When growing up means being treated like a child again

Imagine this scene: an eighty-year-old person, a consultation, and a son or daughter. The professional looks at the companion and asks: "And how are they?" The person is there. They hear. They can speak. But the question is not directed at them. You don't need to say anything offensive to belittle someone: sometimes it's enough to talk about the person instead of talking to them.For decades we have been studying elderspeak, the excessively protective or condescending speech towards older people: simplifying language, abusing diminutives, or speaking as if the other person were not fully capable of deciding for themselves. And all "for their own good." In a paper that Howard Giles and I have just published in Frontiers in Language Sciences, we analyze this paradox: elderspeak can devalue the recipient and yet be tolerated because it comes cloaked in affection, protection, or care.But growing old doesn't come alone: although men and women can lose visibility and be infantilized, research shows that they do not age socially in the same way and that these processes begin earlier in women. Ageism does not replace sexism: it is added to it. For a good part of their lives, many women have had to fight to be heard. And one day, without really knowing when it happened, they discover that others already treat them as old. Before, they could be too young or too emotional. There was always some too much. Now age is enough: it speaks for them. Condescension then finds a well-trodden path: "Come on, slowly, so we don't fall." "I'll explain this to your daughter." "Leave it, leave it, I'll do it." In men, this infantilization can become more visible when fragility or dependence make care necessary.The problem is not helping or protecting those who need it, but how we do it and whether we confuse the need for help with an inability to decide. Or to think. And words are not condescending on their own either. For me, my grandchildren calling me avieta or aviona seems charming. It is not a word, not even a diminutive, that turns affection into condescension: it is who speaks, to whom, in what context, from what position, and with what tone.Why does age end up obscuring the person in front of us? Have we associated youth and beauty with interest, ability, and competence? We only need to look at who appears on television or who we continue to grant authority to. And here gender strikes again: why do we better tolerate the visible aging of a man than that of a woman? For him, white hair can signify experience; for her, simply, age. Wrinkles give him character; they recommend an anti-aging serum to her. Perhaps old age makes us uncomfortable because it confronts us with a reality we prefer to turn our backs on: aging reminds us that life has an end.On June 15, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the Generalitat focused on micro-maltreatments. Parliament is also promoting a new law focused on ageism. However, laws protect rights. And part of ageism is played out daily in words: at the doctor's, at the bakery, or around the table at a Christmas dinner. Because respecting an older person is not just speaking to them sweetly. It is continuing to speak with them as adult to adult.