Why do you call me grandmother if you are not my grandson? Why do you speak to me yelling as if I were deaf? Why do you answer for me when someone questions me? Why do you speak to me with diminutives as if I were a child? Why do you want me to do other people’s tasks because I have “all the time in the world”? Why do you say I’m gaga because I don’t do what you want?…
These are some of the complaints expressed by the elderly in the many workshops on ageism (discrimination based on age, especially of the elderly or elderly), launched by the La Caixa Foundation and which have been included in the publication Glossary on ageism , which aims to raise awareness about the good treatment of the elderly and promote it.
Something that is also claimed by the writer Soledad Puértolas, who in the prologue to this publication cries out against the homogenization of a group that will be broader each year and with very different realities. “The terms and expressions that are normally used to address such a large and diverse group are, on many occasions, inappropriate and even offensive. Old man, grandpa, our elders, our grandparents, are like children, retired, vulnerable… Words and expressions like these are usually pronounced from a position of superiority and with an obvious simplicity. In the treatment that older people receive, an attitude marked by infantilization, depersonalization, and dehumanization predominates.
In addition to the words that Puértolas mentions, there are other expressions that the elders reject, according to the text. Thus, the way of speaking to them bothers them. “Thinking that the older person in general hears poorly, has trouble understanding complex sentences, gets tired quickly in conversations… causes the younger person to address the older person more slowly, with shorter sentences, with a tone of raised voice and using diminutives”. The elders reject this way of speaking to them because “it seems that we all have a disability, are stupid or that we are children,” says Teresa Perales, a participant in a workshop of these characteristics.
The use of diminutives is one of the elements that bothers them the most and not only occurs with words associated with old age, such as old man or grandpa, but also in the use of their own names. “Who said that I like to be called Paquito?” Asks Paco, a retired businessman, who refused to call his son Paco precisely because he “hates” diminutives.
They also reject expressions such as “our elders”, because “it exudes paternalism, because, if they are ours, I must know what is best for these people, so I will end up deciding on them in different matters, as was well seen in the pandemic. ”, says the cited book. They say the same about phrases like “we are going to take the medication”, “we are going to shower”, since the person who will take the medication or shower will only be the older person.
They do not want to be classified under the umbrella that in old age everything is health problems, that everyone changes their personality (they are curmudgeons or stubborn) or that everyone has social problems (they are unproductive, distrustful, inflexible or feel lonely).
“The aging of society must not lead to a degradation of the treatment that human beings give to each other. As a society, we are obliged to defend, at all times, the dignity of the human individual”, says Soledad Puértolas.
