One of the effects of the modern treatment of the elderly are the two extremes of leaving and ignoring them, or overdoing it so you are all over them doing everything.
To ignore the elderly is to give no value to their life or relationship to you, to overcompensate is to suggest that they are useless.
My wife has been having very nasty week of asthma attacks, she hasn’t been able to lay down and is constantly running out of breath. My mother and aunt called to see what was could be done.
If you say. No we are fine. That tells people: “You’re old we don’t want you.” If they come down and you have them just sit then you are saying: “Nice to see you now go to the corner since you aren’t of use.” Both choices just aren’t acceptable to me.
When they showed up, after a little visiting I gave them the job of scrambled eggs and bacon for the wife, a few dishes and my mother grabbed a load of laundry since it’s located right next to the sink.
Small jobs, very little work and two people doing it, but significant when you have two people with a combined age of 174.
That 15 minutes of work however in addition to showing me up in terms of breakfast cooking (I make the worst scrambled eggs in the world) was very important. It told two ladies who are used to doing for themselves that they are important and can contribute.
It’s a small thing, but it is in those small things that a person’s self respect is affirmed.
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