploration’ classes, I found out, just got progressively easier and easier work until it was something they could complete, and they’d be passed. One of my friends was in on it; he and other kids got put in a room for tests where the teacher just gave them the answers.

This was circa 2006-2010, prime ‘No Child Left Behind’ era.”

—MrLanesLament

9.“Mobile technology has led to employees being on call permanently. When I started working, once you left work, your time was your own…”

—ItsAllJustAHologram

“Well, mostly it was.

I’ve known places that would insist that you not have a second job. But that was about as far as it would go.”

—christine-bitg

10.“Abortion bans. Women have fewer rights now than then.”

—yesitsyourmom

11.“Wearing pajamas and house shoes out in public. I’m not talking about a quick trip to the store, but purposefully putting on pajamas and house shoes to wear out.”

—Miniver_Cheevy_98

“I LOATHE pajamas in public. By far one of the worst trends in recent memory in my old man’s opinion!”

—b_o_m

12.“Recording crime or misfortune with your phone and not actually doing something to help.”

—Fwumpy

13.And finally, “Orange marmalade for a PB&J…HEATHENS!!”

—photonynikon

“Hey! Slow down there. That’s my jam.”

—SicSimperFalsum

Older adults, share with us the things that have been normalized in today’s society that you highly disagree with in the comments or anonymously in the Google Form below.