Originally Posted by
indyfabz
I have a challenge: See if you can trivialize “elder abuse” any further.
I can’t imagine that anyone who is truly 85 would call responses here “elder abuse.”
Originally Posted by
shelbyfv
When I visualize threat, I might see a mugger in a dark alley. This I see more as a large dog turd that appears periodically in the same spot on the sidewalk. Dodge it, step in it, ponder why someone doesn't care to control their dog.
I've observed this sort of behavior in my mother: when I was a kid, she was barely paying attention. But as she has gotten older, she has been offering more and more advice and gotten very insistent about it. Of course, it's irritating and unnecessary, as I am an educated and experienced adult and she has nothing useful to offer in this regard. I know that seems mean, but it's true.
I've seen this behavior in other elderly people, too - almost always men: even outside of whatever expertise they may have, some of them love to share their 'wisdom' with us youngsters, as if every one of their utterances is a solid gold nugget of truth. Once, when one of these oldsters was sharing some of this worldly wisdom with me, I interjected, "You realize that I'm 60 years old, right? I've been around the block a few times." It's especially irritating when they do it to my wife, who is the leader of the largest and most visible organization in our small-ish city. It's pretty common for some eighty-something year old, who's never worked in her field or even achieved anything near the level of professional success she has achieved in her forties, to tell her how to do her job. She smiles politely and pretends to listen.
I don't know what drives this behavior -- perhaps they are pushing back against a nagging feeling of irrelevance -- 'rage against the dying of the light.' Whatever the cause, it makes me more inclined to listen and learn from younger people; most of them know some things that I don't know.