Intergenerational Relations: A
Vignette[1]
Lisa Upshield, a woman of
formidable reputation, who is known for her forthright comments to City Council
meetings, has been unable to object when her son calls older people “ ‘Coffin
Dodgers’. Until this week, that is.
Perhaps because of the diary she was keeping for the Senior’s Help
Project, she chose finally to confront him.
“I was in the back of the car with Kevin, my grandson, and Eddie (her
son) was driving and he made reference to the driver in front who he thought
was taking his time, saying to his son. “Hey Kevin, there’s another coffin
dodger.” meaning an elderly driver. And Kevin went titter titter, because he
thinks his dad is quite good.
Eddie
does this a lot, she says, and before today Lisa has been loath to object
because she feels he does it by way of affectionate teasing.
“This
is the same son that when I show signs of forgetfulness he says: “ The
shotgun’s ready mother. Watch it.”
He speaks in a rather blunt way anyway.
This is his only way of expressing his feelings.’
It
appears that the mother and her son have developed a certain style of relating
to one another, a kind of code for expressions of affection. Instead, I said ‘He makes a
bit of joke….’ A poor joke. He makes a poor joke out of things.” She
replied.” But on this day, the first day of
her diary, Lisa decided to say something.
She couldn’t respond directly to his jokes about her, but did seriously
say “ I seriously disapprove of you passing onto to Kevin, at 5, such unpleasant
expressions. I object to one
generation passing that sort of expression to the next. I take exception to that’ to which he replied: “Shut up you
silly old bat.” Now I would have
hit the ceiling if that happened to me.
But she didn’t. “It’s his
way of speaking. On the whole I tend to ignore it. Or perhaps I am a coward. I
would neverdream of saying: ‘ Do you mind not calling me a silly old bat? I
find it offensive.” Because I
don’t actually. Anyway I like
bats, they are very jolly animals.
“But it is age discrimination.”
[1] This
vignette was used in a workshop designed and presented over 10 years ago as I
began my journey into investigation of ageism. What do you think of this story?
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