Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Phone Habits of the Elderly
My grandmother called me last night from her assisted living place in Milwaukee. She usually goes to bed at 9, but waited an extra half hour to make sure I'd be home from work and rested by 7:30. She was glad I answered because, as she shouted, "I wouldn't have been able to understand anyone else if they tried to tell me you weren't home, or if one of those message things came on".
This is true. At 90, she's nearly deaf, but her problems with understanding people on the phone aren't so much a result of age, as they are of a timeless antagonism with phones, answering machines, and well, communication in general. My grandparents were married young, and much to her relief, my grandfather handled everything, save for the cooking and cleaning. And when he was incapacitated by Alzheimer's, she got mad at phones. Well, phones, driving, bill-paying, and everything else she never did.
She's less and less mobile, but Nonny's gotten garrulous since moving into Luther Manor. When she used to call, she'd stay on the phone just long enough to hear how I was, tell me with dread that life was "fair", and then quickly but politely excuse herself and hang up. Last night, though, she covered in detail everything from the recent spell of "crazy weather", to how wonderful her nurses are, to global warming, to her remote granddaughter, to the power of prayer (an old, reliable topic). It was as if she'd just discovered the possibilities of the phone. She still scoffs at the internet. But give her another 50 years, and I'm sure she'll come around.
My grandmother called me last night from her assisted living place in Milwaukee. She usually goes to bed at 9, but waited an extra half hour to make sure I'd be home from work and rested by 7:30. She was glad I answered because, as she shouted, "I wouldn't have been able to understand anyone else if they tried to tell me you weren't home, or if one of those message things came on".
This is true. At 90, she's nearly deaf, but her problems with understanding people on the phone aren't so much a result of age, as they are of a timeless antagonism with phones, answering machines, and well, communication in general. My grandparents were married young, and much to her relief, my grandfather handled everything, save for the cooking and cleaning. And when he was incapacitated by Alzheimer's, she got mad at phones. Well, phones, driving, bill-paying, and everything else she never did.
She's less and less mobile, but Nonny's gotten garrulous since moving into Luther Manor. When she used to call, she'd stay on the phone just long enough to hear how I was, tell me with dread that life was "fair", and then quickly but politely excuse herself and hang up. Last night, though, she covered in detail everything from the recent spell of "crazy weather", to how wonderful her nurses are, to global warming, to her remote granddaughter, to the power of prayer (an old, reliable topic). It was as if she'd just discovered the possibilities of the phone. She still scoffs at the internet. But give her another 50 years, and I'm sure she'll come around.
