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.

I think it’s far more prevalent on here than it is in real life. It’s probably a combination of the demographic here being weighted towards younger people, and it being a platform for the more opinionated people to air their views.

I think you get the extremes of everything on here. I’d be really concerned if I thought a lot of the prevailing views on MN were reflected throughout society. But they’re not, away from here most people are far more nuanced.

Thanks for posting OP. Sometimes on here it seems that everyone despises the vulnerable, but posts like this, and the way people where I live are behaving should remind me that many people thoughtful

I think Covid has revealed a society that hates children.

The harms being done to children by this lockdown, blithely waved away as no big deal by lockdown enthusiasts appal me.

Shutting down society indefinitely causes harm to everyone society protects, including the elderly and disabled.

We used to say it took a village to raise a child, now we are locking children up at home for months.

They are being neither seen nor heard.

This is a great time for people who normally have to take steps to make sure the signs of their abuse are not visible when their child goes to school or to the doctor.

The longer we keep our society shut down, the more irreversible harm we will do.

It is monstrous that so many people want to force other people to live like this indefinitely. If this virus was really that dangerous, there would be no reason to compel people to stay indoors.

I continually hear friends cry 'think of the children' and claim they have been more affected than other groups because they are missing their friends, their prom, their transition to high school.

Of course kids have been affected and it's a shame, but nowhere near as much as older people and shielded people. As restrictions ease and everyone else gets to see friends and go outside, they are likely to be stuck in for much longer and have the added stress of knowing that if they get the virus they might not survive it

I see a whole society & political structure that has uprooted & stabbed itself hard in a zillion ways to try to stop premature death to elderly & people living with chronic health problems. This strategy supported by the mass majority of the populace. The main people who will carry the huge burden for the harm caused by the pandemic & measures to control it, are the young. When you hear dissent about supporting the strategy that's because we live in a democracy.

I think we have revealed a society which underestimates the strength, capability and adaptability of children

I think we have revealed a society which uses " think of the children" to mean "poor me"

Who ignore the impact of potential mass death on those children. Parents, teachers, grandparents , favourites aunts dying, and then at some point they realise it's because their parents didn't want to entertain and educate them for a few more weeks

Absolutely @Madhairday
I started a thread yesterday to point out that many people who are dismissed as 'having underlying conditions' aren't shielded and the 'clinically vulnerable' who are expected to go back to work are actually very vulnerable - just not shielded. We seem to be considered disposable by society. It's ok, even necessary, for us to go back to work because we are needed (primary teacher here) and we aren't shielded. But when we die it gets validated as 'but they had underlying conditions'. The double standards are shocking.
The responses I had were mostly along the lines of 'you won't be expected to go back' (yes I will, see vague government washing of hands, new pupil:staff ratios and the threads from parents demanding schools reopen fully). Or alternatively 'you must have been missed off the shielding list by mistake'. No, I wasn't. The shielding list is really restricted. Many of us with serious conditions are not on that list - cynically, I suspect on purpose because there are two many of us working age and the government wants us back at work.

Ah the old Simpson's misogynist joke.

Anyone still making that joke after Savile is a fool.

Maybe ask the 95yr old if she wants to up her chances at a few more years of life, if it means blighting the lives of her grandchildren for a generation?
I know what my Mother thinks..

I think Covid has revealed a society that hates children.

Nihiloxica, children have died too. Children are in ICU with Kawasaki syndrome. Children are traumatised by parents dying, by aunts and uncles dying. Children have relatives who work in the NHS, in public transport, on building sites (currently the most high-risk profession). You can't kill significant numbers of adults and not affect children.

Nobody is saying prolong lockdown indefinitely. What they are saying is, prolong lockdown until alert level is down from 4, and until we actually have the stats to show the test/tracing app is working. Grant Schapps in television interview day before yesterday was unable to come up with any stats on how the Isle of Wight experiment is working out apart from how many had originally registered to take part. That doesn't tell us a thing about whether the app is effective. We have a much higher infection rate than other European countries at the point they came out of lockdown. We are simply taking higher risks than almost anybody else. If this goes pear-shaped, then the children will almost certainly have to pay for it, one way or another.

I especially enjoy the child haters who try to dress up their callous lack of concern for the welfare of children as a compliment to their resilience.

A society that really did care about its vulnerable would not treat children this way, because they are vulnerable too.

Maybe ask the 95yr old if she wants to up her chances at a few more years of life, if it means blighting the lives of her grandchildren for a generation?
I know what my Mother thinks.

Now maybe you'd like to pop round and ask my 23yo if she's happy to die so your children don't have to stay in lockdown until we have made sure the app is working?

What they are saying is, prolong lockdown until alert level is down from 4, and until we actually have the stats to show the test/tracing app is working

That's indefinite.

We've lived in a hyper-Thatcherite world for 11 weeks now.

I want society back.

That is how people look after each other.

This abomination of a social experiment has gone on for too long.

Oh also make sure to ask some children if they want to spend the rest of their childhood as carers if their parent ends up disabled by this virus. I know several people who have sustained what looks like permanent damage to inner organs: they were neither elderly nor ill.

People are so short sighted, yes let everyone get back to normal and just lock all of the vulnerable people at home instead

I'm sure all the 'I'm alright jack' crew would be back bitching soon enough when they realise just how many people are considered clinically vulnerable and that there may still be an impact on their lives anyway.

They can't quite get the idea that being vulnerable to this infection does not just mean people that are retired or so significantly ill that they don't work, it also means the many millions of people with underlying conditions that don't require shielding but who (ordinarily) live perfectly normal lives with well controlled conditions, and have many many years ahead of them - most of these people work.

The fact that they see everyone else as expendable is absolutely disgusting, and half these people will be spouting shit all over social media about being kind

What they are saying is, prolong lockdown until alert level is down from 4, and until we actually have the stats to show the test/tracing app is working That's indefinite.

Then maybe the way forward is to put pressure on the government to get their arse in gear. Other countries are managing testing. If ours are sloppy and lazy and don't do their work, maybe we need to make their lives seriously unpleasant.

And quite frankly, 11 weeks in lockdown without pain, without the fear of permanent disability doesn't seem a lot compared to what some of my friends and their families are going through now.

My own dd has been in almost permanent pain since lockdown started because of other issues she can't get seen. She still doesn't want to die- and she wants the medics who might one day be able to help her to still be alive when that day comes.

You are right. Perhaps even more than that, in most ways that the crisis could have been divisive, it sure has been divisive - in spades.

On one thread I read the phrase "If you're under 40, white and middle class, you'll be fine." (I mis-read and thought that it said "low-risk", not middle class, but looked back). There's a tiny chance that this could have been tongue in cheek but I don't think so.

It's probably about 75 per cent true - but that was my moment when I saw red. Age, race AND socio-economic blinkers all right there in that sentence. Disturbing.

Completely agree with nihoxica

Society it seems is trying to erase children. They are the unseen fall out of this

Schools closed. Education damaged, All sports closed. Can’t see friends. All their usual way of life stopped. Teaching them that everyone is a walking contagion engine! Now they can’t even go In a flipping shop - why not? Why is my 13 and 10 year old not allowed in when people of 80+ who are statistically way more likely to get ill allowed in??! It’s not acceptable And we should really question how quickly children are forgotten and being cast aside.

Of course that does not mean that old people are expendable but we simply cannot lockdown indefinitely and destroy livelihoods and a generations future. People ultimately will have to make individual risk assessments and life choices
People are in for a wake up call when furlough ends and millions are unemployed. That too will impact children as their parents lose jobs, incones, home when again older people do t have these concerns as they live in mortgage free properties, retired, children grown up
The impact to my elderly parents ( who are in higher risk categories ) has been way less than to my children

I think quite the opposite as society has been shut down to protect those individuals.

I completely agree with you OP, it's been horrible to read some of the comments on here. There's always been an awful lot of disablism and ageism on here, but this has brought it all out into the open.

Even this thread couldn't just be about the issue you raised. Someone always has to try and make it about the poor children.

millymollymoomoo would you feel different if someone in your family had a vulnerable child? Or if a young/middle-aged family member had ended up with organ damage (lungs, kidneys, heart) from the virus?

Would you still feel the damage done through spending 11 weeks at home doing school work was as bad as the risk taken by those people?

My dd had to spend considerably more than 11 weeks laid up regularly due to disability when she was younger. It was bad and she had a lot of catching up to do education wise- because unlike most children in lockdown she was actually too ill to do schoolwork at home during those times.

But to compare it to somebody dying or risking organ failure- she'd be the first to laugh in your face!

I am so saddened and gutted that you have been made to feel like this OP. I agree with you totally.

There are idiots on here who forget that the lockdown was to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Obviously, most of us want to protect the elderly and the vulnerable of any age too and that is because they are important to us. The clinically vulnerable are our parents, grandparents, siblings, children.

I, for one, do not blame the vulnerable or the elderly at all (btw I don't consider 60+ to be elderly either). No-one chooses to have chronic illnesses or disabilities. It is not your fault you have illnesses. You are not worth less than others.

There are so many selfish posters who are only interested in their own little world and don't seem to have any concept of how others live or that others are worse off than them.

I've been shot down in flames for commenting, in the early days, about people in care homes being denied treatment.

We all need to start calling out ageism and ableism and continually challenge it to eradicate it. I am so upset and in tears that the OP has been made to feel like this and would be utterly heartbroken if this was how my parents (sadly deceased) felt.

I am so saddened and gutted that you have been made to feel like this OP. I agree with you totally.

Yes. And I just realised my last post could be read so as to feed into that ageism. Not intended.

You missed all the dozens of threads on MN at the beginning of this about how stupid, selfish, insert patronising and negative attitude, older people are because they weren't wanting to stay in their home forever and only go outside to clap for the NHS. It was the polar opposite of that over which you are 'deeply concerned'.

Now all of the sudden it should be called out and deleted.

For the record, if I asked my 20yo if the effects on his young life are so bad that he would be happy for his dad (60) to die if that meant he could take his driving licence and apply to the kind of apprenticeship he would enjoy and generally get on with life instead of sticking strictly to his low-paid-not-very-enjoyable-job and not socialising, I'm pretty sure I know the answer.