I still remember the first time my grandmother called me by my uncle’s name. She looked at me with that same warm smile she always had, but her voice was unsure, trembling, as if she was trying to connect a face to a memory that had quietly slipped away. At that time, I brushed it off. “She’s just getting old,” someone said. But that phrase, so casually thrown around, does not even begin to capture the complexity of what aging — and especially Alzheimer’s — means. And perhaps, more importantly, how it shapes the lives of children who live under the same roof.
These days, it’s quite common for grandparents to become the primary caregivers while the parents work long hours. The intergenerational setup isn’t new in Asian households, but it’s taking on new weight in our modern climate. Yet even as grandparents play such an intimate role in raising children, we seldom talk about what happens when the caregiving dynamic reverses — when the once-vibrant grandparent begins to forget, stumble, or become someone the child no longer recognises. That silence, that choice to “protect” the child from such knowledge, often does more harm than good.
The Folktale of Forgetting and Remembering
In Japanese folklore, there is a poignant story called Ubasute, or “abandoning the old woman.” The tale goes that in ancient times, a village would send its elderly up the mountain to die once they had grown too weak. It’s a chilling story, one that seems cruel — until you look at the underlying message. The folktale isn’t about discarding the elderly. It’s about society’s fear of aging, of decay, of memory loss. We hide what we cannot understand. And perhaps, in our modern world, this folktale still plays out metaphorically when we hide conversations about dementia or Alzheimer’s from children. We are, in a way, still sending the topic up the mountain — unseen, unspoken, until it becomes too late.
Why Children Deserve to Know
Many adults underestimate how perceptive children are. A 2019 study from the University of Cambridge found that children as young as five could demonstrate empathy and awareness of cognitive changes in others (University of Cambridge, 2019). They might not know the word “Alzheimer’s,” but they notice the small things — the repetition of questions, the misplaced items, the sadness in a parent’s eyes. Shielding them from the truth doesn’t protect them; it isolates them.
When a child notices that Grandma is “acting funny,” and the adults brush it off or change the subject, the child learns something subtle but powerful — that confusion is to be hidden, not understood. According to Dr. Deborah Serani, a psychologist specialising in trauma (Psychology Today, 2020), children often internalise these silences, interpreting them as fear or shame. They start to believe that forgetting is frightening, that old age is something to be whispered about rather than embraced. The irony is that children, with their boundless capacity for curiosity, can often process complex realities far more gracefully than adults give them credit for.
The Detriment of Keeping Children in the Dark
When families choose to stay silent, the consequences extend beyond confusion. A 2021 paper in Child and Adolescent Mental Health highlighted that when children aren’t given context about a loved one’s illness, they tend to fill in the blanks themselves — often imagining scenarios worse than reality. A child who isn’t told about Alzheimer’s may think Grandma doesn’t love them anymore, or that they’ve done something wrong. That misunderstanding, though innocent, can fester into guilt, resentment, or fear.
Moreover, the absence of communication denies children the chance to learn one of the most human experiences — compassion. It robs them of an opportunity to witness and participate in empathy, to understand that love can persist even as memory fades. When children are involved in the caregiving journey, even in small, age-appropriate ways, they often develop deeper emotional resilience. As Dr. Jennifer Bute, a British GP living with dementia herself, once said in an interview (BBC, 2018): “Children don’t fear dementia. Adults teach them to.” And isn’t that the truth? The fear is not inherent; it’s inherited.
Why We Avoid the Conversation
Of course, the avoidance is understandable. No parent wants to see their child cry over the decline of a loved one. No one wants to explain why Grandpa sometimes forgets where he is. Talking about Alzheimer’s feels like opening a door to grief before it even arrives. But our discomfort doesn’t make the illness less real. It only delays understanding.
In many Asian households, conversations about illness — especially mental or neurological ones — are often swept under the carpet. We’re good at showing strength, not vulnerability. “Don’t scare the child,” someone will say. But perhaps what we really mean is: “Don’t scare me.” It’s easier to postpone pain than to confront it. Yet, as the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” If we wait until memory loss becomes catastrophic before we explain it, we rob children of the chance to grow empathy naturally, progressively, gently.
The Humour and Humanity in Forgetting
Alzheimer’s, for all its tragedy, sometimes brings with it strange moments of humour — not the cruel kind, but the absurd, tender kind that reminds us of the resilience of love. My friend once told me how his grandfather, deep in dementia, would try to “pay” for dinner by handing the waiter Monopoly money. The family laughed, not out of ridicule, but to hold on to the lightness amidst the grief. Children, in particular, are masters at this — they can turn sorrow into curiosity, confusion into kindness.
Humour, in such cases, becomes not a form of denial but a bridge. It allows families to talk, to remember that the person they love is still there, even if they occasionally forget their name. As Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), “Humour, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation.” Teaching children that love can coexist with laughter and loss gives them the vocabulary of emotional maturity far earlier than we think.
The Cognitive Empathy of Children
Recent research has begun to highlight something remarkable — children are not only emotionally perceptive, but also capable of complex empathy. A 2020 study in the Journal of Child Development found that children aged six to ten could discern the difference between intentional and unintentional forgetfulness, showing compassion for those who struggle to remember (Child Development, 2020). This means they are cognitively able to understand Alzheimer’s in a basic form: that it is an illness of memory, not of love.
This is where honest, age-appropriate education matters. Just as we teach children about physical health and hygiene, we can also teach them about mental and neurological health. Books, films, and stories can act as gentle introductions. The Pixar short Forget Me Not, for instance, beautifully depicts the fading threads of memory through visual metaphor. Stories have a way of holding truth gently, and for children, they make abstract fears manageable.
The Role of Storytelling and Myth
Throughout history, myths and folktales have always been society’s way of preparing the young for difficult truths. The Greek myth of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the underworld, reminds us that memory and identity are intertwined. To forget one’s past is to drift away from the self. Yet, in some interpretations, the river is also merciful — allowing souls to let go of pain before they are reborn. What if we taught children that Alzheimer’s, while heartbreaking, is not just an erasure but a transformation? That Grandma may forget the small details, but her love remains like an invisible current beneath the surface?
Folktales make the unbearable poetic. They turn pain into pattern, and for children, this can be profoundly comforting. Imagine telling a child: “Grandpa is slowly walking along a river of memories. Sometimes he remembers the way home, sometimes he drifts, but we’re still here calling out to him from the shore.” That is both truth and tenderness, science wrapped in story.
When Society Becomes Complicit in Silence
Here’s the part that’s harder to admit: sometimes, it’s not just families who stay silent — it’s society. We glorify youth, productivity, and speed, but rarely honour the slow unraveling of age. Alzheimer’s, in public discourse, is often depicted as tragedy alone, never as part of the human continuum. This creates stigma, even fear. And when that stigma trickles down into households, it becomes generational silence.
The Alzheimer’s Disease International Report (2022) found that nearly 60% of people still believe dementia is a natural part of aging rather than a medical condition — meaning millions go undiagnosed or unacknowledged. If adults can’t talk about it comfortably, how can we expect children to? The silence becomes cultural, woven into our idea of “normal.”
But children can change that. They can grow up to be the generation that speaks more openly, that doesn’t flinch at the word “dementia,” that sees caregiving not as burden but as continuity. That’s only possible if we start those conversations early — with honesty, gentleness, and maybe a few laughs along the way.
Toward a Dystopian Hope
Imagine, if you will, a near-future world where everyone is responsible for maintaining memory — not just their own, but one another’s. A world where children walk hand-in-hand with elders in “Memory Gardens,” tending to trees that bloom only when stories are shared aloud. In this imagined place, no one hides Alzheimer’s. It’s as natural to talk about as the weather. Every fading memory is replaced by a story whispered into a child’s ear, and in that act, memory is transferred, not lost.
This is the kind of dystopia we might actually need — one where we reverse the silence, where our empathy becomes our social currency. Where forgetting isn’t feared, because remembering has become communal. It’s an inversion of our current world, and perhaps a hopeful reminder that we can choose to build it.
We Can Do Better, and We Must
At the heart of it all lies a simple truth: children are more capable of compassion than we often realise. To talk to them about Alzheimer’s isn’t to burden them — it’s to trust them with the truth. To allow them to see love in all its imperfect forms. To prepare them not just for loss, but for understanding.
Maybe the next time Grandma forgets your name, the child won’t cry or turn away. Maybe they’ll smile, and gently remind her, “It’s me.” And maybe, in that small act, they’ll remind the rest of us what it means to remember — not through memory, but through love.
Written by: Adi Jamaludin
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