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Definition.

The Slave Grandmother Syndrome is a very frequent, serious and potentially fatal health and social problem in adult housewife women, due to ignored and/or denied imbalance, when her age-related decreasing abilities and will power are not enough to fulfil the accumulative familial tasks she is carrying at present.

Origin

The origin of a "slave grandmother" is an adult woman with direct housewife responsibilities, voluntarily taken on with pleasure, who, due to educational and/or psychological reasons, has an extraordinary sense of order, responsibility, dignity and decency. With such magnificent virtues, it is normal that for many years these women have been extraordinary daughters, housewives, mothers and wives. They become grandmothers without realising it, in the prime of their life, when they are strong, healthy and even beautiful. With pleasure they take on the bringing up and care of the grandchildren, as if they were mothers the second time round, but with an even more pleasurable, gratifying and affectionate character.

Time

The years go by and nobody realises. The load and the family stress multiply: More sons- and daughters-in-law, sometimes doubled or even tripled through divorces, separations and all kinds of pairing. The grandchildren grow up, and so do the needs and responsibilities of those who look after them on a daily basis. The grandchildren and their parents often bring home friends and family to enjoy the hospitality of the enviable grandmother.

In addition, there may be a brother who becomes ill or whose marriage breaks down, who needs a helping hand, sometimes parents or dear aunts and uncles who are still alive, and who, although the grandchildren took care of getting them into an old people's home, the daughter or niece (the slave grandmother) still has to visit, at least from time to time. The grandmother's physical and emotional capacity also start to feel the passing of the years. Sometimes an associated illness decreases her strength even more.

Imbalance

There comes a moment when the abilities and the will power of the grandmother are not enough to be able to fulfil the tasks she has been carrying out for years. But she will not give them up. An imbalance occurs. If an opportune remedy is not provided, a new slave grandmother is created. One more, amongst thousands.

Inexpressiveness and Blindness

Neither the grandmother nor her children realise, with sufficient clarity, what is happening. They only believe, or want to believe, that the slight hypertension or the trivial diabetes or the anxiety that the grandmother has are the reason why, in recent months, she has lost her joy for living, she feels bad and starts suffering from aches and pains: pains in her chest, undefined discomfort, pain, lethargy, dizziness, etc. The grandmother repeatedly goes to the doctor and the emergency services, telling them about her aches and pains, but without clearly revealing the kind of stress to which she is being subjected. If she has organic illnesses, they do not respond correctly to conventional treatments. If she does not have organic illnesses, anxiety pills, vitamins, psychotherapy, chiromancy and esoteric therapies not only do not help but, on the whole, make things worse.

Admissions in hospital for several days, stays in hotels with groups of old-similar retired people, or staying as a guest (resting) at the home of family members improve her in an extraordinary way. Her symptoms reappear when she starts her habitual tasks. Educational and psychological reasons prevent her from asking for help in an expressive enough way. She is frustrated because her children are blind to the situation and do not understand her, even when she timidly tries to tell them. She is especially frightened of the Law of All of Nothing. Her children could react in an exaggerated way saying: "Don't worry, if you're ill we won't bring you the grandchildren so they won't bother you". The drastic, brutal interruption of the gratifying contact with her grandchildren, for this kind of grandmother, is worse than death.

The Injustice

She blames herself: I'm no longer any use and each day will be worse. Behind the lack of comprehension of her nearest and dearest, of those she loves in an indescribable way, she starts to discern suspicion, reproaches, sometimes sarcasm and lack of affection. Maybe tomorrow they will feel disdain. At this point, she is assaulted by a fixed self-destructive thought. The poor lovesick family woman starts to believe that the only way she will find definitive rest is by leaving this ungrateful world. In her imagination, she is sure that the family would be happier if they were rid of the useless charge, which she believes she has become.

If only someone in the family unit realises in time about the nature of the process and is able to convince the other members of the family to fairly redistribute the grandmother's excessive loads! Between them all, it is easy to free the grandmother of the tasks that give her most stress: all those that need to be carried out in a set time or those that involve direct responsibilities. The grandmother should still be the centre of the family unit, with maximum contact with the younger members. She may be the main source of love for her grandchildren, which will allow them to grow up emotionally healthy. But the grandmother must never have to feel responsible for the safety of her grandchildren. Preventing and avoiding domestic accidents must be a task assigned to and taken on by other younger people.

What can we do in this Context

As this is an illness that is very frequent and serious, that can lead to death, including suicide, it has the peculiarity that its complete cure is usually in the hands of the patient's nearest and dearest ones. It is a shame that they are usually totally blind. In some unfortunate cases there is no feasible family possibility to unburden the grandmother from her chains, or if the freedom does occur, it is without the suitable balance and sharing out of tasks, which, sooner or later, leads to the creation of a new slave grandmother in the person who inherits the chains from her predecessor. To resolve this supposition, society should be sufficiently aware and informed about the problem, so that it is in a condition to generate, in an opportune way, social family help just when the case requires it.

To achieve this objective of diffusion and creating awareness, not only in the families involved, but also society in general and the most active social agents in particular, it is vital to have the collaboration of all of us and of the mass media. We should take into account that if the grandmother and her closest family members were alerted, aware and willing to act, the problem would quite surely be resolved. Unfortunately, we still hear about too many cases where this does not happen. In society, harmoniously, we should help each other open our eyes, delicately but without paralysing modesty and not be surprised that all of us, every one of us, human beings, are inclined to see the problems from which other people suffer rather than our own more serious ones. The most efficient health agent to end this 21st century plague could be just you, a journalist, a social or health worker, or simply a friend or family member, usually someone with some distance from the slave, who knows the problem well and can judge more objectively than the members of the family nucleus, who have been blinded by the incredible strength of the person the grandmother was for so many years.

If you know of one or more cases of slave grandmothers you must obviously dedicate your professional care to them, but above this, for greater efficiency, you, as I am doing now, must publicly comment on it, with specific data, without identifying the family involved, through open letters to directors or editors of newspapers, radio and TV as well as participating personally or collaborating by phone in debates or chat shows concerning the matter. Let's all share what we know. Without offending anyone, as nobody in this matter is "guilty", but without remaining passive in the face of a social injustice so inexplicably "ignored". Let's do what our conscience asks of us. Without enslaving modesty or unfounded fear. Let us finally free, between us all, these suffering slave grandmothers. Because it is fair and they deserve it. Let us act for all slave grandmothers, for all of them. For the ones that are slave grandmothers today, for the ones that could become them in the future and even, although as a homage, to the ones that were and are no longer slave grandmothers, both those who were fairly and opportunely freed and those who met a less fortunate end.

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