We’re not quite THAT old

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Economy-Cat7133@reddit

"Yeah, DUDE, I'm like over 200 years old."

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My teen and pre-teen do this as a joke now. If I mention anything from history, they make some comment about how I must have witnessed it first hand. I'm actually just glad to have that kind of rapport with my kids. I could never joke with my dad

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zombie_overlord@reddit

Well, we WERE born in the 1900's

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forgetfulsue@reddit

My son sent my husband and I a meme of Skeletor telling us that we have lived in two millennia, two centuries and five decades (if you’re in your 40’s). Really rubbing it in that he thinks we’re old.

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TK-385@reddit

Depending on what year in the decade, you probably have no memory of it. It's likely that people who were born in the late 1800's probably took flack from people born in the 1900's.

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forgetfulsue@reddit

Well yeah, I am ‘83 so I have memories of the 80’s!

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bshr49@reddit

Six decades for anyone born before 1980. My wife’s a little older than I (1970 vs. 1978) and was asked by one of our kids if cars were around when she was a kid and whether or not she could see color or if everything was in black and white🤣

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darkartist00@reddit

![gif](giphy|PFJDcAFP9CjwLkQsif|downsized)

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MLDaffy@reddit

Gahdam savages... Tbf I didn't see in color till 1991.

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LoudLibrarian13@reddit

I work in a college archives, and the amount of students casually discussing "the late 1900s" (referring to the 70s/80s/90s) while they're looking at historical documents has me turning into a pile of crumpled bones on the regular.

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probablyatargaryen@reddit

My kids got me a bumper sticker that says “Be patient with me, I was born in the 1900s”

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ReiperXHC@reddit

Yeah we were just kind of afraid of my dad's presence. He never abused us, but he was scary, so we listened.

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Equivalent-Mousse-93@reddit

Same. So much so. I was terrified of my dad. I wouldn’t say he was abusive, but my parents did use the belt on us. Now my dad is the most patient and empathetic grandfather. I’m like who tf is this? And when my kids have no respect for me, I wonder if I ‘gentle parented’ a little too close to the sun.

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ReiperXHC@reddit

Good point we did get spanked

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Equivalent-Mousse-93@reddit

I don’t know anyone who does anymore. Or at least that admits to it.

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ReiperXHC@reddit

I haven't spanked mine. But banning things for a week is surprisingly effective.

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RUk1dd1nGMe@reddit

I remember joking with my mom about what is was like before electricity, she was born in '52

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oldn00by@reddit

>I could never joke with my dad I feel this in my soul

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mindsunwound@reddit

They were seeing Avenue Q, right?

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Throw-away17465@reddit

I wish I could go back to college, life was simpler back then

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mindsunwound@reddit

What would I give to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again!

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GhidorahtheExplorah@reddit

What I wouldn't give to have my safety be someone else's responsibility again. 🥺

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ActuallyAlexander@reddit

You guys are gonna be thrilled in the old folks home.

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mindsunwound@reddit

As long as I can have my video games.

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NelsonMuntz3@reddit

Overheard at work, Millenial comes up to cube next to me. Guy is a vet, in his 60's, had a portrait of a Union Officer on his cube wall. Millennial says, wow, I like your picture, what's it from? Ah... that's the Civil War. Wow, you were in the civil war? ...

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Equal_Question_4594@reddit

Oh man, shots fired (pun intended) 😆 (Too soon?)

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ptero_smack_dyl@reddit

Mine asked me what it was like before color TV once

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ReferredByJorge@reddit

My parents were very much _not_ bleeding edge technology types. We didn't actually have a color TV until later into my childhood.

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Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit

Bleeding edge? Lol. Color tv started being broadcast in 1953.

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slackjaw79@reddit

Most houses had at least one black and white TV into the 80s

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Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit

That's pretty crazy. I don't remember anyone having a black and white set back then.

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mindsunwound@reddit

I had a B&W in my bedroom with bunny ears... I used to rent a sega genesis from the video store for the weekend when I got paid from my HS job and play it on the B&W TV.

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Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit

I worked in construction on weekends and summers from like '92-'95. I bought a 13" color tv and a Genesis for my room. Before that I didn't really have any video games.

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sdavidson0819@reddit

My parents had a 13" b&w TV in their bedroom. I think it had a socket wrench in place of the power/volume knob

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ReferredByJorge@reddit

I dabble in litotes.

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GhidorahtheExplorah@reddit

I figuratively came in my shorts. I don't think I've ever come across that word outside of academia, not in decades.

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MydogsnameisJunior@reddit

Total opposite, my pops was a sucker for a tech gimmick for such a book smart dude he absolutely loved shopping the Sharper Image catalog. If he was still around, omg I can't even imagine.

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SlowGoat79@reddit (OP)

Haha, and I could tell them. My family’s first tv was a little 13” b & w with bunny ears. No color for us until 2nd grade, which was also when we got our first microwave. That brick of an appliance worked until I was in college.

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kerberos75@reddit

Our brick of a microwave (bought in 85 I think) still worked in 2005 when Mom finally decided she was tired of the dial knob and replaced it for one 1/8 of the weight, size, and price.

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Mountain-Fox-2123@reddit

Well that is not as bad as me asking my mother when i was 5 if the world was black and white when she was young.

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0sqs@reddit

We had a black and white TV in my parents' bedroom well into the 90s. My dad was forced to be kind of cheap during the mid 80s recession.

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Dark-Empath-@reddit

I use a variation of this as my sarcastic answer when my kids ask me what life was like back in The Old Days. “Well, the world was black and white then, before colour was invented”. They still aren’t quite sure if I’m being serious.

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TheVexingRose@reddit

My youngest son had to make a card for me for Mother's Day along with the rest of his class. It was a lot of fill in the blank stuff. "My mom is (blank), I like that she (blank), My favorite thing to do with my mom is (blank)" that type of thing. The first sentence of my adorable son's Mother's Day card said "My mom is old." Thanks, kid.

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kristosnikos@reddit

I’m not saying I was the most self aware kid but I never thought my parents were from the Stone Age or anything. I knew how time worked and if this famous person did a thing in 1898 and my parents were born in the early 50’s then obviously my parents weren’t there for it. I didn’t think people were old until they were in their 80’s. I was always interested in what my parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods and teens were like. I would ask them because I knew things were different and life changes decade to decade. The only dumb little kid thing I believed was that life must of been black and white sometimes because tv shows, movies, and pictures from the 50’s and back are in black and white. But I thought that when I was 4 and asked my mom and she corrected me.

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the_owl_syndicate@reddit

A teenager once asked how I survived the Holocaust. Another told a friend "she's obviously a hippie". My loves, I was born in the 70s, come on now....

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ScotchandRants@reddit

Hey pal, denial ain't just a river in Egypt… To you... you're not that old... To everyone else? You’re a goddamn relic!!! Let’s be honest for a moment... when we were 22, anybody near or over 40 might as well have been teaching cave painting and bartering for firewood... And now? You’re the one young people assume witnessed the fall of Rome in person... They don’t care that you’ve got Spotify... or know what a USB-C cable is... To them... you're a museum exhibit who somehow texts without using his index fingers like a goddamn sorcerer!!! here’s the truth… The first time I realized what I had done when I was telling somebody about something that happened 20 years ago... my head damn near exploded !! After I spent a year in solitude meditating with the monks of old fuck Mountain... I learned the secrets to life something I had been denying... Learn to embrace it... Lean into it... Have fun with it... Start using slang no one remembers… Start calling TikTok “the devil’s Etch A Sketch” and tell them your favorite influencer is Mr. Clean... Next time they ask, "you were there ?"... You lie to their sweet innocent faces the way you did when you told them santa was real...you looking right in their sweet gullible faces and you tell them that you were there!! Tell them that you rode dinosaurs with Jesus and that you Hunted with Genghis Khan.. embrace the absurd!! Hell, put a Werther’s Original in your pocket to hand out to them randomly and unprompted just to mess with the newer gens... Because here’s the rub... Growing old ain’t a curse... it’s a power-up!! You’ve lived through dial-up... LimeWire... and three console wars... You’ve eaten shit sandwiches made with expired trauma and low wages... You’ve earned the right to be weird, grumpy, and absolutely certain that music peaked sometime between 1997 and 2007!!! So quit fighting it... Pull up a chair... Grab a drink... And say it with your chest... “I’m the old fuck now!” Signed, Uncle Johnny Accidental Historian. Relic. Scotch Drinker.

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Medium-Mission5072@reddit

My millennial friend’s kids actually asked me what life was like before electricity. Thank god she stepped in and told them to stop being rude before I went off on a 9 and 7 year old at the time (they’re now 14 and 12).

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Sub_Zero_Fks_Given@reddit

Not gonna lie my petty ass would have said "Well is was a lot like it was before you were born.............better." lol

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ValancyNeverReadsit@reddit

My dad 100% used to say to my sibs & me “your mother and I used to have a lot of fun before you were born”

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lavasca@reddit

We didn this to our parents. I did it to mine, anyway. My friend too and just wrecked our moms. OTOH — My mom tried to explain that The Grinch was voiced (or narrated) by Boris Karloff. I thought she meant she knew The Grinch personally and his name was Boris. I wondered if he brought the green carpet in the family room. Livingroom etc was white (parents didn’t expect to ever have kids).

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upnytonc@reddit

When my kid was 6/7 we went to this museum that is set up like a 19th century village. Many of the buildings and stuff were from the 19th century moved to the museum from various places around New York State. Anyways, we went into one house and we’re telling our daughter how they didn’t have electricity and indoor plumbing etc. And no electricity means no tv, iPads, phones etc. She looks at us and says wow you must have been really bored as a kid without that stuff. Ummm… I’m not that old, I’ve always had electricity and indoor plumbing! 😆

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Mountain-Fox-2123@reddit

Pretty sure most of us if not all of us, said similar things to our parents or other adults when we where children. Just say yes, that you where there.

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DoubleRightClick@reddit

I like to ask my dad if he was freaked out when they invented the train.

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jennyquarx@reddit

LMAO Kids are so savage

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LonelyInternal379@reddit

Now I need to know the name of the play please

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Moxie_Stardust@reddit

[Mollylele](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA47OCkEmfk) did a cool song about it from 3 perspectives (a random play-goer, Booth, Lincoln), titled appropriately "Our American Cousin"

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SlowGoat79@reddit (OP)

Our American Cousin

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taleofbenji@reddit

It still blows my kids' mind that all phones used to be tethered to the wall.

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bananabastard@reddit

When I was 7-years-old, I used to LOVE hearing stories about what it was like when my mom was young. She would only have been 37 telling me those stories, but it was ancient history to me, ancient history, and my mom lived through it.

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TK1129@reddit

I’m 41 and am in decent shape, no grey hair, not bald, no glasses yet my kids think tv was black and white when I was their age. I’m middle management at work and have been working for the same group for 19 years. My mid 20’s African American workers call me Uncle (last name redacted) because I’m the “old timer”

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usernames_suck_ok@reddit

Kids routinely think I'm their age. They're not mine, though, but I clearly don't look their age--they just judge based on how I act around them/not acting like other adults, I guess? I mean, it has been more than one kid who is actually shocked when they find out I'm an adult.

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OtherlandGirl@reddit

Knife to the heart :) but 7 year olds are awesome aren’t they?

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katie_cat_eyes@reddit

I ran into someone in Boston who was telling the park ranger that she refers to herself as someone from the 1900s. I said, “no, we’re xennials!” Then she said she preferred to be called a “geriatric millennial”. Oh, boy…

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One-Earth9294@reddit

I'm 45 and I intend to live to at least 90 so this is just a halfway point to me. So fuck you, cancer, if you intend to get in my fucking way.

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