It’s not easy to be old in 21st century America. I’m not talking about medical problems like failing eyesight, aches and pains or even dementia. No, what really makes life hard for our elders—our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles–is that we marginalize them.
We don’t mean to, of course. We want to be nice. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s just that they drive too slowly and make us late. It’s just that Grampa bores us with the stories he’s already told us a hundred times. And Aunt Jane has all kinds of advice for us, whether we ask for it not. And Dad, well, Dad doesn’t like our movies, our music or our friends. Grandma runs the TV too loud and only wants to watch game shows and soap operas. When we visit Uncle Joe, he can’t hear us when we try to talk to him, but he won’t wear his hearing aid. Mom doesn’t get our jokes and doesn’t like the way we keep house. She always has a list of errands for us “because it’s hard for her to get out.”
The list goes on, and we allow ourselves to indulge in an ongoing brat attack against our elders. They exasperate us and wear us out. In response we ridicule them and ignore them and complain about them. In a thousand ways, great and small, we push them to the margins of our lives.
Our elders may be angry and hurt by this, but they usually accept the way we treat them with humility and good grace. Often, they even take responsibility for it themselves—as if they deserve it.
Do you think they do this because they’re old and crazy and can’t tell the difference between good treatment and bad? No? Neither do I. I think they do it because they love us.
They deserve our love and respect as well as our time and attention in return. When they need our help, they don’t expect us to know the answer to every question and the solution to every problem. There is, after all, no “cure” for old age. They do hope that we will visit them and call them on the phone. We are what they want, and they hope we care about them in return. It’s not a lot to ask.
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