Certain social conventions become detrimental once you start losing your faculties. For example, some people, if they need something, drop hints or have tacit expectations. And some people, when asked if they need or want something, say "Oh, no, I'm fine" even if they do want it. In some cultures, this is even the etiquette. The offerer offers whether they mean it or not, and the recipient declines whether they want to or not. Then, if the offerer really means it, they offer again, and if the recipient really wants it they accept.
But this causes problems when you're an elder and you're being asked whether you need help with something. When your instinct is to decline, you might end up not getting the help you need. Or, conversely, if your caregivers are accustomed to your ways, you might end up getting excessively nagged about whether you need help with something, or even getting said "help" given to you against your will, with the thought that you must be just trying to be polite. I've also seen hint-droppers, losing their faculties, who have thought they dropped hints but didn't actually.
Another thing people often do as a social lubricant is smile and nod, and then go off and do whatever they want. This often works in regular life, but it can cause problems when you're not able to entirely fend for yourself. For example, an elder in my life, who is losing her faculties, is supposed to eat a certain food item every day for various medical reasons. Caregivers noticed that her stocks of this food weren't depleting. Is she forgetting to eat them? Does she think she's eaten it already but hasn't? Is she simply choosing not to because she doesn't like it? They can't tell. They can't find the right balance between respecting her right to choose to eat healthy or not and reminding her to do things she intends to but forgets, because they can't tell what she's really thinking.
As I blogged about before, it seems that elders reach a point where they become incapable of learning new things. This includes interpersonal skills. So what I need to work in is developing, and making habitual and instinctive, the ability to ask people very directly for what I want when I want or need things, even taking the initiative in doing this. And I also need to work on always telling the truth about the extent to which I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, at least to doctors and stuff. Then hopefully it will be in my skill set when I need it.
8 comments:
Great idea! I can really relate.
"In some cultures, this is even the etiquette."
In JosieCulture, this is considered very bad etiquette.
LauraCulture, too.
"The offerer offers whether they mean it or not, and the recipient declines whether they want to or not. Then, if the offerer really means it, they offer again, and if the recipient really wants it they accept."
I remember blogging about this, how difficult it was for me when I first came to Canada, and sometimes still is, to follow this code.
If people practiced direct communication throughout their lives, this would be much less of an issue for seniors.
Which doesn't help seniors now, of course.
Also, and more importantly, this
This includes interpersonal skills. So what I need to work in is developing, and making habitual and instinctive, the ability to ask people very directly for what I want when I want or need things, even taking the initiative in doing this. And I also need to work on always telling the truth about the extent to which I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, at least to doctors and stuff.
is brilliant.
The thing about the double offer script is it totally works when everyone's on the same page, and even works pretty well when not everyone is. It's like how greeting people with "Hi, how are you?" even though you don't actually care how they are pretty much works. Normally I wouldn't even think of saying "Everyone should do X instead of Y" when it would also work if everyone did Y, even if X seems more logical.
But combine it with elder dependency + caregivers wanting to respect the elder's autonomy + loss of faculties, and it introduces too much ambiguity.
I think as an interim step, when I don't feel it's right to move away from the double offer script, I'm going to start using "No thanks, I don't want to trouble you" (as compared with "No thanks, I've already had way too much coffee today"). Then at least I'll get in some verbal cues about my motives for saying no.
Any caregivers who google their way here might be able to do the opposite. "Are you sure? It's really no trouble, I was making coffee anyway." This would at least give the "But I don't want to be a bother" impulse an out.
I guess it's hard for me to see the double-offer as positive in any way. Canada being so diverse, it would seem the line of least resistance re cultural bias would be everyone trying to communicate as directly and clearly as possible.
Tangenting here (is that good verbing?), do you think the declining-before-accepting script has any bearing on confusion over no-means-no when it comes to sexual activity? It's one of those dirty secrets that we expect boys to know no-means-no, and yet many of girls say no and expect or hope to be persuaded, at least a little.
(Using hetero and male dominant scenario here for discussion purposes only.)
I'm not sure if that's analogous, because the double offer is an offer, an act of generosity. When my grandmother asks me if I'd like some cookies and I say no thanks, what I'm really saying is "I don't want to make you go to any trouble."
I don't think that particular sexual dynamic goes the same way. (It's not something that's in my own repertoire so I might be missing some nuance.) I think the subtext is that the boy is trying to persuade the girl to do something for him or to let him to something to her. It isn't a favour or generosity or gift that he is giving her. If she said "Oh no, I don't want to make you go to any trouble," that would be out of place in the script, if I'm interpreting the script correctly.
A better analogy for the sexual script might be people who, when offered cookies, say "Oh no, I shouldn't" because of their diet, and expect/hope to be persuaded in the second offer. I think the difference is focus on other vs. self (or, more specifically, what the self should be.)
By declining my grandmother's cookies, I'm acknowledging that giving me cookies is work for her and leaves her with fewer cookies for herself.
But when my dieting co-worker declines the cookies that someone brought into the office with an "I shouldn't", she's acknowledging that she knows that to be a Good Girl she shouldn't be eating cookies. And then she might be secretly hoping to be told that no, she's totally allowed to indulge. (Or she might desperately want the cookies to go away before she gives into temptation. I know people who do both, and I can never tell which they're doing.)
And I think the girl in the sexual scenario might also be acknowledging that to Be Good she shouldn't be doing whatever it is the boy is asking her to, and perhaps she secretly wants to be persuaded that it is okay? But then, she might also really not want to.
Hmm. Good analysis. I will mull this over.
Post a Comment