I am an American expat married to a Spaniard with kids. I have been living in Spain here for 29 years now and I have yet to understand why the elderly in this country are so disagreeable.
My thinking is, if I understand *why* they are such pills (and, yes, I’m generalizing, whip me with a wet noodle) maybe I will be able to deal better… by rationalizing things…
My suegra is in her 80s and, although I try, I find it just so darned difficult to accept her. She’s very critical (more like downright insulting) and distrustful and demanding and childish and embittered and acts like everyone should be at her absolute beckon and call.
OK, I know that the elderly can get embittered in any country. I might be that way, too. *shrugs* Who knows. But it just seems to me like there’s a cultural difference here with how people age….
Does anyone else find the elderly women here to be despicable?
Haha, sorry to hear you have such a tough suegra. When you consider what the country went through with Franco it’s easy to see why they can be so disagreeable.
I really don’t have a lot of personal first hand experience with the viejas though. I do see a lot of them with pretty crazy hair colours though. Maybe there’s a connection between hair colour and attitude?
Being embittered is a choice, not a product of your life circumstances. If it were, we would all of us end up embittered. I am also American and married to a Spaniard. My father in law is one nasty bastard but my mother in law is one of the nicest, and sweetest old women I have ever met. He chooses to be an asshole, and she chooses to be happy regardless of what life brings.
Now for a population of really bitter elders, have you been to Florida of late?
Mine is 86 and a sweety - always cooks me my favourite food and does not give me any problems. She comes to stay and I take her out to the local bakers, supermarket, church (I don’t go in - non RC) and the sewing shop.
Guess it’s like everywhere - some good, others not so good.
Hmmmm. My sister-in-law always comments that her mom isn’t so bad. She always tells me horror stories about how all of her friends have mothers like this (demanding) and much, much worse. She is constantly justifying this behavior in her mother as normal.
The other day my kids (born in Spain; 19 and 21) told me that their friends also tell very similar stories about their abuelas.
So I’m very glad to get a fresh perspective from others. Thanks. I find it uplifting :)
But I was wondering… maybe this is a Castilla-Leon?s thing?
Or maybe since the Spanish (that I know, anyway) just expect the elderly to be this way, they become that way? A self-fulfilling prophecy?
And why do these character traits seem so common amongst elderly Spanish women? Franco… la guerra civil…. how and why?
An excellent read, helped me understand Spain a lot better, and especially the different formative life experiences of the past few generations of Spaniards. Probably ought to be compulsory reading!
Aw Santi, you can be such a nay-sayer (that’s why we love you though). Why do you think the culture is so classist if it wasn’t living under a dictatorship for 50 of the previous 100 years? It’s not a simple answer, either way. You should chat with the old Catalans - they’ll tell you some pretty grim stories about life under Franco and point to that as the cause for a lot of Spain’s problems.
Hmmm. I don’t know about the theory of the hardships they endured causing the elderly Spanish (especially women, it seems to me) to be so bossy and demanding and blunt (rude).
My parents had a tough early life, too. They were hungrier as kids than my suegra was under Franco. And yet they aged in a very different manner. They became docile and sweet.
So I still think it’s more than just the hardships.
it could be down to the fact that many of these women grew up in a time where they could have been considered ‘second class’ citizens to a degree and have the easy job of maintaining a household, feeding an entire family, etc…. and all of this in a ‘macho’ culture. Religion does not help either…
Most suegras I meet tend to look like miserable so&so;‘s. yet after talking for a bit, they tend to lighten up quite a lot.
Haha, sorry to hear you have such a tough suegra. When you consider what the country went through with Franco it’s easy to see why they can be so disagreeable.
I really don’t have a lot of personal first hand experience with the viejas though. I do see a lot of them with pretty crazy hair colours though. Maybe there’s a connection between hair colour and attitude?
There was an anciana where I lived two years ago who had some serious purple hair. She had the hardcore punki attitude way better than any of these young punkis here in Bilbao will ever have. She scared me when we had to get off the bus at the same time - let her through or lose a limb.
My abuela here calls me fat then makes me eat everything on the plate, which she has deep fried in inches of olive oil. I get the feeling she enjoys her cruel game. I just laugh, what else can I/we do? Sorry the suegra is a tough one…
Aw Santi, you can be such a nay-sayer (that’s why we love you though). Why do you think the culture is so classist if it wasn’t living under a dictatorship for 50 of the previous 100 years? It’s not a simple answer, either way. You should chat with the old Catalans - they’ll tell you some pretty grim stories about life under Franco and point to that as the cause for a lot of Spain’s problems.
I grew up in the 70’s living in the same home as my grandparents, I shared a bedroom with my sister until I was in High School I can remember the strikes, walking on waste land lookin for coal of the slag heaps of the near steel works and docks, my mother crying most nights, the power cuts and borrowing money from anybody including the local store and parents.I never had a holiday until I was 12 yrs old and that was camping in Devon.
My OH mother has always driven a new car, even under Franco, they moved from Madrid to the Basque country for there was more money to be earned in the factories, they bought a new 3 bed apt in Vitoria, my OH and her sister got educated in private schools run by nun’s all under Franco rule.Every August they had holidays spent in an apt on the Costa Brava or Granada with family, in 1970 they bought a villa in Benidorm.My OH had a holiday every yr since she was born in the 60’s.
So no I don’t believe many Franco supporters suffered under Franco, in fact her Grand Father’s brother was one of Franco’s drivers and the family did very well, far more than my parents at the same time.
