Old Women..

Old women are a handful. You hear people complaining about difficult mother-in-laws or grandmothers, seldom do we hear people whinning about their father-in-laws or grandfathers.

Old women, especially those who are retired or have lots of time to spend, tend to be very meddlesome. This could be due to the inherent characteristic of women. However, I'll largely attribute to the fact that they have nothing better else to do in their lives. The older generation of women are more likely to be illiterate. They can't read or listen to the English Language. Perhaps they can understand some basic Mandarin but they are more proficient in dialect, which is not the main medium of mass communication here in Singapore. Therefore, they have no awareness of the world affairs or the happenings surrounding them. Their lives only revolve around the people in the house. Hence they like to scrutinize every action of each person in the house, command people what they should and should not do, make cynical remarks about people who do not listen to them, indulge in self-praise when they compare themselves with the current generation or with the maids and so on. At times, they can be such a earful that it really gets into one's nerves.

The ironic thing is that these old women do not know that they are extremely irritating. Reprimanding them would not work. They keep insisting on their point of view. The best method of dealing with these ever-complaining women is to treat their words as music. Never let their words affect you. Let the words enter one ear and exit the other ear immediately without registering them into your brain. The masterful act would be totally not hearing their ear-piercing words. To be able to perfect that would probably take at least a decade.

However if one slowly takes time to understand them, it is quite easy to comprehend their need to incessantly complain. Having been through heaps of sufferings and hardships such as World Wars or practically single-handedly bringing up their children in not so ideal living conditions while taking care of the household chores, they feel that they are vastly superior to the maids and their daughter-in-laws. Hence, they self-set a strict and high standard for their maids and daughter-in-laws to adhere to. When these ladies do not perform their tasks properly, be prepared to let the scoldings and complaints begin.

Another reason could be the old ones trying to gain our attention. As busy working class adults or students being so caught up in own lives, the first immediate action when we reach home would be to plunge ourselves onto the sofa and reach out for the remote control or to head straight into our rooms. The last thing in our minds would be to entertain the 'old cranky'. As such, our long periods of neglection towards them cause them to constantly whine and make sarcastic remarks just to spark off any form of communication (be it arguments) with us.

If one observes carefully, elderly people behave exactly like kids. They sulk to seek attention, cry when they are behing scolded, make ridiculous demands at times, insist they are always right. They are also unable to piece together information to make logical sense and get curious about everything that is happening around them.

It is almost impossible to keep this bunch of elderly from complaining and making comparisons with the past. A high level of threshold to irritation is needed to tolerate their grievances and moanings. Most crucially, a caring heart and filial piety would be required to truly understand and put up with the child-like behaviour of these old women.