11/30/2022 0 Comments Keep it shrimple stupid![]() And internalized ageism, especially, leads to greater rates of physical disease, mental health diagnosis and a shorter life span. That just plays to the notion that older people are nincompoops when it comes to technology, which is so untrue.īut when someone in my generation is propagating that, it comes across as this is acceptable to make fun of each other. I got one last week: His grandma unfriended someone on Facebook, then the image is a phone and she's got her white-out out and she's painting over his name. I have friends who send me these memes that they think are funny, but they're mean. The first one is ageism is rampant, whether it's discriminatory practices in the workplace or health care or internalized ageism, where we are harsh with each other or with ourselves. What do you want readers to come away with?Ī: A couple of things. Q: Other countries or ethnicities treat their elders with more respect than in the United States overall. So, you know, I hope that that's a lesson that I have learned also that sometimes we need to step up to the fear and make certain decisions that will be better for us than not, but fear is hard. But I sent my deposit check in so I could say I have a Plan B. It was shrimp scampi that day.īut also in the dining room, there were able-bodied older people, and then there were older people who had had strokes, were using walkers, and I bailed. I do eat fish, so that was not a problem. So, I went to look at a couple of these continuing care communities and honestly, I had the same level of denial and fear. I was recently divorced, and I needed a plan. Two years ago, I decided I don't want to become a burden to my nieces. A burden that we still loved them - but dealing with emergencies, health aides that needed to be hired and fired, etc. It was irksome, and in many ways, they did become a burden. So, they said no, but then they said, "We don't want to become a burden to you" - and that sentence is probably on half of the lists that people sent to me. The community they visited served fish for lunch that day, and my mom said, "I don't like fish, so no go." She's a very direct person. My brother took them to one near his house because they were living in the middle of nowhere on a cliff. I tell the story in the book of how we hoped they would go to a continuing care community. #Keep it shrimple stupid fullI kind of missed out on that part early on, and my heart was much more full for the choices that they've made, but also for the fears they faced. But as time went by and then after both became ill, I came to realize that they were doing as well as they could. Q: What are some of the most important things you learned that you wanted to pass on to people that perhaps you hadn't thought about before?Ī: The greatest lesson was about empathy, because when I started off keeping my list, I remembered my dad pretty much saying the same thing about his own parents. Some were hysterical in their own ways, and that's how the book came to be. Nobody was doing it in a mean-spirited way. I thought I was the only secret snitch, but no, everybody is keeping a list to try to do better for themselves for the next generation. It got a lot of attention, and then people started sending me their lists - like 200, 300 lists. I was trying to sort of provide a little bit of a guide to talking about them and using humor in real-life circumstances. I'm talking about these tough issues to talk about: illness, mobility, disability and then eventually death and dying. It started off with a column called "Things I Will Do Differently," so a little bit less sass in the title. It got to about 100 items, and I thought there's something there. I was just taking these notes and kind of adding to my list. He declined it, and wound up really impacting his mobility. Then my dad needed physical therapy, but it hurt him. Q: I read that, and I thought, omigod, pick up the rugs.Ī: The rugs never came up. My dad had started tripping and then falling over the throw rugs in their house, but my mom loved the throw rugs and she wouldn't pick them up. Q: What did you first notice that your parents were doing that you didn't think was best for them?Ī: They were kind of small things at first. Petrow, now 64, took time to talk with us about his book and what he's learned from writing it. He started to make notes, which led first to a New York Times column and now a book: "Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong." When author Steven Petrow was in his 50s and his parents were in their 70s, he began to see them making decisions that he thought weren't in their best interests. ![]()
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