Manners

So picture this guy’s your walking through town you enter a shop and as you open the door to enter you see an elderly person coming for the opposite direction so you hold the door open for them you don’t get a simple thank you or even an acknowledgment by the elderly person. Now imagine if it was the opposite way round that an elderly person held the door open for you and you didn’t say thank you or acknowledge them they would go into a huge speech about how the youth of today has no respect for the elderly and we just think they are a “nuisance on society”.  

The other day I was in my local supermarket and I had stopped to look at the magazines deep in thought I didn’t realise that a mobility scooter was coming till it had run in to the side of leg I turned round immediately and said I was sorry and apologised then the said person in the scooter went on to rant at me how I have no respect for my elders and that I was a rude insolent little child and new nothing of the hardship that they had faced growing up. I am old enough to know sorry does bring back the dead (Dad quote there) but I wouldn’t have minded if I had accidently walked into the scooter not the fact that it had run into me when I was clearly not moving I had been stood there for at least five minutes. It’s the same when I go into town the amount of times I have seen children almost being hit by mobility scooters are a little worrying just because you’re in a machine thing that can go up to fifteen miles an hour doesn’t mean you have right of way they also come equipped with a horn type thing it’s there for a reason.  

I also find it worrying that some elderly people feel they have the right to (struggling for a polite enough word) be rude and a little arrogant the odd side comments that you over hear walking past such as ‘she fat’, ‘they must have been dragged up not brought up’ and ‘when I was there age I was working not messing around’ I understand that they have a right to comment I have no right to take away anyone’s free speech but some comments are just too harsh and can really upset people even if there not directed at them. If we was to do the same thing we would be called rude arrogant so and so and told that we have no respect or understand the sacrifices they made so we could live the way we do now in this country. 

It also annoys me how all the elderly seem to stereotype all the younger generation because of the people who take it upon themselves to “speak” for our generation like some people thought they would do with the London riots. I was walking through town in my Pineapple dance hoodie as it was chilly and because it had started to rain I put my hood up the amount of looks I got because I was walking through town with my hood up was ridiculous some elderly people even went as far as gave me a wide birth.  

I do respect the elderly and the point of this post is not to slag them off it is far from that I just thought I would bring to light some observations I had made over the past couple of years and I do understand that the world has changed but I think that more needs to be done to help break down the barriers between the elderly and the young and the references I have made in this maybe just  one off incident or more than a one off in some occasions but these are my personal experiences.