My maternal grandmother - extremely nice and sweet, died of breast cancer when I was a kid so I don’t remember much else about her.

My maternal grandfather - convicted for soliciting an underage prostitute (undercover cop), that’s all I know about him and it’s enough. Not sure if he’s even alive.

Paternal grandparents - psychotic religious fanatics (burned our Harry Potter and Mickey the sorcerer books while babysitting when I was a baby, killed multiple of my dad’s pets growing up, etc). Have only seen that grandmother when the grandfather died and at a Christmas party a month later - still psychotic and super rude.

My parents - nicest people you’ll ever meet, I have basically no bad memories from being raised (except my dad only makes broccoli and cauliflower by microwaving it)

My mom is. That’s about it. My grandparents are all passed now, but they were mostly either racist, or highly opinionated with little regard for evidence.

If your grandma grew up post WW2 then she did not grow up during Nazi Germany.

I know that’s just one detail but you got it wrong and it makes me wonder if you aren’t highly motivated to misinterpret what she says.

Have you tried directly telling her how you’re hearing what she’s saying, instead of going straight to the sarcasm?

more or less. my grandparents are already dead, but as far as i remember the last one living of them which i had contact with (my mother’s mother) was ok with lgbtq+ people (as far as defending their right to marriage) and quite concerned with the rights of disabled, but was somehow racist towards black and indigenous people, and could not stand demonstrations of social movements (i.e. sit-ins from landless workers and squatters, strikes and the like). my parents go about the same, but my mom is much less racist.

Mine are dead, because I’m old as hell myself.

But it was quite different on each side of my family, with some minor interesting quirks.

Now, they were all nice enough. Even my one grandfather that was a fairly venomous racist was nice, even to black people. Hell, if anything he was nicer to black people than other whites. It’s an old south thing.

Obviously, tolerance was not his strong suit when out of the public.

And that was true for my grandmother on that side as well. She was less vehement about it, and more of the habitual racist. You know the type, they don’t hate black people, and don’t even really have real problems with them, but they grew up with racism being the default, and see no reason to stop using slurs just because times have changed. But she’d never say anything mean to anyone.

Kinda weird shit tbh. I took one of my friends over to her house at one point, and whenever the subject of school came up, she’d remember him and ask “how is your n****** friend?”. Wasn’t being hurtful in her mind, she was genuinely asking after him because he was my friend. The south can be fucking nuts that way. Which, when I was younger than that time, my parents had sheltered me from the n word and what it really meant, which led to some funny but problematic confusion eventually.

On the other side, both grandparents were legit super tolerant. Like, my best friend is gay, and at one point they thought we were together, so they were inviting him to family gatherings. My black friends were always welcome, nothing ever even mentioned about race at all.

My grandfather was republican, but was a one issue voter (2a rights). He was otherwise progressive as hell. Like, there was this show in the eighties called “Soap”. Billy Crystal got famous on it and played an gay man. He often said after the show would end that he didn’t understand what the problem was, “there were sailors like that under my command. You didn’t talk about such things, but they never bothered anyone, and they served their country with honor.”

I worked as a bouncer off and on as a side gig, including for gay bars. My best friend was/is gay. So I ended up being active in gay rights support. Never had to worry about it being a problem. My grandfather said he was proud of me a few times, and while neither of them enjoyed seeing me bandaged and beat all to hell when either the job or the activism got ugly, they were pissed that people were like that, and never once suggested I should stop.

Now, that grandfather had served during some of the cold war and hated Russians. With a passion. So he wasn’t free of prejudice entirely. That grandmother though, she never had anything bad to say about groups of people. And she’d tell my grandfather to shush his mouth when he’d watch the news and go on a Russia rant lol. Strangely, he never minded me being fairly friendly with socialist ideas. He’d argue the points of it, but never said I shouldn’t believe any given thing.

I loved all of them. I still do, even my racist grandfather. It wasn’t the totality of who he was, and I can love people that are flawed. Maybe if he’d lived longer, he could have changed. My grandmother that was racist did to some degree (switched to “colored” instead after my dad gave her hell once), and my dad and uncles rejected that bullshit early on, so that might have swayed him eventually. Or maybe he would have stayed just as bad, I dunno.

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Yeah, my parents are perfect, my grandparents are like ~80% there. One side is a bit religious conservative (thankfully anti-Trump), and the other side’s grandfather has an odd idea that all black people naturally don’t want to work. Other than that one sentiment, he isn’t racist in the slightest, but he insists that’s the case.

Mother: Had a very old timey demeanor, perhaps due to her age when it all happened. Was nice but also had that obligatory TV Land level of strictness/sternness. Surprisingly understanding of issues of race, religion, disability, etc. but I had to come out of the closet several times since she didn’t really understand asexuality, which I guess based on her upbringing in the world’s most interesting place is understandable. She also remarked some of the traditions I picked up pieces of later in life seemed convoluted, though did not elaborate on this commentary.

Father: Very different from my mum aside from being from a different part of the same area. He was carefree and I guess nice, but, for technical reasons, also distant from me. It was a very “implied love” type of dynamic. He was tolerant of almost everyone, but if someone were to call our family “all that and a bag of chips”, he consistently considered me the bag of chips, and the weird salt and vinegar kind, to use an analogy. He also showed signs of being annoyed with my special needs.

Grandfather: Most considerate person ever. He gets a perfect score in love and tolerance, even if he seemed quietly upset at my less-than-worldly habits.

Other grandparents: Never knew them that well, if at all.

My dad couldn’t be cooler. My grandmother and all her friends are very chill too. My grandfather is sometimes grumpy and weird about stuff, but shuts up or changes his mind about it pretty quickly. My mother, and probably that whole part of the family, is pretty conservative-right. Not very nice.

Mom, yes. Dad, no.

Dad’s a bigot that doesn’t understand why he can’t use “those kind of words” these days so he rants about it in private.

HOWEVER…he would never say it to their face, he’s at least THAT self-aware. And for the most part, he wouldn’t hassle them (or anyone).

While his personal beliefs are most certainly bigoted. He’s anti-LGBTQ+, anti-indigenous (we’re in Canada), anti-immigrant (he himself IS a fucking immigrant…smh)

But his biggest trait is simply live and let live. He doesn’t agree with them, but he has no interest in forcing that disagreement upon them.

He basically believes in everyone minding their own damn business regardless of what they may personally believe.

They grew up in a different era, and as people get older it’s harder for them to let go of backward ideas. Even my mother, a fervent feminist, from time to time makes transphobic comments that are born more out of ignorance than anything else. Sometimes she seems to understand and other times she doesn’t seem to want to understand. My father, on the other hand, is also generally a good person, but his machismo and homophobia are very strong. One day he had said that he would rather shoot himself if he found out that any of his children were Gay, that phrase still haunts me and prevents me from being more open with my bisexuality. I love him dearly, but he is far from perfect. I don’t know what my grandmother’s political views are, but she has always come across as loving and receptive. She taught me to Crochet even though I was a man, she insisted that I pay no attention to anyone who told me it was a woman’s thing. Despite this, she is a simple woman and very disconnected from the outside world, and from what my mother has told me, there was a time when she was terrible. Old people are… Complicated.

Funnily enough, they don’t hate black people, only refugees and those who steal our jobs, but not everyone, just those stealing low paid jobs, the doctors are great because (idk)

Dad’s just islamophobic, well, less phobic and more islamo-hating, but only if they have X children and don’t work.

I just hate everyone equally.

My Grandad is quite progressive. My Dad on the other hand is. Not. Most of that side of the family is quite progressive.

My mothers side is a mixed bag Mum is progressive, omi definitely isn’t and the aunts and uncles are all over the spectrum.

My Dad died almost 20 years ago and I went NC with my abusive mother at about the same time. I never knew my grandparents.

I wanted to add my data to the set, even if it doesn’t help much.

Very. I’m lucky that my family is mostly liberal.