Dear LPG, 

Now that I have learnt how to admit to using my tablet as a sort of magazine sometimes. I think that many people will know what I mean. Quite a few of us, older people, learned a lot more about how to find our way around the internet during the pandemic years.  

I was doing just that one day recently when I found the webpage I asked LPG to share today. 

I am sure that there are quite a few writings on the subject. However, the page I came across on the day was, and still is, designed to open our eyes to be aware of how the people around us can disrespect us without even realising it. While some of the signs offered are obvious to all, others got me thinking about a few mannerisms I see when my teenage grandchildren visit.

Do some of your grandchildren or the other younger people you know interrupt you when you are talking to them? 
We all know that, as they get a bit older, their lives become more involved, but do you find that they only ever visit or telephone when they want something and never say hello?  

When you see them do they sit and talk with you while looking at and twiddling with their mobile phone in hand? 
Do they promise to help you do things that they then forget to do? 

Sadly, the answer was ‘yes’ to some of those questions when I had a good think about it, although I have never really thought about it as disrespectful before.

I then thought that, as is often the case, the website related to young adults and how their contemporaries relate to them. Still, it occurred to me that while we pensioners are not as young as all that, we usually have contemporary and older pensioners in our own lives, and I asked myself a question which I feel we all need to ask ourselves.

Are there a few people that we unknowingly treat in this way? 

I live with my mum, who is in her late 80s, and now and then, I ask her why she didn’t remind me about something I said I would do. And she answered that she thought I was too busy and did not want to interrupt.  

That makes me feel sad and perhaps prompts me to make more time for her.

I have concluded that some of the disrespect we can be seen showing is all about the time that we humans never seem to have these days. While we all recognise a blatant lack of respect, quite a lot of what can appear that way is never really intended. Still, looking at some of the items on the internet list I found got me thinking about how I am with people and how they are with me…

FM, Catford 

FM shares the internet page that prompted her message…

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