Truly Doing Good

It’s a time of year when people often think about doing things that might benefit others.  Toy drives, food drives, end of year donations—all of it is in evidence as we pass Thanksgiving and head into the new year.  And much of it is meaningful and important and makes a difference in people’s lives.

In our world of older adult services, there is also an uptick in outreach during this time of year.  Whether it is a youth group or club or community clergy, people are more likely to offer to volunteer at this season. And that’s great.  I think I speak for every senior care provider when I say that volunteers are a gift and we appreciate each and every one of them.

What disturbs me, though, is when, as a friend of mine used to say, “the emphasis is on the wrong syl-la-ble.”  What that means is that the volunteer’s focus is on themselves and not on the service they are providing.  The volunteer may come to do friendly visiting and want to do it with a quick pop in the door of a room.  They’ll greet the elder, not wait for a response to their greeting and move on to the next room.  It feels as if they are visiting animals in the zoo and not human beings who can interact and engage and would welcome the opportunity to do so.  In other instances, volunteers want to offer activities that are, frankly, infantilizing.  Older adults are not children and should not be treated as such.  It is demoralizing and insulting to them, and it is thoughtless and inappropriate by the person providing the activity.

Please don’t misunderstand, we have many amazing volunteers of all ages. They connect with our elders, they develop relationships, they enhance lives.  Programs that they bring in are extraordinary, from brain games to music and art, from discussion groups to pet therapy and so much more. What makes them successful is that, in each case, these volunteers see every elder as an individual and not as a member of some amorphous group of “old people.”  We are so profoundly grateful for them and for the caring and commitment they bring to our elders every day.

But I cannot help but wonder about the others, the ones that we would say “don’t get it.” What will it take to have people understand that older adults are still people?  What will it take to have them treat elders with dignity and respect, to recognize their wisdom? How can we help others to both see what older adults have contributed and realize that they still have the potential to contribute?

I think about Maya Angelou’s oft-quoted words, “Do the best you can until you know better.  Then when you know better, do better.”  Nowhere do those words seem more apt than in the care of elders.  Older adults are not children, they are not diagnoses, they are not problems to be solved.  Older adults are survivors, contributors, teachers, leaders, parents, friends and more.  They are sources of history, they are meaningful members of society. Time for us all to not just learn that but to also remember it.