I think this really is the hardest thing. As people age they sometimes, often times regress to what they were raised with...weird in a way. I had an aunt like that. She was outgoing, and very very liberal in her thinking when I was growing up...and then as she got older 60's, 70's its like a pod opened next to her and she became this curmudgeon I'd never known before...just sour and bitter..rarely laughed and complained all the time. Just like she had told me her parents where when she was growing up. Could be a form of dementia ... or another physical manifestation of illness (she passed after several more years of emphysema). I never thought about it except for the confusion of trying to reconcile how she was when I was young, with who she was when I was an adult.

I wish you good fortune...I think your partner and your kids (all of them) are very fortunate to have you in their lives.