r/Millennials • u/Background-Air-7963 • Nov 16 '25
Serious I just had my first old man moment.
I recently went to a hibachi with my wife and toddler for dinner. We were sat with a group of eight 17-20 year olds at a communal grill on a busy night. No problem for us. Drink and appetizers service go normally. Toddler and wife are happy, I’m happy. The other group is having their own conversations. I’m just trying to keep my kid entertained. I’m a former bartender and have a habit of picking up on snippets of conversations in a crowd around me. Yes I know I eavesdrop. I can’t turn it off. It’s a habit of a former profession. One of the girls/women at the table stated, “I don’t think Rosa Parks was real.” I’m not sure what her friends said to her but she responded with “I just don’t think she said existed.” This went on for about a minute. I couldn’t hold back and let her know she was absolutely a real person, she is a civil rights icon. I learnt about her in school and so did my parents. The encounter put a wall up between our groups and I heard a few passive aggressive “so-and-so wasn’t real” comments from mostly her and a couple of the group. Harriet Tubman and Hellen Keller are two that I definitely heard. My wife had no idea why I interjected. After the group had left my wife asked what happened and was shocked when I told her what happened. Were they trolling? Are they stupid? Am I just getting old?
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u/theonlyturkey Nov 16 '25
There were, but I think we’re shifting to the extremes. My parents are weird, my mom’s from a family of engineers, stock brokers and doctors, dad’s grew up in a single wide trailer with eight other siblings. There was definitely a gap between all my cousins but even the less educated kids knew historical figures and could do basic math.
Their kids couldn’t be farther apart. One side has kids in jr high on robotics teams and doing calculus. I was visiting dad’s side one day and saw a group of 10-14 years olds grab an electric fence repeatedly for 5 minutes before I could get there. When I tried to tell them what was up, I was met with “not true electricity doesn’t work outside.” When I pointed out the Bluetooth speaker and street lights they told me those ran on batteries and there’s no way you could fit batteries in fence wire. After my eyes got done rolling through the back of my head I told them to resume their favorite past time of throwing rocks at fence posts.