Friday, June 17, 2005
Who are more stoical, Men or Women?
This question occurred to me recently when I thought about an elderly woman I know slightly. She suffers from arthritis, has some dementia, and has very few teeth left. A few months ago I learned that her children, worried about the effect her poor teeth might have on her if they caused her jaw to become infected, had all the remaining teeth in her lower jaw removed. The plan was then to have her fitted with a partial, or "lower plate," as we used to call them.
However, the plan came to naught. She refused to wear a partial. She said that dentists had made partials for her before and none of them felt comfortable enough to use for chewing. So, no lower plate.
She lives with one of her children. I know this person, a middle-aged woman, fairly well. We meet regularly in a political club that we both belong to. She tells me that her mother can't chew any solid food any more. She used to like spare ribs, barbecued ribs, beef steak, and several kinds of fish. All she can do now is take the piece of meat into her mouth, gum it for a while to enjoy the taste and texture, then spit it out. She gets her nourishment from food that she doesn't have to chew, like milk shakes and bottles of Ensure, or things that she can mush up in her mouth with her tongue, like sofu and scrambled egg and oatmeal.
My friend tells me that her mother never complains. My friend feels a bit guilty about having agreed to have her mother's lower teeth removed, although I try to convince her she doesn't need to. She hadn't known before about her mother's attitude toward wearing partial plates. I tell her to let her mother enjoy as much as she can, continuing to enjoy the taste and texture of her favorite foods even though she can't injest them.
I keep wondering. What if it were an aged father, not a mother, who had lost the ability to chew favorite foods? The mother does not complain about her situation but remains optimistic. Aside from her chewing problem, she enjoys good health. I suspect the aged father would be likely to complain about how his children had robbed him of his ability to chew. Unfortunately, this essay is deficient. I don't have in mind an example of a man in such a situation, and so I am unable to make a judgment as to whether men or women are more stoical and more inclined to enjoy what few pleasures they still have and not complain about their losses.
However, the plan came to naught. She refused to wear a partial. She said that dentists had made partials for her before and none of them felt comfortable enough to use for chewing. So, no lower plate.
She lives with one of her children. I know this person, a middle-aged woman, fairly well. We meet regularly in a political club that we both belong to. She tells me that her mother can't chew any solid food any more. She used to like spare ribs, barbecued ribs, beef steak, and several kinds of fish. All she can do now is take the piece of meat into her mouth, gum it for a while to enjoy the taste and texture, then spit it out. She gets her nourishment from food that she doesn't have to chew, like milk shakes and bottles of Ensure, or things that she can mush up in her mouth with her tongue, like sofu and scrambled egg and oatmeal.
My friend tells me that her mother never complains. My friend feels a bit guilty about having agreed to have her mother's lower teeth removed, although I try to convince her she doesn't need to. She hadn't known before about her mother's attitude toward wearing partial plates. I tell her to let her mother enjoy as much as she can, continuing to enjoy the taste and texture of her favorite foods even though she can't injest them.
I keep wondering. What if it were an aged father, not a mother, who had lost the ability to chew favorite foods? The mother does not complain about her situation but remains optimistic. Aside from her chewing problem, she enjoys good health. I suspect the aged father would be likely to complain about how his children had robbed him of his ability to chew. Unfortunately, this essay is deficient. I don't have in mind an example of a man in such a situation, and so I am unable to make a judgment as to whether men or women are more stoical and more inclined to enjoy what few pleasures they still have and not complain about their losses.
