Are pensioners perceived differently now?

Just to add ...in answer to the op's original question ...yes I do think pensioners are perceived differently these days. Far more of us seem to help with childcare/financially or both than was ever the case when I was young. Although we were broke we always paid for my pil if went out to eat and would never have dreamed of having either regular childcare or financial help.

I do think each generation is very different. We were different from our parents and our adult children are different to us. I think one of the issues is the availability of easy credit, When we were starting out, apart from the mortgage, at most we had one item on credit at a time. Thus the fridge had to wait until the washer was paid for ...and always on interest free credit. We were very grateful for second hand furniture and had several second hand before we ever managed a new one.

It always amazes me that no-one wants second hand furniture, even in excellent condition as a starting point. Many in this generation seem different in wanting, and managing to get, everything new right from the start.

Of course, if this is due to credit it places a massive burden on finances.

My daughter is the sole provider for her family...a full time teacher while her husband is a sahd ...something else which would be very unusual back in the day.

Like the op I sometimes feel frustrated about what seems to be a heavy and somewhat one sided financial responsibility for my daughter but try to keep quiet knowing that back in the day many of our husbands carried this responsibility single handed, though I always worked as well as my husband.

We do give what financial help we can. Have paid for the whole family to go abroad with us several times, have helped with a car and buy most of the children's clothes. None of this is entirely unselfish on our part and what we do gives us pleasure and I know is very much appreciated by our daughter.

I do think things are harder now, maybe especially for working mothers. It often seems to me that the dream of work/life/family ...the idea of having it all has turned out to be doing it all for many young women.

Perhaps I didn't explain very well.So I will retire from this discussion.

Paddyann.What a harsh response !Reread my post and you will see I said DH and I are 'quietly frustrated' ie its between US two.Where did I ever say we had said anything to either of them about their finances?.I've expressed on another forum how frustrating the last year or so has been because we know they have had big rows,and money and how he spends it is part of it. DD has told us and been generally grumpy and stressed times.We wish we hadn't been told things ,umprompted.
So we offer practical support,but when I request some nappies and baby equipment as we have DD a lot overnight it doesn't come with a criticism.Just a fact we are having to be a lot more careful now approaching a delayed retirement and with my DHs severe degenerative arthritis.

I think there is some resentment Namsnanny because some older people were able to retire at 60 and were fortunate enough to own their own houses. Of course we worked hard for this and went without a lot of luxury items to pay for it.
However hard our children work now and they do, they will not achieve this. My daughter is a nurse and will be lucky to retire at 68, she is buying her own house but can only do this because she opted not to have children. I agree younger people have more of a sense of entitlement than we had.

Never had any financial help from parents although I think a few of our friends may have had some. Certainly there was no childcare apart from the odd evening out. Although thinking of it my mother used to give us boxes of food. My then husband was quite offended and used to call them food parcels, but I was always very grateful. I do think that some children wait until they are in their 30s before they feel at all grown up, and act accordingly.

Washerwoman do you think its any of your business what your SIL spends HIS hard earned cash on? If my parents had told us what to spend money on I'd have been livid.He works for it so its up to him how he spends it.If your daughter has a problem with that its up to her to say or to point out that there are cheaper alternatives.

I'm not a pensioner yet -due to the change in start date it will be a few more years.But we are grandparents.I still work partime,and DH runs his own business but on a much smaller scale than previously due to health issues.We provide wraparound care for DGD at least 2 days a week -she goes to nursery but DD and partner set off very early and are late home.It's not easy for them as they have demanding jobs, and commuting adding to expense and hours away from little one.However they earn considerably more than DH and I ,but to us also waste money -SIL in particular-which quietly frustrates us. SIL has a very flashy car,that's expensive to run.And not the most practical. And he sometimes spends on designer labels and gadgets, and we know it causes some tension between them.Especially as DD has cut her hours to make it better for them as a family.
For years we have been very generous with all our adult DCs ,helping out when they went to university,and bought their own homes.And DH still tends to wants to pay if we all go out for a meal.But I am less inclined now,especially our DD with the useless with money partner.And I've said it's time to stop being so generous..So when we agreed to some childcare I asked if they could provide nappies,a car seat and a travel cot and they did.We wouldn't be doing them ,or us any favours bearing the financisl burden of their decision to have a family.I support DD instead by inviting them for meals,walking her dog when she has a long day.
Our other DCs are actually more generous -taking us out for meals or offering to pay.Which we really appreciate.

Nonnie I agree things are different now. I just feel the ‘atmosphere ‘ in general is less kindly towards pensioners than it used to be.....would you agree?

We never had any help from parents, not even a wedding gift let alone help to pay for it. We didn't live near family so had no help with the children.

I am willing to look after my gc but don't live near enough so can't. The other grandma does live near and is a great help to them but I don't think she pays for anything. When they come hear I supply everything, including nappies, as that means they don't have to carry so much.

I'm not sure how I would feel about paying for every day things if they were near. I would prefer them to stand on their own feet. For Christmas and birthdays I buy them things they wouldn't buy for themselves as special treats.

I don't like it when our generation is lambasted. Life is different, some things were much harder for us but we were content with less. It is unfair on both generations to make comparisons.