Well, in your bubble maybe. I can assure you the majority of people your age barely grasp the concept of the internet, let alone online gaming. Same goes for people in their 20s. It's like cars for many people. Sure, they know very well how to use them, but have no idea about what other people do with their cars, like racing or off-roading. They might have some rough idea of what it probably is, but no clue about all the intricacies.

Nowadays most people use the internet, but that doesn't mean they understand the pain when someone leaves your online match. Not everybody is playing online games, let alone online games where a leaving teammate actually matters.

I think you are right. There are many people in their 40s who grew up with online games, my father included :). Although I am still fairly certain that online games weren't as prevalent back then as they are today, thus many parents don't quite grasp the concept.

EDIT: I would like to add that even people who didn't play online games, such as my mother, still played on the atari, for example, and know the concept of "unpauseable" games. So I think that it mostly comes down to demographic. In my group of school friends (a few years ago) some parents were in the know and others weren't.