Caroline Baum on the challenges of caring for ageing parents.

When asked to speak about the issues they were facing, Caroline started small: her mother never said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’.

Her five-word response stunned Caroline.

“I’ve never believed in gratitude,” she said, adding, “I think it’s demeaning.”

Listen to the full episode of MID below.

The admission was a revelation for Caroline.

“I had never heard a statement like that in my entire life,” she said.

“Gratitude is the lubricant in all social exchange. We are all giving and taking and receiving and bartering things and emotions and transactions all the time. If you don’t have gratitude, then it is all purely transactional, and that is so cold.”

The therapist suggested Caroline’s mother try saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, to which she replied, “Well, I can do that. But of course, I won’t mean it.”

What followed was both comical and profound — a 90-year-old woman learning basic manners for the first time.

Every evening, when Caroline’s husband gave his mother-in-law a glass of wine, she would offer him a sarcastic ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in a condescending baby voice.

Handling the situation with grace and humour, Caroline’s husband would jokingly respond, “Mention it.”