We were in a large family style restaurant, Karl and me, and were eating lunch. I don't remember where we were but do remember we were on a business trip. Inside the restaurant was a very large group of senior citizens, and we assumed that they were associated with the bus parked outside which was very colorful and in big blazing letters read, "Holland Michigan Tulip Festival". When it appeared that everyone had finished eating, one of the younger people announced that it was time to board the bus. There were four or five young people; apparently serving as guides and caretakers for the old folks. As they filed out we could hear the caretakers asking each of them if they had remembered their purses, sweaters, caps and whatever else they had brought in with them, and cautioning them to be careful stepping down out of the restaurant and stepping up onto the bus. What struck me was the sing-song tone of everything the caretakers said. They weren't interacting with people. They were one-way communicating in much the same manner as you would communicate with a pet. As the last of them walked out I turned to Karl, who was some years younger than me and said, "If you ever see me getting on a bus going to the Holland Michigan Tulip Festival, please shoot me."
It seems to me that there are two times in out lives when we talk 'baby talk'. One is when we're confronted with a new born baby. It seems almost obligatory to say things like, "Did ooo have a good seeps? And the mandatory, "He's soooo cuette!! I never saw a new born that was cute. To me they all look like Winston Churchill. That includes my own son. I remember a nurse bringing him into the hospital room, and my wife and whoever else was there exclaiming how cute/precious/handsome he was. What I saw was a face with a cone shaped head, and at the very top it was pulsing. His head was pulsing! The nurse refused to listen to my denial that that was not our baby. So, while everyone else was oohing and awing I'm wondering where I'm going to get a cap to fit a head like that.
The other time we talk baby talk is to old people. Not everybody. Most people are able to look at an older person and not automatically assume they are senile. But there are some. I saw it and experienced it during my latest hospital stay. A couple of the younger staff members would come into my room for the first time, look at the patient information sheet attached to the foot of the bed, see I was near eighty and immediately go into the SSSP mode, meaning talk slow, simple, sing-song and plural. "How are we this morning? Did we sleep well last night? Are we hungry this morning?" I had hoped that my responses would have caused them to reevaluate but no, they were in the 'talking down to old folks' zone.
There was one tactic I thought of trying but never did. I thought about asking if they had a few spare minutes they would like to come to my room and discuss Stephen Hawking's theory of the origin of the universe, or perhaps Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War, or if those topics didn't interest them, how about William James essays on Pragmatism? But to what end? They probably would have left my room, went to the nurse's station and reported that the old guy in 312 is hallucinating or speaking in tongues.
What I do now, and it seems to work for me, is that when someone starts to talk down to me I give them a steely-eyed stare while remaining silent. After a few awkward moments the person either leaves or reevaluates their initial judgement of my mental capabilities. If that doesn't work I step on their foot.
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