Geriatric Childishness

How often have we heard some smart-alec middle-ager admonish his/her aged parent in public about some behaviour which is seen as `childish', without an iota of sensitivity to the feelings of the elder?  Most seniors are acutely aware of the likelihood of such an embarrassing fate befalling them occasionally and they voluntarily go into their own cocoon.  Trying to be absolutely prim and proper in their demeanour, just to avoid that dressing-down by their own progeny and others.  The problem with this approach is that they will be inhibited from indulging in some harmless fun due to their inability to complete execution on their own.  They perforce have to solicit assistance of someone else for such indulgence and are self-conscious enough not to seek that help.  This is a pity, because this hesitation, twined with excessive sensitivity to others' perception. deprives them of very simple, child-like pleasures in old age, which they are absolutely entitled to enjoy, all external opinions and sensibilities be damned!!  Oldies need to be reassured that seeking help of others to find some joy is no different from resorting to specs for better vision, hearing aids for better audibility and prosthetics for mobility in old age.  They need to be encouraged to partake of the small pleasures as long as they enjoy them, rather than be criticised for being `childish'.  At the other end of the spectrum, there are those other elders, who have been seniors from their childhood in this particular aspect, being consciously appropriate every step of their life because public opinion shapes their life!  This is not about them. 

Having said that, this loveable geriatric childishness in elders is a perennial source of genial amusement and mirth among others.  Exactly like the playful but endearing acts of children bring so much joy to the grown-ups at all times.  That is god's gift to us, who do not always have small children around us, but are bound to have some elders in our midst most of the time.

My own dear grandmother (Patti) lived till 92 and is fondly remembered by all who knew her for her zest and go-get-it attitude in life. Till a couple of months before her passing away, she was an absolute lover of everything interesting in life.  Whenever I visited Madras, she would beckon me and in a hushed voice, would ask me to buy some son papdi and ice cream for her.  I used to assume that since she was forbidden from eating too much sweet stuff and my brother and sis-in-law were doctors, my grandmother was not getting her restricted quota of sweet dishes.  I would comply with her request and get her the things she wanted and she would joyfully consume them over the next three days.  When my brother found out about this, he told me that every week he got her all her favourites and she was far from deprived.  When I looked at her questioningly, Patti would grin sheepishly, nod her head in assent and ask me innocently `when did I say I am not getting son papdi and ice cream'?  Touche!

And this pattern in her life never changed and no one mercirfully wanted to change that.  To this list, one should add her desire to drink goli soda from time to time. And the urge to eat murukku and thattai (fried eats) - only that she was completely toothless and could not munch anything, so we had to press a mortar and pestle into service to powder those things and give her to eat. And her penchant to use the wheelchair to the car, go for a sunset on the beach with my dear wife, who kept encouraging Patti to go to the moon, if she so desired! And Patti's very realistic and practical response was always that she was not sure of rockets and also she did not want to go that far away.  The two would share on the beach, peanuts steamed in their shells and other soft eats to their heart's content. And top up with a glass of sugar cane juice -- basically a lot of similar stuff that we might not have done so adventurously by ourselves, without for our Patti's nudge!  Obviously this trend continued with our own parents, even though they had imbibed a lot more reservations and circumspection in such matters and were no match for Patti's quiet, devil-may-care attitude!  Even if others are willing to help joyfully, the raw material, the elders, should have a somewhat irrepressible attitude to life, regardless of their age and the setting, to help them enjoy the smaller joys of life all the way. This type of benevolent seniors have a special, loveable streak of child-like earnestness in everything they do, which makes us smile whenever we think of them, even after they are long gone!

Then there are the others, who have grown up to be just old, abandoning all sense of fun and frolic, somewhere along the line.  This is not to criticise them or be judgemental, because one has no idea of what turbulence they have gone through in life, struggling with whatever cards that were dealt for them.  You can tell this class of people apart, by the complete absence in them of love of simple pleasures of life in old age.  And by the negation and dismissive cynicism that coats their behaviour and interactions generally.  What comes out, alas, is a mixture of childish petulance and a display of avoidable immaturity in their actions from time to time.

Recently I attended a wedding and as is wont nowadays, even before the priest had uttered the last mantra and signified that the couple are husband and wife, every single seat  in the lunch hall was taken in a hurry, as if people had been fasting for a few days prior to the wedding.  Actually, even when the wedding ceremonies are on, half the crowd moves to the dining hall in a hurry, resulting in the above situation.  My friends's  82-year-old, always brooding father wanted to eat first but could not move without support, so waited for my friend, who was more keen to be present for the entire ceremony.  The old man was probably ravenously hungry and when my friend came ten minutes later and took him for lunch, they found there was no seat available.  Terribly vexed, the old man started ranting about how he was being ignored and mistreated by everyone at the wedding, especially his own family.  Despite entreaties from his son and the host-family, he flatly refused to take part in the wedding feast, sat sulking for a while and went home in a huff.  The hosts were distressed and my friend was left flustered and embarrassed by his father's display of temper and peevishness in that specific context and was left red-faced. 

We have all been witnesses to instances of angry exchanges and acrimony between the oldest in the family (grandpa or grandma) and the youngest (grandchild) regarding things which are really unimportant or even silly.  The grandma asking for a reserved, window seat on a plane ride so that she can get a glimpse of the Tirupati temple from air and the grandson refusing to yield that seat on the flight caused enough furore to attract the attention of all the passengers nearby.  Grandma probably severed diplomatic relations with the grandson subsequently.  An old relative of mine refusing to shake hands or sit next to another old man, because the latter `right royally' ignored the former after deliberately running him out in a cricket match some 4 decades back during college days! What a serious grudge to smart under, for years!!  An old lady stubbornly refusing to travel in a car with another one because the latter went out of the way to garner all the attention in a group context in high school days, without letting others get in even edgeways.  So on and so forth.  I am sure you have all encountered such people many times over involved in similar `major' controversies.  Beauty is that the oldies are still nursing the `raw' wounds after decades and one cannot even laugh at the situation - they get very hurt.

My wife, with her superior wisdom, has this take on this matter. Such immature behaviour from an elder is nothing rare.  You see, this class of elders, nurtured by old age values, develop the notion that simple seniority entitles them to certain concessions and privileges in life and probably rightly so.  On top of it, without too many companions, no other pastime or hobby,  they develop the tendency to focus internally on themselves and chew the personal cud all the time. Their old-age world view gets warped seriously consequently. Sadly when they are outside their homes, they expect the whole hurried and indifferent world to adhere to their wants and dictates - somewhat unreasonable. Unfortunately, not everyone is empathetic to that extent and when elders fail to make necessary adjustments to their expectations depending on the context, with maturity and equanimity, they get emotionally hurt.  Easier to say that here than explain to a sullen, agitated elder, bristling under an imagined bruise of an insult.

Personally, both my wife and I like those seniors who are gregarious and outgoing enough to have all the childish fun they want with people around them, enjoy the small pleasures all the time but are able to also adjust with the rest of the world with geniality and good humour when situations warrant that switch.