Last update: January 13, 2017
Maybe our parents or grandparents no longer have the energy they used to, they can't move well, they don't remember who we are, sometimes they are almost speechless while talking to us or maybe they make us mad because they don't see anything. positive in their days.
Maybe that's the way it is and that's the way it has to be, why older people are made up of routines and needs we don't understand. There is more, perhaps to us, who are younger than them, the logic that explains these requests and this "slight selfishness" that we see in their words escapes.
However, we can say that in an age in which society depersonalizes the elderly and steals their intimacy, the anxieties that they manifest to us often respond to their need to reaffirm their identity.
When your parents bother you, remember ...
When your parents disturb you, remember that they exercise their right of decision at a stage of their life when they are dependent on others. Do not be impatient because they walk slowly, do not be irritated if they shout, cry or turn a lot of words to communicate a simple message.
When your parents' speeches make you angry, don't forget that it might be the last time you hear that battle from their past. Love them in their old age, give them what they need. No matter how long it takes to get to a place, they need your support and your love.
“There is a break in the history of the family, where ages accumulate and overlap and the natural order makes no sense: it is when the son becomes the father of his father.
It is when the father becomes old and begins to navigate as if he were in the middle of a fog bank. Slow, slow, inaccurate. It is when one of the parents, who grabbed your hand when you were little, no longer wants to be alone. It is when the father, once secure and insurmountable, becomes weak and takes air twice before getting up.
It is when the father, who in other times gave orders and organized, today only sighs, only groans, and looks for the door and the window that now seem very far away. It is when one of the parents, formerly active and hardworking, is unable to get dressed and does not remember to take medicine.
And we, as children, will only have to accept that we are responsible for that life. That life that generated us and that now depends on us to die in peace ”.
-Fabricio Carpinejar-
The elderly are not like children
Older people are "like children" in the sense that they need patience, attention, care, understanding and affection. They may sometimes ask for our attention and protection in a paternalistic way, but this does not mean that we must communicate with them in childish language (elderspeak, in English).
We cannot treat them as if they know nothing, they are people with incredibly rich life stories. Talking to them in excess diminutives, simplifying the language, adopting a childish voice, or not taking into account their decision-making faculties is the wrong way to treat them.
