I'm really worried about my mom. She's visiting, and this morning she came with me and my son for his morning drop-off at school. His school asks that each child work with their grown up on a simple set of tasks in the morning (like filling out a worksheet and reading a paragraph off the whiteboard). They have split-grade classrooms: his class calls first graders "youngers" and second graders "elders." Well, this morning, my son had to arrange some numbered tiles and get an elder to sign off that he had done it correctly. He is great at arranging the tiles and HATES asking second graders to proof his work because he knows he's right. But part of the exercise is making friends and working with people, so I encouraged him to go find an elder to bless his paperwork. My mom could not understand what elder meant. I explained it to her. My son explained it to her. Then she started pointing my son at grown-ups who could be an elder. I explained it to her again. She asked if maybe we should find the teacher to explain it. She asked another parent, who said the same thing I said. She asked someone else. My son finally found someone to do it for him in the meantime, because this was agonizing. On our way out of the school, my mom asked me how weird it was that I wouldn't let other adults be my son's elder. "Mom, elder means second grader. I don't know how else to say it." "Ohhhhhhhhhh. I didn't understand. Isn't that weird? That's weird. It's weird, right?" No, lady. It's an established system that four different people explained to you. Anyway, I'm worried. I don't think her brain works. I don't know if it's dementia or TBI, or both, or some third thing, but this feels serious. There isn't any treatment, so idk what a diagnosis would do, but if someone acted like this in my office, I would have a hard time letting them sign a will in front of me. Also, on another level, it's embarrassing. And it probably shouldn't be, but I'm sensitive about it in a way that cannot be healthy. I don't want people asking my son if Grandma has dementia or is stupid, or making inferences and assumptions about me or him based on Grandma's hard time dealing with information. I also don't want to confront how heritable this shit can be and that my future might involve losing my ability to navigate and selectively break or ignore rules, which is my whole deal.