When Older Relatives Shrug at Coronavirus Restrictions

I went hoarse shouting at my mother last week.

“You really got into your building elevator with someone else?”

She blamed the other person for standing in the middle of the elevator; I blamed her for getting in, putting herself at risk of catching the coronavirus.

By the time my 88-year-old father got to the phone, I remembered the researcher Brené Brown’s theory that vulnerability opens all doors. I would move my father by sharing my deepest fear.

I told him I loved him. I said the thought of losing him was devastating. I asked him, “Dad, are you afraid?”

He laughed. “What’s to be afraid of? If I get it, Sayonara!”

Despite the virus’s heightened risk to older people, my parents seem inexplicably casual about it.

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“We can’t pretend this is not life or death,” said Tara Brach, a psychologist and author of “Radical Acceptance.” “This is the real thing. These are beings we love, and we’re scared we’re going to lose them.”

For some adult children, this means grappling with the anguish of not being able to see parents quarantined in nursing homes.

For those whose parents live independently, it is often a challenge to get our older loved ones to take the risks as seriously as we do.

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Part of the problem, according to Claudia Haase, a psychologist and the director of the Life-Span Development Lab at Northwestern University, is that older adults may not experience the same level of threat as younger people do.

“A massive body of scientific work has documented age-related shifts in the service of making negative emotions smaller and positive emotions bigger,” Dr. Haase says. “Older adults are often masters in turning their attention away from information that is threatening, upsetting and negative.”

The priority of older adults, Dr. Haase explains, is to make the most of their limited time on earth, and their highest value is social connection. “For them, being home alone with just their thoughts and nowhere to go can be a frightening place.”

And then there’s the fact that older adults may not see themselves as, well, old. “Older adults may not think of themselves as being at heightened risk for Covid-19 because old age carries a lot of stigma. There’s a huge reluctance to view oneself in those terms.”

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