I spent many years working in nursing homes and cancer clinics, and you wouldn’t think those sorts of jobs would make you want to physically beat on your coworkers, but oh how I did want to. Because I swear to God, few things make me feel stabby like hearing someone talk to an elderly or sick person in babytalk. Not only does it simply not help, but it’s rude and disrespectful. And now there has been an that proves I am right. Via .
Williams, who has more than 20 years of experience as a nurse working with older adults, says that based on this assumption, many hospital and nursing-home caregivers communicate in “elderspeak.”
This includes using basic vocabulary and grammar, speaking in a high-pitched or loud voice, sounding overly caring or controlling, and using terms of endearment such as “honey” and “sweetie,” Williams says.
“Elderspeak is a kind of talk or communication that is common between younger adults and older adults in a variety of settings,” she says, adding that it’s not too far from “baby talk.”
But her latest study, presented Monday at the 2008 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, shows that this language might have the opposite effect.
…When staff members spoke in elderspeak, the residents’ resistance to care nearly doubled compared with when staff spoke normally.
Even in silence, dementia patients were more cooperative than when hearing elderspeak.
Hmph. That’s what I thought.
When I first started at the nursing home as a nurse’s aide way back in the day, I was assigned a resident I’ll call Mary who allegedly refused to eat. I remember the nurses telling me she was a real handful, very uncooperative, blah blah, “and good luck trying to get her to eat.” Okay fine.
So the first day, I brought Mary her breakfast and sure enough, she wasn’t too interested. I was sitting with her, trying to figure out how to rectify this situation but not saying much because I just didn’t know what would work, when one of the more obnoxious nurses walked by the room and decided to stop in and show me just how “difficult” Mary was. And it began:
Oh now Maaaarrrrrryy honey, let’s not be hard on the new aide today mmmmkayyyy? Let’s see if we can get you to eeaaatttt something mmkay? Can you be a good girl for us and just eat a bite of your eeeeggggssss?
Of course replete with the high-pitched squeak at the end of each drawn-out word, precisely how you might talk to a 6-month-old.
It was when she said “can you be a good girl” that I started wanting to beat on the nurse. Can you be a good girl? Are you freaking KIDDING me with this shit? Are you really addressing a 90-year-old woman like that?
Mary lived up to the nurse’s low expectations and refused to eat, muttering something about how the food was no good, and the nurse got frustrated and left the room but not without the brilliant advice to me that I shouldn’t “waste my time if Mary’s not going to be helpful.” Oh god GET OUT.
My whole life, I’ve hated that babytalk nonsense, and as soon as I saw it in action like this I figured maybe that’s what Mary’s problem was, maybe she was depressed because she lived in a tiny room with no visitors and everyone talked to her like she was an infant. I knew it might get me fired or at least hated by the nurse if she overheard me but I didn’t care because it seemed to me that Mary eating was more important, so I just flat-out asked Mary: “Does it bother you when people talk to you like that? Because it sure as heck bothers me hearing it.”
Bam. Mary cracked up in giggles and reached over to squeeze my arm and said that yes, as a matter of fact, it pissed her right the hell off. We chatted a little, I told her it was my biggest pet peeve in life, she told me her biggest pet peeve (something to do with Bob Saget), and thus she was cheered up and thus she ate her breakfast but only after making me add extra butter. Pretty simple. Never had any trouble getting her to eat after that. She just wanted some adult human interaction; it helped her appetite.
Anyway. It’s not just old people that so many healthcare workers do this to. When I was up visiting Rupert’s dad in the rehab hospital, they did it to him. One of the recovery room nurses did it to Rupert after his surgery, too. It’s like they see someone in a hospital gown and immediately deduct 30 points off their IQ. Drives me NUTS.
So I am just here to tell you, in case you’re one of the people who talks to patients or the sickly like they’re babies: don’t do that. You sound like an idiot, you aren’t helping, and it’s just plain rude.
As my late mother, whose version of hell on earth was to be dependent on *any*one, lay in her bed recovering (ultimately not) from her cancer surgery, my idiot sister kept calling the adult garment it was necessary to use by the same word she used to refer to her childrens’ diapers.
I to this day feel that infantilization had a hand in my mother’s rapid decline.
I do not talk to babies like that either… and I asked others not to talk to my child in babyspeak, just thought he should hear the correct pronounciation the first time and every time.
Good points, all, Rachel. It’s really sad that the Nurse didn’t try any other approach. Perhaps, if she did hear you, she might realize that doing it your way (and Mary’s way) would make her life a lot easier.
IT’S KINDA LIKE TALKING REALLY LOUD TO A BLIND PERSON–IT JUST SHOWS HOW FUCKIN’ STUPID YOU ARE.
And annoys and/or embarrasses those of us who aren’t stupid.
I find that my grandmother has a much harder time hearing me when I talk in my normal (soprano) voice; I have to consciously lower my voice about an octave for optimum comprehension. Wonder if that’s part of it?
I ran an anger management group for kids over the last year. It bugs kids, too. Heck I didn’t even realize I was doing it until the 11 year old pointed it out to us. After that, we had much better progress with all of them. I’ll never do it again, you can bet.
OH. MY. GOSH. Thank you so much for bringing this up. I want to deck anyone and everyone who does this.
Everytime I hear some one squeel “do you want a coookiiiieeeee,” I say in my head “Do you want one punch to the face?”
Can NOT stand it!
I even hate it when people talk that way to babies. I believe the study findings would hold true for babies as well. My mom never ever spoke baby talk to any of us kids and I was reading chapter books and speaking in full sentences by the time I was 5.
For a little proof of my own:
My family does emergency foster care for children removed from their homes and they always get to us terrified and crying with some helper squeeking “mommy and daddy go byebye.” We get them and talk in even calm tones with normal words and they calm right down, get a drink and maybe some toast, a little snuggle and they are off to bed, instead of being traumatized for the next 3 hours and having to be hospitalized…
I’ll quote the King from one of my favorites, Bubba HoTep:
Hell, I don’t even talk to babies in babytalk, much less my elders.
“…she told me her biggest pet peeve (something to do with Bob Saget),…”
You go girl.
Personally, I’d like to rip his arm out of it’s socket and beat him over the head with it.
“believe the study findings would hold true for babies as well.”
I have read of such a study. The result was that babies are in fact most receptive to babytalk. But you shouldn’t continue it after the child becomes receptive to normal speech.
I guess this means no more “Wachel”?
Or is it still okay for us to speak “wetahd”?
I spent six weeks in the hospital after a stroke, and I HATED when they did that to me. The worst was a pulmonologist who also managed to ignore the fact that I had pneumonia and needed to go back to intensive care. Fortunately, most of the hospital staff and the doctors treated me like an adult.
Wanna know my pet peeve? Guys talking to their girlfriends on the cell phone with that (relatively) high-pitched voice in public.
Kinda reminds me of that old Steven Wright bit when he said that he kept a journal since the day he was born:
Day 1: Still tired from the move.
Day 2: Everybody talks to me like I’m an idiot…
Oh lordy, my mom did this to my niece once– we were all out at the local bookstore-n-coffee place, and I just about blew my stack right there. My mom was going, “Marrrrrrr-y, do you want to tell Aunt Erin what you did at summer camp today? Marrrrrrr-y, don’t you want to tell Aunt Erin about your new puppy?” etc. Until I finally said, “Marrrrr-y, do you want to tell Nana to stop being so condescending?”
Ten minutes of heated silence later (during which time I asked Mary if she wanted to see my chromosomes), I had to explain to Mary that Nana was mad at me because I hadn’t been very nice to her. Oh well.
When people start losing their hearing, the higher pitches are among the first to go. That’s why, for folks whose hearing is starting to go, it can be difficult to make out the words of children and women with higher voices. My father, who is over 70, has some degree of hearing loss, and he often has trouble hearing what waitresses say in noisy restaurants.
I can recall my father and my brother arguing once about a noise my brother swore was coming from the chimney (turned out to be birds). My father kept insisting he didn’t hear anything, which my brother didn’t believe, because the noises were LOUD. Dad said my brother had imagined it and my brother thought Dad was teasing him. When I went to investigate the arguing, I had no trouble hearing the birds cheeping. Having a third person agree the noises did exist made my brother happy, and made it clear to us all that my dad had lost the upper registers of his hearing.
Bingo! My Dad had a stroke at Xmas and was unable at the time to speak clearly. My Mum and Sister immediately started talking to him in babyspeak. I know that they were only trying to help but I had to clutch them up and give them the word. They looked blankly at me until I re-enforced the idea that his muscles were not right, not his brain! He later told me he knew he would be ok and recover as he heard me tear strips off them.
Kylie, right on. The Better Half and I do that too, and you’re right. Talking to a child who is already half scared out of his or her wits like an adult works wonders. Hell, my six year old daughter is severely retarded, and I still talk to her like an adult most of the time. You never really know how much someone can comprehend, but I’d rather be wrong for trying than be wrong for talking like a retard myself.
Is it ok to use babytalk/elderspeak with bloghers? ‘Cause I think that might come in handy. Especially if it pisses them off.
Der, der. Did doze baaad men opwess your widdle bwog? And did dey put in a gwass ceiling to keeps da wymyns down? It’s alright. Just cry it out. That’s right.
Off subject, but:
Did anyone else see the “Volunteer in South Africa” ad below this and have “Be a Man among Men” flashbacks? Or was that just me?
*chuckle* *snort* Charybdis, that’s just mean. Do it again.
Weird. This is also a huge PEEVE of mine and always has been. I’ve seen people talk to former JUDGES (in nursing homes) like they were idiots or infants. It’s infuriating and disgusts me. I feel like screaming, “You MORON! This man has degrees up the wazoo! He’s been published in prestigious academic journals! Don’t you dare talk to him like that.”
When I was in the hospital I got a little of the sort of treatment you said Rupert got. Nurses talking to me like I was a child. I put a stop to it quickly.
There’s nothing in the world more funny than watching the facade of a contrived voice fall apart in a spontaneous moment. Warning: swallow your beverage and set it aside before watching the following clip:
The first hearing loss is often in the higher pitches, especially with people who have worked in factories or mechanical shops (think whine of table saw). It’s also often very hard to hear with any background noise. Both my husband and his father have loss in a specific frequency range that makes noisy places (like restaurants) very difficult & painful, and makes it hard to hear high-pitched voices. And of course, as my Sister in laws get worked up, the volume & pitch both go up so Dad hears even less and it’s actually painful for him. If you pitch your voice low, speak clearly, and look straight at him, you can speak in a completely normal tone of voice and he understands just fine (or at least gets the gist) Which just makes the SIL’s think Dad’s ignoring them on purpose!
My Gram was recently in the hospital and it made me NUTS how she was talked to by the doctors & nurses . . . she’s 85 and does the crossword every day. She hasn’t lost any mental abilities at all and deserves respect.
Great topic Wachel!
I put myself through high-school (GED) and college working as a CNA (certified nursing assistant). Then, I ran a state-licensed in-home childcare facility while my youngest two were growing up. Recently, I taught spent a few years teaching life skill instruction to the developmentally disabled.
Working across all nuances of the human spectrum taught me one very valuable lesson. The very old, the very young and the disabled want the exact same thing as the rest of us — to be addressed as human beings, and not drooling imbeciles.
Unfortunately, there is a tendency to those who we feel compelled to nurture; I have noted that it usually is the unintended side effect of an attempt to reach out and be understood on the most basic of human levels.
Don’t tell me you don’t infantalize your dogs and kittehs, people.
I’m simply not buying it : )
When my grandmother’s dementia necessitated her moving into a nursing home, my mother (her daughter-in-law) made it a point to refer to her as “Mrs. So-and-So” rather than by her first name when talking to the staff.
The undue familiarity with the patients annoyed my mom and probably annoyed my grandmother, not that she could articulate it. It is improper to address someone who’s at least one generation older than you are by his or her first name without express permission. It is presumptuous and rude. And using a baby-talk voice adds insult to injury.
I don’t mind pet names for things, I do mind that high pitched voice. Makes. Me. Insane. I like that Mary. I like her a lot.
There is of course this too.
Thank you for bringing this up, Rachel.
I have to admit that I do occasionally indulge in babytalk. With my CATS. At home. With the doors and windows bolted shut so no one can hear me being a lunatic with my fuzzball terrorists. (You see, mocking them keeps me from fearing them.)
I would be interested in a study that showed whether or not that kind of infantilising has a part to play in the increase of dementia. If people are trained to believe they are stupid and helpless, they do eventually become so.
One of the other things that drives me crazy is when women take their aging parents out someplace and treat them like children.
“No, you can’t eat your dessert until you finish your dinner. Put that down. No, we’re not getting an appetizer, you never eat enough of it. Here, put your napkin in your collar or you’ll spill and make a mess.”
I just want to slap those women. Hard. And repeatedly. I hate listening to an adult talk to a child like that. How much worse is it when the adult is talking to their own PARENTS like they’re complete idiots?
I don’t have a story of people treating my grandmother like a child when she was in the downward slope to dimentia, but she acted increasingly like a child. She threw temper tantrums, said inappropriate things in public at normal speaking volume (that was probably a hearing thing), etc. So I could see people reflexively treating her like a child, and I guess I saw a little of it at her nursing home. But I do know my mother never treated her that way. They got into regular arguments like adults. But I wonder if part of the reason she didn’t care too much for the place was because of the staff, I don’t know. I think the main reason she wasn’t her happiest there was because the other ladies (patients) were bitches. She was happy enough to have a boyfriend or two, so, it was all bad.
Paules (couldn’t figure out where the squiggly thing on the keyboard was, sorry!), that reminded me of a clip I saw years ago of a British news reporter getting through his report with a straight face and then signing off with his name (let’s call him John Smith), and saying something like “John Smith, in a field, getting piss wet through and feeling totally pissed off!”.
I volunteered with Age Concern just after leaving school and I loved it. The stories many of them had to tell about their lives…it made me realise how lucky I was to have been born in the late 20th century and just how much we owe to the previous generations.
The way that some of them are treated sometimes makes me really mad, too.
There are times and places when babytalk between adults can be good, but I’m not going there ;-)
Army stuff can be a bit hard on hearing too – apparently I have the hearing of a 55+ year old (I’m in my mid-30s), and the higher stuff is the first to go – not entirely, but it is fainter. I have to remember to speak slower and a little louder for my grandmother (mostly slower) but I certainly would never use babytalk – I know she’s still smarter than I am.
You are soooo correct on this! I sometimes wondered if part of nurse training involved a class called “How to be an idiot 101”. Sometimes when I speak to Really old people (older than me), I will raise the volume a little, but only after they turn an ear in my direction , like I do, ’cause my hearing is half shot and that’s what I do when I can’t hear people WHEN THEY MUMBLE!
evvybuns – bingo! At the assisted living resindential facility (really) where my grandmother lives, the staff is always careful about this, and I know that my grandmother really appreciates it. She is really fond of the staff, and always careful to call them by their names (the tags help) but she is always Mrs. ______. That ALRF has a bunch of retired Doctors and the staff is usually good about getting that right. Most elderly folks don’t really ask for much, but they do want respect, and in most cases they have earned it.
I’m still young, and nurses have tried to pull that shit with me, too. “Oookay, this needle’s going to stick juuuust a little, so let’s see if we can be a big girl, okaaay?” I have a feeling my comments after that were the reason for the bruise I ended up with.
I’ve always felt awkward talking to even younger kids like that. I can’t imagine what would possess someone to talk to the elderly like they were a toy poodle or a pomeranian.
my friends with a todler have laughed at me when I talk to him like a real person (maybe not like an adult, but definitely not babytalk). I always thought it was the lack of maternal instinct thing I’ve got going on.
Guilty as charged. If anyone were to overhear us talk to our dogs, they would assume that my husband and I have a combined IQ of 80. . .on a good day.
Not once in my entire teaching career have I ever seen a child respond well to babytalk.
And if it doesn’t work on children, I can’t imagine it would work on adults either.
I worked for Kelly Home Health once. Did a fillin at a nursing home. The other aides were showing me around and said, “You don’t have a lot of time to feed them. If they don’t eat quickly enough, here’s what you do.” Then she held the nose of the old woman and poured the milk down her throat. No kidding. I didn’t work there, so I didn’t do that. But I think the patients would have been happy if they had just baby talk to deal with.
I don’t even talk to babies like that. The way I figure it, their brains absorb information like a sponge, and talking normal to them will give them a kick start on their vocabulary and communication skills.
People who attempt to write children’s books do the same thing: they talk down to children like they’re idiots.
Remember Jonnie Quest? Remember how it never pandered to the “child’s mentality?” Now, do you remember the kids’ cartoons from the 70s? A pack of pablumated snivelling drivel made up by a pack of recent psych grads who felt that kids needed to be taught how to share and get along with their sister? People assume that the elderly, the young, women and other demographic “groups” are MORONS who have to be talked down to.
It’s pathetic that people at the end of their lifespan are treated this way. Liek they’re not human beings with more life experience than you have, you drooling, patronizing, condescending shit!
Great post, Rachel!
Interestingly enough, Jonny Quest was cited at the time as the epitome of what was wrong with children’s television, what with the multiple on-screen deaths, murder attempts, use of firearms and deadly weapons (including children using weapons), and “racial stereotypes”.
Kids thought it was a kick-ass show. Watchdog groups and politicians freaked out. So now people who make children’s shows have to follow a bunch of dumbass rules like no realistic guns (ever wondered why everyone in GI Joe has laserguns? well now you know), no pointing guns at the “camera”, and no showing explicit deaths (all deaths must occur offscreen).
Guilty as charged.
But that reminds me of something: I never had a cat of my own before I started cat-sitting for my neighbor’s cat, Chloe. (I eventually adopted two of her kittens.) I would frequently slip into babytalk with Chloe, and she would roll her eyes, toss her head, and give me a look that said, “DON’T PATRONIZE ME!”
This didn’t just happen once or twice. It was a regular occurrence. Brought me up short every time. “Oh, sorry, Chloe.”
God, I miss that cat. What a personality she had. And she could be a regular tease, too.
Dumbass recovery nurses did it to me after my bariatric surgery. I still had tube down my throat so I couldn’t speak. So I lifted my gown and displayed my not-insubstantial balzac.
Right on. The other one is learning people’s names–as in what they normally go by. I’ll never forget the time my mom and I went to visit my great-aunt in the hospital after she had a stroke. There was a dry-erase board by her bed with “Lucy” on it. Nobody called her Lucy. Luckily, my mom’s friend was one of the nurses working that day, and when she saw us, she realized that she would have recognized my great-aunt sooner had they used her nickname. She got it changed for us. Names matter.
As for the high-pitched voice stuff, I have a co-worker who uses it when she comes to tell me she messed something up in the system and doesn’t want me to be mad at her. She’s older than I am, and is a mother to two kids, so I’m just really weirded out by it and wondering WTF happened in her childhood. And if any dogs in the area can hear her.
Ms. Pot, allow me to reacquaint you with Ms. Kettle.
Now, let me get this straight — are we infantalizing, wetahdizing, or is our lobotomy still fresh at the end of this video as we speak to our most revered elderly best friend and his annoyingly verbose youthful sidekick …?
Added bonus — pre-heffalumpian Sunny!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!LOL!11!!!!!!!ONEEE!!
Remember Jonny Quest? I wanted to have his babies! Or those of Race Bannon. Oh, bay-BAY! And I had not even hit puberty.
As for the main point of this posting: Just bitchslap Nurse Wretched!
An employee saw me barely stopping my hand on the backswing once when I heard her talking to her friend in babytalk.
Never caught her a second time
Rachel, if you produced a shirt that said PEOPLE ARE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK on it I’d buy it and wear it.
Any chance we could con you into running for office? I’d love to see your press conferences.
My parents’ collective title is “The Ancient and Venerables” — for good reason! One of my near-future goals in life is to keep them well away from such places for as long as is humanly possible — preferably forever!
Don’t you wish you could go into nursing homes and arm the residents with working versions of
14 karat, you nailed it. Nurturing instinct. And I do it to my cat all the time.
I won’t baby talk to an adult (although I did to my children and they were early talkers) and I am happy for the reminder.
Really interesting about losing the high pitched sounds first. Great heads up.
“I have to admit that I do occasionally indulge in babytalk. With my CATS.”
Don’t worry, it is .
I still reserve the right to talk to liberals in babyspeak. Sometimes that’s the only language they know.
Goobee mama wanna poopoo coo?
Ebonics Translation: Ommagonna BUST yo ASS, BEEOTCH!
English Translation: I do not like you, you dirty creature.
As a future nurse of america, I PROMISE to never do this. Oh my GOSH that I so annoying. And if babies could talk, I am sure they’d reach out and stab people for doing that crap.
I dunno, maya, I never spoke with my children in baby talk, even though I turned out to be much more of a nurturing parent than most people would have expected of me when I was younger.
On the other hand, I have no problem allowing the people at the nursing home my mother-in-law is in to talk to her in babytalk. She continued to call my wife “Bethy” (her name is Elizabeth, but she goes by Beth) until she was nearly 30, and it pissed her off something awful every time. AND she talked babytalk herself to people all the time, especially when she was trying to act like she empathized with someone. Gah, I have always hated to talk to that woman.
Babytalk or not, having obvious, sincere respect for patients usually makes them feel better. Imagine being nearly helpless and having your one last bit of control over your life snatched away…
I cared for a patient who wasn’t really awake; everyone else had unkind things to say, because she screamed every time she was touched. I was a student nurse; maybe I had more time, but I always took the time to tell her who I was, what I was going to do, and give an honest expectation on whether it would hurt and how much – all before I touched her.
She didn’t scream for -me-.
She was ‘still there’. She was, at best guess, terrified at surprising things hurting her for no reason she could understand. Since she never spoke, never even opened her eyes, I have no idea how much she understood, but talking to her seemed to induce some calming for her, and even at pay rates for nurses, that’s pretty inexpensive treatment.
Note the last sentence of the first bullet in this LA Times Health article. Don’t baby talk to Alzheimer’s patients either! See
Ok, I thought maybe I was the only person who wanted to stab their coworkers when this happened. I work in a nursing home and there are days when I’ve had to bite my tongue so hard to not lash out at some random person talking like that. People do things for me that everyone else has trouble getting them to do because I like you talk to them like adults. Its especially degrading to Alzheimer’s patients.
I think women use baby talk on the phone with men just to see if they can get them to do it back.
I wondered why I can’t ever find it anymore. A classic cartoon. Personal favorite? Where Jonny and Hadji elude the bad guys with some slick Hadji-sh*t and somehow move from one basket to another in a room full of huge cobra baskets.
Jonny Quest rocks, but we all wanted to grow up to be Race Bannon. A.Real.Man.
You just KNOW light beer never crossed Race’s lips.
Patronizing. Idiocy.
Rachel: did you work with Mr. Garrison? Good grief. I understand Mary’s “pissedoffedness.”
Phelps: Bubba Hotep. Heh. Nice quote from a friggin’ genius movie.
Race Bannon kicked ass. ‘Nuff said.
Jonny Quest. Most awesome kid’s cartoon ever.
I’ve never worked with the elderly but I deal with small kids and I go nuts when a kid comes to my house and talks baby talk with me. “Juice pweese, can I hab some juuuuice?”
Talk normally or it’s bread and water, kid. Not too surprisingly, kids immediately straighten up and talk normally. They just talk like a baby because their idiot parents do it to them. Argggh!
I used to work with MR/DD clients at a habilitation center and I learned early on that you didn’t talk down to them. There was one client that really caught me off-guard. I was talking to him and he stopped me and said something along the line of “I may be retarded but I’m not stupid” I can’t remember the exact words, it’s been 13 or 14 years ago, but it made me realize how I’d been treating him without realizing it. I started talking to him normally and he really appreciated it.
Okay, I’m posting this again because I don’t want ANYONE to miss it — if you haven’t clicked on the link below and watched the short video, you are totally missing out! (Make sure to turn up to volume — you can totally make out someone yelling “SHUT UP!” RPRT, perhaps?)
It cracks me up listening to RCHL talk to Digger and Sunny! You gotta wait till the end (it’s a little over one minute long), but it’s so funny it’s worth the wait.
[HA! Oh 14k, I’m so glad you reminded me of this; I haven’t watched it in a long long time. I miss Digger! That’s my ex, John, yelling “shut up” from inside the house. I cringe to think how much my neighbors hated me for allowing all that barking. Well, fuck ’em. Anyway I need to make more videos. It is time. -Rachel]
I had a cousin who did this up until she was 8 or 9. When my mother asked her if she talked like that at school, she very indignantly replied “NO! I don’t want them to think I’m a baby!” She just did it at home or with family who let her get away with it. Needless to say, we didn’t let her get away with it after that….(Have to say she grew up to be a really great adult; and did not let her kids get away with it at all.)
Ah, I agree with you 110%. I’m an EMT that is in & out of nursing homes & rehab facilities frequently, and I hear the staff using that annoying form of baby talk all the time.
I speak to patients like I speak to my own friends & family, and have yet to have an issue.
Heck, I don’t even use baby talk to kids, and they’re quite responsive as a result.
Completely off topic but kick ass – I think I am falling hard for this man
The actual article starts out “Father of AJ what’s her face” but the guy is a celebrated actor in his own right – so I cut that part out.
Actually Boomerang still shows it (in unedited form no less).
I thought so! At 1:30 a.m. (Pacific) — I used to work nights and there’s not a lot on, so I watched a LOT of cartoons …
Here’s the
THREAD DIVERSION: 14 Karat– Please don’t send lawyers. They’re all stringy and gristly and don’t cook up well at all.
Another tip to go along with elderly hearing loss. My dad is in his 80’s and whenever we got the family together for holidays or a dinner or something dad would usually zone out or sometimes just leave the room. He had had a minor stroke a few years back and everyone attributed it to quirky behavior. It never happened when it was just he and I and my mom however. I finally figured out that at a restaurant or when we have 30-60 family members together the general noise level makes it so he can’t hear what’s being said. He couldn’t follow conversations and participate. He would get frustrated and sometimes angry about it. I try to spend more one-on-one time with him rather than just the big family get-togethers.
BTW first responders… medics, paramedics and EMTs always use sir and ma’am and Mr. and Mrs.
Oh God, this is so TRUE! Unfortunately I have a mother who eats this up & it drives me CRAZY! Because she does, in fact, think this is “nice”, she is ALWAYS treated like a child by her dr & his staff – they ignore symptoms (“now, now, sweetie, it’s just . . . blah, blah, blah . . .”) & many’s the time situations have progressed from bad to worse. I cannot count the times I’ve behaved not too nicely to these people. I feel my blood pressure going up now. They should do a study on how this affects those of us who are responsible for constantly driving someone to the e.r. because the medical community doesn’t take that person seriously.
BWAAAHAHAHAHA!!! Lincoln…”Goobee mama wanna poopoo coo?” LOL! We should all talk to Liberals that way on election day! They’d be even more confused than they already are! LOL! Picture this: Televised Presidential Debate – Sen. McCain to B. Hussein Obama – “Goobee mama wanna poopoo coo?” HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I swear I’d pay anything!
As a former fireman and EMT I saw that behavior all the time..Its rude and condesending to talk to elderly people in that manner..Never did it, but heard it all the time
Jonny Quest: I couldn’t decide if I wanted to grow up to be Race or Dr. Quest, but what an inspirational, educational, motivational cartoon! Got punished in 6th grade for humming the theme music.
I worked for a couple of years transporting retarded adults of varying degrees of disability. Most of my co-workers did the baby-talk stuff, and I wondered how they could be blind to the way our “consumer’s” hackles went up. I talked to them as adults, and all but the most afflicted reacted immediately in response. They weren’t babies, and didn’t like being treated as babies.
I have a five year old, and I’ve never used baby talk with her. My 88 year old grandma is in assisted living, and I talk and joke with her just like I always have. Her brain is very muddled and she gets confused easily, so sometimes I have to over-simplify things for her to understand… but no baby talk. Ick!
Talking to my cats is another story. I didn’t even realize how bad the baby talk was to them, until I heard my daughter copying me with the boy, Henri. It was something like, “Oh, you’re Mama’s itty-bitty baby boy with the freckle-weckle nose and tickly-wickly whiskers!” Yeah…
Oh … I LOVED Johnny Quest! Does anyone here remember a cartoon called Clutch Cargo as well?
That baby talk thing … my sister in law does that when she talks to our son. Makes him AND me crazy. We have a 10-year-old who plays poker and studies physics … and she speaks baby speak to him! He is small for his age, but that hardly excuses it.
His kindergarten teacher was the same way. She had previously spent much time teaching preschool, and she carried her tone and approach over into her kindergarten class. As you might guess, she didn’t hit it off with our kid (“What does she think we are – stupid or something?!”) – to the point where we had to remove him from her class.
I DO think baby talk (complete with squeaks and high pitched voice) serves a functional purpose – for babies who are learning to speak. Otherwise, why would people engage in this behavior at all? However, once kids can string a couple of words together, it’s time to drop it and stop using it. Nobody likes to be talked down to like that.
I was going to make a joke about you being really old, but I think all the women on this blog would attack me if I did. : )
Anyway, I can’t say I remember Clutch Cargo, but I have seen parts of it. Can you imagine if a show like that were aired today? My God, the screaming and yowling from the left would shatter windows across the country!
Corollary to this peeve, which is an excellent one: My grandmother is in a nursing home. She is 95 years old. She raised 7 great kids and ran a farm with her husband. Don’t you think the aides could call her “Mrs Johnson” instead of “Helen?” Doesn’t she deserve that little bit of respect?
Evvybuns — now that I have read all the other comments, I see you already raised the name issue.
Welcome. Love that video! Digger comes by his name honestly, if your yard is any indication …
Fuck your neighbors … there’s a thought.
We can haz mohr videos? Pleese?
pweeeez? :)
Speaking of speaking to cats — which we weren’t, but now I am — I speak to Inky, the Farm Manager, in a very high, squeaky voice, so she’ll hear and be able to understand my feeble human efforts to emulate her superior mode of communication, but I never use baby talk — I know my place!
I keep wanting to talk to Democrats using baby talk.
MightySamurai: I did a search for Clutch Cargo, and discovered it was created before I was born. I must have caught it in reruns somewhere. I’m old, yeah … but not THAT old!
My wife is an epileptic. When we were first married, she desperately wanted to have children, but the medication she was on had a very high (20%) likelihood of severe birth defects, and almost a 50% chance of some kind of risk to the fetus. We asked for her to be put on another med while we were trying to get pregnant. I started to notice her becoming more and more tired, unable to keep going. I looked her medication up, and it looked an awful lot like an overdose, and that’s what I communicated to her specialist. He was irritated with me, and told me not to worry, her body was just adjusting. Then one night, I had to call an ambulance for her – I couldn’t detect her breathing at all. She was put in the hospital, and it was discovered the physician had accidentally doubled the amount she was prescribed from what it was supposed to be. The next day when I came to visit, I noticed the nurses were talking to her abruptly, and she was in a bed with the rails up, her arms bound with sheepskin. The nurses said it was due to concern that she might have a seizure, but I had never seen that treatment before. I went and talked to them at shift change, asking how they thought she was doing. One nurse who had been particularly rude said “She’d be doing a lot better if she used her medication the way the doctor prescribed it”. Obviously didn’t get the memo, that the error had been the doctor’s. I didn’t let any of the nurses out before I made clear what had happened, and why it was in their best interest to be nice to her, and a lot more professional. Somehow, they wanted to avoid getting me angry any further, and her treatment greatly improved.
So often those who are being abused in these settings really need someone who is willing to require good conduct, since it’s clear it’s not something everyone is good at.
itobo Says:
Advocacy. I advocate it!
Did you have children? I sure hope so.