To think the Covid 19 crisis has revealed a scourge of ableism and ageism in our society?

[Madhairday]

I see it on every thread about lockdown. The elderly (over 60s) and vulnerable (of whatever age) are again and again dehumanised and cast as less worthy of help than the young and the fit, who should be prioritised because they have longer and healthier life left before them. Phrases like one I saw just now about how these people will die soon anyway so why are children suffering?

I am really tired of being othered. I am really tired of being made the reason for the suffering endured by many in lockdown. Really tired of being told I should be grateful others are suffering for me. Just really tired.

Before all this I'd never have dreamed these attitudes would come to light, but in the past months I've been repeatedly punched in the gut with some of the words thrown out against the aged and the disabled and chronically ill. It seems that we truly live in a world where not all lives are equal, where in fact many are worth less than others.

Lots of people are suffering due to lockdown and the effects will continue to cause suffering. The shielded know this and are affected by it as much as everyone else. I have lost my income as well as not being able to touch another human being for nearly 3 months. Many of my shielded friends mental health is shot, too, yet on threads about mental health the shielded are yet again othered and in fact blamed for the mental health issues of those not shielding.

Many are suffering in lockdown. We know this. We know the NHS has cut off much treatment (largely because the spread of covid in hospitals is so uncontainable that they cannot risk bringing already vulnerable people onto wards as covid would exacerbate conditions and kill in greater numbers, as well as the risk for frontline staff, yet many people here seem to think the NHS has narrowed down 'because only covid deaths are important to them' )

I am deeply concerned at the level of ableism and ageism I see on here every single day at the moment. If we said someone else's life mattered less because they were black or gay we would rightly be torn to pieces, but so many are saying lives are less due to age and vulnerability, and this is going unchallenged, again and again and again.

I see it. I see it every day. I feel it deep down, a sense of worthlessness because I have long term chronic illnesses. I am likely to live many more years, however, but that doesn't fit in with the narrative so many have built around the shielded and those dying of Covid, that they must be near death anyway.

Do lives really rank one over the other due to age and illness? Is this where we are now?

I agree lockdown is hurting people. I am not one of the lockdown should last forever people. I'm just getting on with shielding quietly and carefully. But I do fear for a second wave if it's relaxed too quickly.

I would like to ask for some compassion today in the way people speak. I'd like to ask that people don't denegrate others as less worthy or state that covid is just a bad cold. Have a care for those who feel othered and dehumanised by the rhetoric that flies at us day after day.

There are a lot of posts on this thread highlighting the polarising effect I was speaking of in the OP. Making it about 'erasing children' for the sake of saving a few elderly/vulnerable people

Also - what I see in these debates is a presentation of extremes: the emotive conjuring up of the 95 year old vs the 10 year old child.

But what about the contributing healthy active 55 year old vs. the unemployed 25 year old?

Or the diabetic 15 year old vs the mother-of-3 -35 year old?

All of us are human and valuable.

Over sixty is not elderly. Most are in full time work - by most I mean about 70%.

I agree, OP. It is very, very sad and incredibly disappointing.

The UK is so much harsher and selfish than it used to be.

In other countries where the governments have dealt with the pandemic better, it isn't the case, so it certainly isn't an inevitable result of the virus but how Boris et al. have presented things.

Completely agree OP. It's horrible.
I keep seeing on here how society should sacrifice just a few percent of the population in order that their child doesn't fall behind at school - yes truly I have seen that many times.

I had various bouts of longish term illness in my teens. I was in bedridden for 3 weeks and out of school for 5 weeks up to about a month before my A level mocks, and was still quite debilitated when I took my A levels. I was OK. Children & young people catch up.

Thank you op for expressing how a lot of us with chronic health issues are feeling at the moment. I'm 31 with a health issues that makes me very vunerable to complications of covid and every comment online that describes my life as expendable is heart breaking.
We are against all kinds of discrimination as a society but abelism and ageism is still rampant and needs to be stamped out.

:I had various bouts of longish term illness in my teens. I was in bedridden for 3 weeks and out of school for 5 weeks up to about a month before my A level mocks, and was still quite debilitated when I took my A levels. I was OK. Children & young people catch up.'

You are one person. You take your experience and generalise it across all children. I don't think that is on, TBH.

Yes go by our actions not our words. As a nation we have plunged ourselves into probably the worst depression since the great forst of 1709 according to the bank of england and sacrificed the educations of children, students, career prospects of many and plunged many of those 50% of workers who are not paid by the state directly or by furlough into life changing economic disaster. We have done all that to look after the old and sick. It is a massive huge cost (not in my view a cost that is fair or worth it or in the greater good but the Government decided to spend spend spend and suspend civil liberties of 66m people just to help the old and sick. That is a huge price we have paid and yet on this thread people are not even grateful and do not even recognise we made the sacrifice. If they do not even acknowledge it what was the point of doing it at all? By our deeds are we known and we have made massive steps to protect the sick and old, deeds that will hurt many of the 66m for a generation and will hurt most of them massively more than covid 19 ever would.

One day, they might find a better treatment for my chronic disease. Even if they don’t, at least I can be grateful for the fact my body is sick but my mind isn’t, unlike some people on this thread including Xenia.

I’m confused about the gratitude thing though. I also pay tax and work. Do I thank and praise myself? Seems strange!

@Xenia

I know lockdown was to ensure the NHS was not swamped but now we have all those Nightingales and 4000 spare beds in London at excel etc we should fully open schools again as we have the capacity to handle extra cases and children need an education and working parents need a break before the school holiday. I have not seen my grandchildren since Christmas. I can cope with that but children not getting an education is not the greater good and most older people with children and grandchildren would agree.

Hey @Xenia Did you forget you agreed that lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and not to protect the ‘old and sick’ (sic)? Hope your memory isn’t being affected by anything!

@Xenia i must tell my disabled dc with LDS to be grateful that their life has stopped for weeks/months. that they have not been out or seem their family. must tell them to be grateful.
ffs if ever a post proves a fact . hers does.

Some of us are in both camps. I’m 50 and vulnerable, with CFS, and hence became ill with COVID-19 symptoms early on as I said earlier in the thread. But I also have 2 DDs of 11 and 8, who have suffered due to the lockdown and need to be back in school.

It really doesn’t need to be an ‘either/or’ debate.

That is a huge price we have paid and yet on this thread people are not even grateful

Grateful? Fucking GRATEFUL? I can't respond how I want to, i'll be deleted. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.

It really doesn’t need to be an ‘either/or’ debate

My teen son has done very poorly mental health wise over the last few months, mostly due to the social restrictions.

It's fixable. Whereas if his immuno-compromised parent had become seriously unwell, or died as a result of coronavirus?
That's not fixable.

Ironically, Xenia isn’t that young herself. I am certainly considerably younger than her. Let’s not start making value judgements based on age though, that would be wrong....

The problem is our social structure is starting to break down. The sick, vulnerable won’t be taken care of if we don’t protect our way of life. Look what’s happening already, everyone angry, protests and riots going on and on. This will get worse the longer people don’t have structure.

You only have to look on some Property threads to see the comment that Baby Boomers are all going to die soon. And the gleeful hand rubbing that this is the answer to all their property woes

I agree that the uk has become a harsher nastier and more intolerant place to live in. Look at the benefit bashing programmes on mainstream tv, so many demonising the poor and probably not very well educated. On social media people whingeing about others being furloughed. A local paper had a story about the homeless being accomodated in hotels during the pandemic. There was a torrent of complaints about how many didn't deserve it because 'they hadn't paid their taxes'. Even brexit to a certain extent is about envy and resentment directed at others.

People sadly feel enabled to say these things nowadays.

I tend to ignore Xenia's comments as we couldn't be more opposed politically and in general worldviews, but the sad thing here is that what she says is being echoed by quite a few across the boards - that the young sacrificed for the 'old and sick' and we're not even grateful.

Why am I supposed to be grateful for a lockdown put in place to flatten a curve in order to keep things ticking over in the NHS and for everyone? If the exponential growth had been left unchecked the consequences could have reverberated across all sections of society and left us in an untenable position in all ways. As it is the lockdown will have far reaching economic and social consequences and no one is denying that. But there was no win here, no easy way out. The government followed the science such as it was for a novel virus in order to keep things going as much as they could foresee for the long term. It's a Tory government, don't kid yourself they suddenly developed compassion for the vulnerable in society.

So no, I am not going to bow and scrape with gratitude and agree that I have cost children their education and futures. Why can't we all just get through this showing compassion for everyone? Why polarise so much? I care about children who are suffering. I care about the elderly and the sick. I care about people who have lost their income. A little compassion and careful use of language can go a long way.

Agreed, @Hermanhessescat :(

Young adults not having a future, a goal, structure, is very dangerous for society.

Young adults can have goals, just as they could have this time last year.

Their goals might be somewhat different, but their right to set goals for themselves has not been disappeared.

I worry about the mental health of our younger generation which is not always ‘fixable’. Most people are selfish and only focus on what affects them and their immediate family, I don’t believe anyone who says otherwise.

Tell that to the millions that have left uni and college with no job prospects, tell that to the millions of teenagers that are not sure if school life is ever going to be the same. What are they going to do with their time? Crime will go up as there is no work.

O yes grateful. I am sure my immunosuppressed dh currently wfh paying higher rate tax should be grateful that he hasn't left the house since March and has no idea when he can leave the house apart from a daily walk. He may be vulnerable to the virus but he is also perfectly able to work and has 3 kids.
Our lives are also on hold indefinitely when others are starting to get their lives back.

We do it for a number of reasons. One is to protect him but as others have said we do not have a caring sharing Govt who gives a toss about the sick so this was done to protect the NHS too. Hell many are being asked to sign DNRs
Come September I hope the virus will be less of a threat so my kids can go back to school.
Mumsnet over the last few days has made me not trust others to be sensible.
We have had people saying they will visit vulnerable grandparents and let their kids hug them. They won't self isolate if they get symptoms and a school bubble burst on day two because a parent sent a child to school who had been tested for the virus and was subsequently positive.
I despair of humanity.
My kids have lost all others kids have and more because thet can't hug their Dad but if they don't hug him now than hopefully they won't have to attend his funeral too soon as his life expectancy is normal.