Convincing an elderly parent to appreciate the art of giving thanks takes work – and self-reflection.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.I belong to the gratitude generation. Brought up on a diet of wellbeing mantras that emphasise the importance of recognising and giving thanks, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant the cause.
When my mother came to live with me and my husband six years ago, the atmosphere in our house became tense and toxic, strained and sour. We had imagined that her spirits, bruised by widowhood after eight years watching my father disappear down the tunnel of dementia, would be boosted by her bold decision to move to the other side of the world. We hoped a new horizon and our care might soften her abrasive manner and dilute her vinegary nature.
Caroline Baum with her mother, Judith, in 2019. “At 60 and 90 respectively, we’d left therapy a little late,” writes Baum. “I hoped we would not scare the therapist with the depth of our dysfunction.”“Yes,” said my mother, punctuating her defiant honesty with a characteristic French shrug, that national gesture that says so much but is so ambiguous.
I saw the therapist’s Adam’s apple bob in her throat as she swallowed hard. I’m not sure she’d ever heard anyone say that before.The statement imploded in my head. Up until then, I’d taken for granted that gratitude was the currency of everyday interactions with friends and strangers alike, a lubricant that makes exchanges reciprocal. To imagine never feeling grateful was to imagine a hollow series of mechanical transactions, stripped of humanity.
It did not last. After the pandemic, when the world opened up and took us away from her more often, depression again became her persistent companion. Caroline and Judith five decades earlier. Judith’s traumatic childhood meant that as an adult, “the rituals of giving never held pleasure for her”, Baum writes.One friend told me that his daughter, now enjoying accolades and an international career, had asked him one day what he’d spent on her education. He did a quick calculation and told her. She wrote him a cheque for the full amount on the spot, with an offhand “Thanks Dad”. I found the story moving but unsettling.
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