Did any of your grandfathers ever tell you how much better men have it these days in the same way women's grandmothers did?

KayRay1994 · 2023-12-18T15:51:03+00:00

Kinda, but not in the same way - ie. it was less gender driven and more immigrant/opportunity driven, lots of “you have the ability to travel freely, you have the internet, you have the opportunity to live and work almost anywhere you want” kinda thing

Steakman1 · 2023-12-18T16:45:19+00:00

My grandfather never said much. He would just ask if I had a girlfriend and then jokingly ask if I had a boyfriend if I said no to having a gf. In terms of education, he was a big advocate for joining the military since he’s a Vietnam vet. Not sure if that counts.

My grandmother on the other hand told me a few things. She said don’t rush finding a girlfriend since most women will be after my money anyways. And she said that I’ll never meet a woman who’s marriage material at a bar. Lastly, my grandfather has 2 different types of cancer from agent orange. And both my grandparents have said that having family around that cares has been the most helpful thing in getting through it. And that a good family is going to be one of the best things to have when I inevitably start having health problems from getting old.

lolthankstinder · 2023-12-18T16:53:30+00:00

My grandpa married my grandma who was very beautiful in her youth but she gave up on trying to be healthy later in life. They slept in separate beds and just tolerated each other. He was pressured to never ever leave her as a “good Christian man” and was expected to be her faithful servant until she died from obesity related complications. Over the years she lost her mobility and stopped being able to cook and clean so he did everything. He cooked for her, bathed her, provided for her, shopped for her, cared for her, helped her clean and decorate. He was literally her servant. But… he was happy. He loved her and felt a sense of honor and purpose by sacrificing his own well being and happiness for his wife and family.

CraftyCooler · 2023-12-18T16:57:38+00:00

Well - my grandfathers survived nazi occupation, so when they were still alive they didn't had too big expectations from life. For my grandfather from mom's side the biggest thing of 20th century was opportunity to get education, in my country education at all levels is free so he considered this a really big thing. He was a talented guy so even though he didn't received any formal education, he was quite good chess player, he taught himself some basic math(like systems of equations), how to read technical drawings, he knew some basics of electrical circuits and was familiar with politics and history of Europe. Because two wars razed this part of Europe to the ground - my grandfather was always saying that only education has a real value, because they have to kill you to take it from you. and once you're dead it doesn't make a difference if you possess something or not.

wtknight · 2023-12-18T16:21:34+00:00

My grandfathers weren’t telling me much about relationships. Is this a common thing?

abaxeron · 2023-12-18T16:49:36+00:00

Paternal grandfather died when I was less than 1 year old; he started a family only after serving 11-year prison sentence.

Maternal grandfather died before I came close enough to puberty, after long battle against lung cancer; the second "gift" he got from his career as a miner, besides two completely non-functional fingers.

Much privilege. Wow.

HungerISanEmotion · 2023-12-18T21:15:42+00:00

My grandparents and my parents told me multiple times over the years that modern women make bad wives. And even encouraged me to rather stay single then marry a tramp.

My grandparents were happily married and loved each other, never said a word against their partner, never insulted each other. My mom was not happy in her first marriage, but she always keeps telling me how much her second marriage made her happy, after my father died she never healed.

My grandmothers (4 and 5 children) and mom (3 children) all told me they wanted more children.

This wasn't because women in my generation (1985) started getting education, and cared about their career. If anything women which cared about their education, also cared about their status. On average they were decent, monogamous, finished college, got good jobs, married started families... good wife material.

But most women were abusing alcohol, drugs and it was obvious that women were doing it much more then men did. Slept with the worst scum, shared men, got gangbanged. They were having kids with scum then brake up, several got knocked up by unknown father. The ones which did signed up for college would often take 10 years to graduate or would drop out... shit was surreal.

stats135 · 2023-12-18T16:16:13+00:00

Men back in grandpa's day actually had to go to war. I do not. That's the only upside, everything else has gotten worse for the modern man.

h1shman · 2023-12-18T18:50:31+00:00

Not my grandpas since I’m not close with them but the older men whom I know well enough to talk about relationships with, always tell me to not get married. Less frequently it’s to not have kids.

I think it’s very common for successful men to have bad marriages leading to telling young men to avoid it. Likely it failed because of both their mate choice and priorities (work over relationship.)

FebruaryEightyNine · 2023-12-18T16:24:55+00:00

My parents (who are boomers now) don't really discuss dating in that way. But they're also African immigrants who came to Europe on work visas. Interestingly enough, they're actually kinda balanced in their view of modern comforts. They actually mention things being easier in their time in some ways, especially in regards to finding work, getting on the property ladder and some forms of governmental support (social housing, free education) what they do think has gotten better is social conventions and understanding of things like maternity leave and childcare for working adults.

My parents were a lot more pressuring of my sister to pursue an education. In a lot of immigrants families, I find that women are often made to adhere to more behavioural and educational standards and expectations than the men. The idea of finding a man to pay one's bills or to get married for the sake of doing so was just not a factor. It was more about status. For myself as a man, education was not hammered into me once I turned 18, neither was marriage...but you also weren't taken seriously if you'd reached say, 30, and had not found a wife. My mother always told me that if it didn't work out with my now fiance that she would find a "suitable alternative" back in our homeland.

It's funny, "dependent on a man" is a very western concept. In many cultures, marriage is a sign of a higher social strata and pre-selection. It doesn't have the weird gender war bias it does here and is more seen as a differentiator of the higher class/more serious folk. Not to say my native homeland isn't ridden with backwards cultural practices, but at the same time, there isn't the weird competition between the genders you have here. Marriage was never about depending upon the man as much as it was about ensuring a stable future for you and your children, no matter which gender you were.

Lift_and_Lurk · 2023-12-18T16:33:05+00:00

I think it would have been weird to talk to my grandpa about romance. I talked to my uncle a lot. He used to give short advice like “I know that kinda girl. Be careful of that kinda girl.” “She’s trouble: but the good trouble.” Or” You’re like me. We have to learn the hard way by doing and failing. We can’t seem to just “listen to smart people”

FutureBannedAccount2 · 2023-12-18T17:51:30+00:00

Both my grandparents told me not to go for these “fast little girls” because they aren’t worth the time

Many older women with many children (I'm talking about 4+ children) also say they would never have had so many children if they had had a choice.

What do you/they mean by this?

babazuki · 2023-12-18T16:00:26+00:00

None of the men in my family talk about romantic relationships with each other.

But there would be nothing good to say if they did. When men make societal changes that benefit them, it's called patriarchy. There's nothing good that has happened for men since grandpa's times.

AceOfSpadesGymBro3 · 2023-12-18T17:11:28+00:00

Wing_Puzzleheaded · 2023-12-19T06:32:54+00:00

No, if anything life got harder for men.

Mobrowncheeks · 2023-12-18T17:02:17+00:00

No. Our grandfathers went to war.

AreOut · 2023-12-18T23:20:47+00:00

Many older women with many children (I'm talking about 4+ children) also say they would never have had so many children if they had had a choice.

Where? Here where I am almost all older women say they are happy they have numerous kids and grandkids etc. It's also visible from their eyes on family gatherings.

his_purple_majesty · 2024-03-07T17:33:07+00:00

I never met either of my grandfathers because of the life expectancy gap, probably caused by the stress of having to support a family financially without getting to be present in the family.

Konoha_Shinobee · 2023-12-18T17:49:47+00:00

My grandfather essentially had 2 wives his entire adulthood. One he was actually married to (my grandmother) and another woman he was seeing that he thought was more attractive, IDK why he never married her instead. He wasn't educated beyond primary school (what Americans call elementary) and I doubt he even completed that.

I assume my grandmother would have divorced him if she could, but they were both born in extreme poverty and he managed to claw his way up to owning some land which he used for farming and a shop that she run. To leave him would be to go back to having absolutely nothing, which is obviously undesirable, assuming her religion wouldn't stop her in either case.

They also had a tonne of kids, 8 of them. As well as 3 from the other woman who also lived with them.

I could not just have two women like my grandfather did, despite having much more money and education, but that's a result of the women around me having their own money and education. They are harder to impress, but that's not an indictment on them, it's a positive that they aren't forced to be with me.

My grandmother was likely a superior cook and homemaker to any woman I'm likely to meet, she is also more useful at more masculine tasks as she had a hard life with lots of manual labor. That is a loss, but modern women have other things to offer, they can contribute more financially and are more emotionally and intellectually developed.

Women have lost some of the traits that make them desirable to men, it is true, however they have gained traits that enable them to be real partners, which I think is more valuable to most people.

thedarkracer · 2023-12-18T16:12:10+00:00

Nah, mine died before I was even 8 or were too bed ridden to even get an interaction. Also I was never at home so..

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RealMenEatPussy · 2023-12-18T16:51:00+00:00

BlueMountainDace · 2023-12-18T18:17:11+00:00

My grandfather didn't explicitly say it, but he did always stress how much better my life was as a kid in the US than in the village he grew up in Pakistan's Punjab prior to partition. He had to leave home when partition happened, shaved his head/beard to stay safe in India and built himself up in New Delhi.

He did well and made sure that his kids, with particular emphasis on his two daughters, had the best possible education so they could leave India and come to the US. He always stressed how much opportunity I had in the US compared to India. Was he right? I'm not sure. I probably could have leveraged some serious nepotism from India after the success he had and from my Mom's family.

But I'm very happy in the US and love raising my family here. But nothing specifically about men.

social_mule · 2023-12-18T23:09:15+00:00

My paternal grandfather died when I was 14 and my maternal grandfather died when I was 21. Both of them were farmers. They always encouraged me to get an education so I wouldn't have to do back breaking manual labor like they did. I listened to them and I'm glad I did.

They also told me not to rush into marriage. Well, my maternal grandfather did. My paternal grandfather had already died before I was at an age where marriage was even part of the discussion.

Nihi1986 · 2023-12-19T02:48:23+00:00

Not in my case, my grandparents admit they are tired of each other but they also claim to have lived very happy lives and happy marriages. They don't understand what's going on nowadays in the dating world. Most of their grandchildren are married and have kids so whatever is going on must be working right... Then they look at me and don't understand, because I'm the one who was going to do all of that first since I was dating the same girl, my first gf, for 10 years but now I'm the only one single 🙈

Dunno how to explain to them that she downloaded tinder and started dating assholes. Meanwhile, I downloaded it too and started dating crazy narcissists that would use me for sex, free food, validation and whatnot...

DoinIt989 · 2023-12-19T02:52:08+00:00

My dad and grandfathers rarely spoke about relationships. Ironically, my mother gave me more "red pill" style advice than my dad or grandfathers ever did. Uncles too, but I think a lot of guys get advice from their uncles vs fathers/grandfathers.

caboosenoob · 2023-12-19T14:35:42+00:00

Nothing gender-specific, but they have told me that our generation has it better, which I agree with.

Most of the people complaining are viewing their economic/social positions by comparing to white, middle-class people in the US in the 60s, but if you were outside of that bubble, things have definitely only gotten better since then. Not uniformly, but it has on the whole.

kexavah558ask · 2023-12-21T01:41:02+00:00

Silent Generation grandpa did so when it came to technological advances, specially in medicine, and standards of living. Never about "being a man". He looked back at his time in the military positively, actually, athough he never was deployed.

Incredibly, I think he was aware that things got harder for men, and bemoaned how they used to have state-run brothels where the girls were tested for STDs when he was younger.

Still a devoted husband to the point of enabling the worst behaviors in my grandma, as in, things that made me leave their house because of the sheer cruelty. Grandma had a shock when after his death we stopped taking the abuse from her in order for her not to take it out on him.

Title	Did any of your grandfathers ever tell you how much better men have it these days in the same way women's grandmothers did?
Author	oneblackcoffeeplease
Upvotes	42
Comments	185
Date	December 18, 2023 3:45 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/18lbrvc/did_any_of_your_grandfathers_ever_tell_you_how/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/did-any-of-your-grandfathers-ever-tell-you-how.1241066 https://theredarchive.com/post/1241066

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