Making the Old People Happy by Dolly Madison

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 21, 1914

Making the Old People Happy

By Dolly Madison

THERE should not be any unhappy old people. Age should bring its compensations of serenity and philosophy. As a matter of fact, however, the average old man or woman is far from content.

The problem which confronts sons and daughters in caring for their parents is a grave one. Old age is sensitive, and the feeling of uselessness fills many an active soul with restlessness and discontent.

Perhaps the greatest mistake that is made by young people is that in their eagerness to relieve father and mother or grandfather or grandmother of burdens, they take away everything that makes life interesting. Those who have for a lifetime been eager workers do not want to sit with their hands folded; and so it often happens that father "butts into" his son's business affairs, and mother "meddles" with her daughter's housekeeping. Then comes friction, and the son and the daughter, having shown plainly that they desire no interference, cannot understand that their rebuffs have seared the souls of the anxious, active old people.

It is always well, if possible, to provide something

for the aged to do. If they can be made to feel that they are helping, their satisfaction will be supreme. If father has been a wise financier, it surely cannot hurt his son to talk over the affairs of the store or office. If mother has been a practical housekeeper, her daughter need not be too snippy to take advice.

I know one dear lady whose daughter insisted that she should sit with folded hands. Then when the old face took on unhappy, haggard lines, and the frail little body drooped, the anxious daughter asked the doctor, "What's the matter with her?"

He was a bluff old person, and he thundered: "Give her something to do; she is pining for action."

"But the maids don't like to have any one around the kitchen," the daughter said.

"Then let her go there when the maids are out," the doctor suggested.

So on Thursday afternoons the dear old lady cooked the dinners. The whole family learned to look forward to them. And the satisfaction that mother got out of that one day in the week lasted her through the other six.

She made chicken pies; she baked beans; she concocted sauces and soups and gravies after old-fashioned recipes; and when they were served, she beamed across the table as if to say, "Should I be put on the shelf when I can cook like this?"

The duty of children toward their grandparents often forms a great problem; but I believe that if there is any question of preference, it is the grandparents who should have first consideration. No child can be hurt by being made to have an attitude of deference toward the aged. Often, if any old people are eccentric, the children's sympathies will at once be aroused if we tell them that "grandfather has borne so many weary burdens," or that "grandmother has had sorrows." On the other hand, to say, "Never mind; grandfather is peculiar," or, "Grandmother is fussy," will foster a contempt which will be evidenced by the child's manner.

To those of us who grow up impatient with the faults of old age there will come a day of reckoning. Some day all of us will be old. Do we wish our children to treat us as we are treating our parents? Would you be happy under the circumstances with which we have surrounded father and mother?—Dolly Madison, in Reformed Church Messenger.