To think this is a very strange attitude from a social worker? Or from anyone really.

[Weirdatwork]

Talking to acquaintance who's an older people's social worker. They said that in their opinion any older person whose adult children abuse them, for example by gaining control of finances and spending their money, or even hitting them, must have been a terrible parent. When I said 'Really? All of them?" they said " Yes" . I said something like 'are you sure, there must be exceptions' and reply was 'I don't want to discuss it further'.
AIBU to find this absolutely bizarre and frankly professionally sus? How can you safeguard people if you basically think they deserve it? No witnesses so I can hardly report them.

apart from everything else, if she's assuming people who are horrible to their parents only do it because the parents were horrible to them, then surely she must assume that the parents' parents were horrible to them, and therefore nobody is to blame and all abuse is justified and nobody has the power to improve their circumstances. which is depressing.

she clearly believes nobody can just be "bad" without significant background trauma that has influenced their behaviour and removed their culpability so the parents themselves must have had the same problems to have been mean to their kids in the first place.

ffs there's a difference between someone swearing or getting pissed in their own time or saying something a bit silly than essentially saying "I think the vulnerable people I am paid to care for probably deserve their abuse."

One is someone letting off steam from a stressful job, the other is someone exhibiting very strange thought processes who absolutely should not be in that job.

"having a shortage of social workers" doesn't mean "let's drop all standards completely and hire anyone who will take the job."

Saying they must have been terrible parents and saying they deserve to be abused are two different things. I have worked with parents who haven't parented their children well and have never thought they deserve to be abused. I have an understanding that they had things going on in their life that led to that such as mental health problems, abusive partners/ex-partners, multiple traumas, never having a positive experience of being parented themselves. I have empathy for them, treat them with respect and would take steps to safeguard them.
I think you've made a huge leap to suggest that she thinks older people deserve abuse. The fact is that the vast majority of people who have been parented well would not go on to abuse their elderly parents.

Where does it quote the person saying people deserve abuse? That's a leap from saying they must have been terrible parents. A leap made by OP, but she has made this assumption herself rather than quote it as something her friend said.

I chose the word 'odd' as a synonym for 'strange' which is the word you chose. I was actually trying to be kind, because I think that rushing to the internet to talk about a throwaway comment from an acquaintance, made possibly in the heat of the moment, when that person does an exceptionally difficult and poorly paid job that is known for being traumatic to practitioners...well, I don't think your attitude is just 'odd', tbh. Censorious, hypercritical, disparaging, unforgiving and cold are also words that occurred to me but I decided it was simpler just to go with 'odd'.

OP I totally agree with you. It is horrendous that someone working with this group of people seems to think they must deserve what treatment they get from their adult children. They might have encountered some specific examples in their personal or professional life where an abusive parent ended up being neglected or abused by their own children later and be generalising from that. Of course a) many people are treated badly by their children despite trying very hard to raise their children with love and support and b) even those who didn't treat their children well do not become in any way deserving of abuse themselves.

I really don't get the hate for you on this thread. What's going on?

@Greywarden where does it say that this person said they 'deserved' it?

You've made a leap from one other to another thing entirely.

Thinking someone might have been a shit parent doesn't mean she thinks they deserve to abused.

OP, I know a social worker who was an alcoholic and assaulted a young woman on a train. After years and years he eventually lost his job due to his alcoholism.
I know a senior health visitor, who struggles with severe mental health.

The point I'm making is that the older I get, I realise that they are just ordinary people like us, BUT sometimes with horrendous problems behind the scenes.