“Let’s Just Forget It!”

Abstract

Using recorded interactions between nursing home residents and care staff, this study demonstrates interactional strategies of younger recreation workers during a weekly recreational activity named Tea Time Talk that serves to reduce generational as well as epistemic gaps with the residents. This study focuses on how older residents’ reference to memory loss or forgetfulness is deindividuated and trivialized by humorously framing it as something the participants can forget together. I will claim that such intergenerational interactions on a regular basis help create solidarity between the residents and nursing home staff, as well as maintain dignity of and respect towards the older residents who often experience a sense of exclusion from the ‘here and now’ which affects their life satisfaction at the end-of-life stage.