Elderly grandmother treats me like a child. How do you deal with it? How do I react to this treatment in a respectful manner?
My 92 year old grandmother has a stubborn tendency to treat me like a child. I'm 36 with both a full time and a part time job, and up until recently was living on my own for so many years.
She tells me when I ought to go to bed at night, criticizes my food choices ("you're eating THAT?" "Is that all you're eating!?!"), tells me all the time how I shouldn't go to the gym and comes up with every hilarious, ridiculous excuse under the sun not to go. "You know what you should do?" is one of her favorite phrases. It's like I don't know how to do anything by myself, according to her! It drives me crazy!
Yes, it's all coming from a good place- she wants to help. And I understand that she's losing control over her own life, so she makes up for it by trying to control mine vicariously.
But how do I get her to stop treating me like a child? It's beyond frustrating.
If there's something that she really objects to, try not to rub her nose in it. (Like if she thinks chewing gum is icky, then... don't do it in front of her. I'm not saying to follow all of her rules, just compromise a bit when it doesn't truly matter.)
Your grandmother is 92. "Do you know what you should be doing?" is irritating now, but trust me on this. Someday soon you will walk through the door into her house and give almost everything you ever hope to have to hear her say it just one more time.
In the meantime, you could try turning it into a game of sorts.
Q: Do you know what you should be doing?
A: Giving my favorite grandma a hug and kiss?
A: Cooking some chocolate chip cookies?
A: Shaving my legs?
A: Searching facebook for a date?
A: Washing my car?
Almost any answer that carries some amusement can redirect the conversation and reduce your irritation.
Q: Do you know what you should be doing?
A: Holding a drink in my hand on the beach!
The only thing I can suggest is a comparison: my younger daughter is 31. She wears an engagement ring and is usually dressed for work as a teacher when she's out and about in public.
She has not yet been able to buy a bottle of wine or a movie ticket for an 18 film without getting her ID checked, often by people who are significantly younger than she is. For a while, aged 25-28 say, she found it quite annoying but now that she's over 30 she says she's decided just to enjoy it while it lasts!
The thing is, you still ARE an adult and you choose your own food and your own bedtime and generally suit yourself, yes? So when you say "treating" you as a child, she can't actually control a single thing. She's just looking on you as a child - with love!
One day, in the middle of his diatribe, I asked him what time it is. When he answered, "4:30" I said, "Oh, that's too bad. The complaint department closed at 4:00."
That ended his complaining without making either of us the "bad guy."
I found that a sense of humor goes a long way to diffusing a trying situation. Easier said than done. TNtechie gave some great, humorous responses to a trying question. Personally, I like the first response the best!
When I visit the nursing home I talk to different family/residents along the way. A universal annoyance is family members being plagued by unreasonable questions/comments as if the elders are talking to children. This seems to happen before and after being admitted to the nursing home. Another is getting constant phone calls from loved ones who just want to talk about anything, give orders or beg to come home.
I would not skip any visits to the gym. If she needs this much attention I hope you are looking for an alternate living arrangement for her.
You relax when you’re around her, realize that what she says makes absolutely no difference to your life, respond neutrally and politely and do what you want to do.
Your reaction to what she’s saying means nothing to her. Your defensiveness makes you sound much younger and less secure than you deserve.
So YOU do it. YOU train yourself to hear what she says, withhold reaction, and let her say what she WILL SAY.
I don’t hear anything in what she says that is meant to sound helpful at all. The control thing? How dependent is she, relative what she was in her past? I can’t imagine that she interprets any particular advantage to what she says, especially nothing as complex as has occurred to you.
My LO tells others both when I’m absent and when I’m present to hear the conversation, that she wants me around because she can “yell” at me.
And she can, and occasionally does yell at me. And I ignore it, because I know fundamentally that she loves me and I love her. No particular “do this to be respectful” technique. Just overlooking, letting go, keeping in mind that I’m a respected adult, no problem.
As for the yelling, my grandmother does that to me, too. My grandmother yells at me over the most trivial detail, like my nervous habits. But deep down they love us, and we, them. The yelling is not actually anything to do with us- it's their way of venting their frustration that they can't do the things they want to do independently. So they lash out at whoever is around, which is us. Though easier said than done, try not to take it personally.
I discovered when elders say things to certain people who don't really know the family dynamics and their long history they can't shut up when it comes to certain things! The sometimes need to re-confirm their standing with the family tree and have forgot how to do so.
Requests for certain things and/or unwanted advice can be intrusive, especially if it involves your own family. As my mom would say in her earlier years, when Grandmas became more liberal in their thinking out loud, "this too shall pass". I reminded myself of this a few times.
All elders of my family deceased, I'm now sometimes approached by elder men at my husband's facility! I don't know but maybe they just need a woman or maybe I remind them of their wives. I've become good at greeting, talking, and sometimes giving them a quick handshake as I keep moving down the hallway. They wheel themselves toward me, necessitating some reaction on my part. I don't step into the elevator with them. I prompt them to go ahead and I step back away from the door.
I would keep trying to do a work-around as best possible, given your time and energy, and the environment/location in which your paths cross!