{"id":7361,"date":"2023-07-25T06:44:06","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T10:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=7361"},"modified":"2023-07-26T17:11:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T21:11:12","slug":"is-the-term-senior-abuse-prevention-ageist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2023\/07\/is-the-term-senior-abuse-prevention-ageist\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Term \u2018Senior Abuse Prevention\u2019 Ageist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hardly ever cross-post questions from my <\/span>Yo, Is This Ageist<\/span><\/i><\/a> b<\/span><\/i>log. I\u2019m making an exception because the question below occasioned such a meaty discussion during this week\u2019s Old School\u2019s <\/span>Office Hours<\/a> meetup.<\/span> It also helped me understand why the phrase \u201cparenting your parents\u201d is unacceptable. Colleague and Office Hours regular David Wilson <\/span>(@oldschoolmoves<\/a>)<\/span> contributed a great deal to this response.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I sit at a table for the \u201cPrevention of Senior Abuse\u201d (I didn\u2019t choose the name). As I was thinking about it, I was wondering if this concept is itself ageist. Does having initiatives directed at preventing abuse of olders equate olders to children? I don\u2019t want anyone to face abuse and I think abuse prevention is a valid undertaking, I just wonder if abuse prevention specifically addressing abuse of olders is actually inherently ageist.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This is a tough one. Like \u201cchild abuse,\u201d the term \u201csenior abuse\u201d tethers a life stage to vulnerability. It\u2019s ageist\u2014and ableist\u2014to suggest growing old inherently makes people vulnerable to abuse and infantilizing to suggest that olders have the same needs as children. Virtually <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> children require some protections, but the same is not true of all adults. Most older people can recognize what is likely to harm them, are used to having agency and are reluctant to relinquish it. Furthermore, as geriatrician Louise Aronson writes in <\/span>Elderhood,<\/span><\/i><\/a> a higher level of risk than the one set by institutions and health care practitioners is often <\/span>good<\/span><\/i> for olders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet some developmentally disabled young adults may require the same protections that kids do. The same could be true of older adults who are cognitively impaired. But that does not turn them back into children. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of Elizabeth Loewy, when she was the Assistant District Attorney in charge of New York County\u2019s Elder Abuse Unit, \u201cSo many people especially when starting in the elder abuse field will compare it to child abuse. And the medical and legal issues are completely different. Individuals who have lived a full life, even if they are impaired, should <\/span>not<\/b> be compared to a child.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

(This is also what makes the phrase \u201cparenting your parent\u201d unacceptable. Responsibilities may change, but caring for a child is different from caring for an adult. It is condescending, infantilizing and misleading to equate the two.) Nor is impairment always in play when it comes to preventing abuse. Some olders are vulnerable not because of cognitive issues or physical frailty but because they\u2019re afraid or unwilling to confront their abusers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s really complicated. Abuse prevention is a valid undertaking, and many good people do this difficult, underpaid and undervalued work. I think \u201cPreventing Abuses of Vulnerable Adults\u201d would be a slightly better name for it but not by much.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hardly ever cross-post questions from my Yo, Is This Ageist blog. I\u2019m making an exception because the question below occasioned such a meaty discussion during this week\u2019s Old School\u2019s Office Hours meetup. It also helped me understand why the phrase…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Is the Term \u2018Senior Abuse Prevention\u2019 Ageist?<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-voices-views"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7361"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7361\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}