Patronised!

When we sold our house in 2011 the Estate Agent found it easier to deal with me than DH, I was a lot younger but DH would check everything with me.

In 2012 we changed our car, lovely, young salesman soon switched from addressing DH as he could see DH wasn't interested (it was jointly financed)

Last year I was in Hospital for 11 days. I was on a Geriatric Ward, I was only 65. The NHS regards any-one over 65 as Geriatric, most of the of the other patients were in their 70s/80s/90s

I have mobility problems & if I'm in pain I may be impatient/tetchy although normally I'm a very pleasant person. I do feel sorry for any-one who catches me on a bad day. Also to add I've been using Word Processors/Computers since 1988 & although I'm not as proficient as my DD I can find my way round the Internet. My DM wouldn't have a mobile phone even in her 80s, she used to ring me if she wanted anything done on the Internet, sometimes it's the cost of Broadband which puts the older generation off using the Internet

My view is people read too much into being addressed as dear or love, or in this case assuming they don’t have internet access.

I’m sure that in the majority of cases, the person making the comment has no intention of being patronising, so isn’t it best to assume that they are just trying to be helpful or friendly?

I feel sorry for the sales assistant. My husband held the door open for a woman. She replied telling him she was more than able to open her own door. With some foul language thrown in. He now wonders what to do for the best, hold doors open or let them slam in womens' faces. I am sure this sales assistant is wondering whether or not to be so helpful in the future.

I don’t see anything wrong with people over 75 being asked that pinkprincess. I’m almost 71 btw with asthma and arthritis and wouldn’t be upset to be asked. Would you rather they didn’t ask and someone in need of help slip through the net?

Given that average life expectancy is between 81 and 82 in the UK, it seems entirely reasonable to ask people above 75 if they need any help at home especially if they present at A & E with a co-morbidity health problem.

Despite being a hale and hearty 78, with no co-morbidities, (at present), I think it is quite reasonable for health professionals to be asking people from 70 onwards about health problems and doing simple checks.

I made a brief hospital stay when I was in my early 60s and when I was admitted the nurse asked me whether I had brought my medication with me and was quite shocked when I said I wasn't on any and didn't need any. Clearly even at that age most people are on medication of some sort.

A quick glance at any death announcements will show people in their 70s dying from dementia and in care homes.

Poor girl is probably mortified having got it wrong and then been told off for it. Just doing her best with good intention, laugh it off, life’s too short and she was trying to be kind xx

Germanshephersmum

Thankyou.I can understand your comment, it is just me being a very proud person
My late DH was disabled or many years by severe heart disease and he would not allow any input from social services despite it being offered many times. He would always tell them that he had me to assist him and would not allow what he called strangers into the house.
I would probably be asking for help if I lived alone but I have one of my granddaughters living with me and my son lives locally and phones or visits often
It is just my fear of old age and my condition which I know will one day kill me that's gives me this response to offers of help.

pinkprincess

On a visit to A and E during a bad flare up of my COPD I was asked by a nurse if I had any kind of help from social services at home e.g. home help or carer.
I have neither and at the moment do not need any.I was told everyone over 75 has to be asked this.

Admitted this year at sixty five, with a heart attack, I was asked that question. It's routine, I wasn't offended.

pinkprincess one of the first things we have to learn as we get older, is a suitable level of humility. There will be things we can no longer do for ourselves, help we will need and to make life difficult for ourselves because we are too proud to ask or accept help is ridiculous.

My father, ex-military and fiercely independent, and managing well before his last illness, at a time in it when we expected him to recover, faced up to the fact that when he came out of hospital he would not be able to manage on his own and would need to go into care and was discussing local care homes and what facilities, he would like it to have.

How better that than pretending we do not need help, making life difficult for ourselves, and really difficult for friends and families when finally the whole edifice collapses and they have to sort out the resultant chaos.

So many people who are too proud to accept help end up living miserably in a dirty home, cluttered with rubbish, and eating very poor diets. Don’t refuse help and expect your family to do everything for you pinkprincess, it isn’t kind.

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Reported

Thankyou Marydoll Monica and Germanshepherdsmum

I understand it better now

pinkprincess I absolutely understand how you reacted to thee incident mentioned in your OP. That sort of event happens so often and is insulting because the internet has been around for nearly 30 years and computers on desks even longer, so all but the exceedingly aged will have been working when computers before they retired and most young people will have grandparents who can operate a mobile phone with the skill of a virtuouso rubix cube champion.

But the separate issue of independence and age is difficult. We have so many threads from members struggling to help and support parents, who are awkward, cantankerous and all round pain in the posterior, because they will not accept that they cannot do things that they could do before, or that they need help with basics.

DH was in hospital for 8 weeks at the end of 2020. I had one DC down to see me every weekend and I just gritted my teeth and had a list, not a long list, but a list of things I could not manage on my own that they needed to help me with and.

Getting the Christmas decorations out of the loft was one and as a result we have replaced all the big plastic boxes they were packed in, with twice as many big bags because they are lighter and more manouvreble.

? pinkprincess. We’re all still young things in our heads aren’t we?

Thankyou again * Germanshepherdsmum and Monica*

I have a special and well practised "hard" edge to my voice when anyone tries to patronise me. My nephew, who often shops with me, says I could probably cut frozen meat with it. I enjoy it.

In every community there is an "old bat" that you dont mess with if you have any sense. I aim for that to be me.

Not reading the thread, then advising someone else on manners is hypocritical, surely?

Totally agree, Doodledog - so many posters get pulled apart for pages and pages, long after they have agreed that they may have been at fault or partly at fault, or they are being unfair, or whatever. Makes you wonder why so many post to ask for help. If everyone took the time to read the thread and understand the problem before posting, their comments might be a bit kinder.

I would just have smiled and said I can do that thanks, but it takes all kinds to make a world.

One persons helpfulness is another's patronizing.

I agree that some staff need training in customer care. I'm in my late 50s and for a few years now I've noticed that whenever I'm shopping or at the hairdresser's and joining in the general chitchat, as you do, a young female assistant or hairdresser will sometimes reply to some remark I've made with "Oh bless!" It seems so patronising! I've heard them say this to other women of the same age or older, so it's not just me. It seems to be the standard reply they give to older women when they're only half listening. It's probably meant kindly but feels like a put-down.

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I get a lot of this. I explain as patiently as I can that people of my age and older invented the Internet, and also the World Wide Web which younger people often forget is a different thing.

Everyone has different talents.

Whilst I can read the news on the internet, post here, google - I have no mobile phone, have no idea how to do a "spread sheet" even as I keep family and business money in paper form.

I think the salesperson was kind, polite, caring. I'd not speak in an unpleasant manner, maybe use humour.

MimsinMaine

Screw her. I personally think that being condescended to is poor customer service. I think you were absolutely right to leave. A call to the store manager wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

Seriously? You'd try to get her in trouble for being helpful??

Poor girl. She was a little clumsy, but she was trying to be helpful and do her job well!