It has to do with a Convent of Nuns and how they handle dementia patients.
How are we doing today?
I like it when I’m called Sweetie. I do.
Nuns are indeed “sisters” in everything but the biological sense. There is a real sense of shared community, family, and responsibility towards one-another.
I went to a school with many nuns as teachers. The common stereotype is only true to someone who doesn’t understand them. They were strict, but never shrill or overbearing. But they had high expectations for all of us - they literally wanted and, with their guidance, hoped every one of us could achieve Sainthood (which is the ultimate calling of every Christian).
Ok Sugar Dumplin’s
” . . what seems like a kind gesture may actually be taken as patronizing, a new study finds.”
Please, Social Scientists.
Please give us a little credit for having thought of this before you, all on our own.
Without a government-funded study.
It’s possible we have, you know.
And there’s a possibility, which you might study with another government-funded grant, that we migrate towards the tone of voice that has the maximum effectiveness with maximum efficiency.
Instead of speaking in our normal tone and having our elders constantly asking us “What?” repeatedly, we simplify our speech patterns and complexity, and raise our tone of voice, to convey the most information in the most economical fashion. And old-times seem to like it, by the way. The conversation progresses without getting bogged down with repetition and frustration.
How many of these researchers have old people in their own family, I wonder?
So elders suffering from dementia are all wrapped up in faked outrage like a 23 year old liberal college student? I suppose we better take care to address their gender preferences as well.
Bulls**t.
Why not just tailor it to fit the dementia sufferer. I know folks for whom the style works, and folks for whom it doesn’t. Tailor your interaction to suit the needs, likes, preferences of the person with dementia.
when ever a waitress / female sales clerk calls me “hon”, I always remind them I am not a German.
And in AussieLand you’re greeted with G’Day Luv - man or woman duzzin matta.
Convent of nuns, or not...I ain’t your ‘sweetie’, your ‘honey’, ‘dear’, ‘punkin’ or ‘darlin’.
Please feel free to refer to me by my name, first name or surname, either one.
The only person authorized to call me any of those sappy names sleeps next to me.
Just sayin’
Cannot stand it and will not put up with it. Back when I was a student at Marquette U, I asked a professor a question. He started out with condescension: “My dear girl…” I shouted at him, “I am NOT your dear girl.”
Been doing that all my life. I am NOT sweetie. I am NOT dear, I am NOT any of that……. So there!
Don’t ever come to the South regardless of age if you can’t handle being called sweetie or honey or ma’am
Penny: Sweetie, every night you don’t kill him in his sleep, he wins.
Maybe they think everyone is Sheldon?
I think they raise a good point.
Any phrase can be used in a way that’s insincere or condescending, but in the south “sweetie” is a term of endearment and I like it.
I call my sons “sweetie” or “sweetie-pie” all the time.