Mean old girls: Seniors who bully

Bullying doesn't always end in high school — it also happens in retirement communities

By Diane Mapes
When Nancy Murphy moved into a retirement community near Portland, Ore., she didn't realize she'd actually traveled back in time.

"I came into breakfast one morning and this woman sitting at a nearby table sees me and says, 'Well, would you look at the new girl? She has WET HAIR!'" says Murphy, a 75-year-old retired schoolteacher. "She did this three mornings in a row. Then I found a flyer in my mailbox with a copy of the house dress rules. I know she tucked it in there."

Murphy, who's lived at the facility just under two months, says she ignores the woman's jabs — "I refer to her as Harriet High School" — but others at the nursing home have confided they're afraid of her.

"I had dinner with two gentlemen the other night and they said she terrifies them," she says. "That she's dictatorial, demanding, critical — classic bully behavior."

While much scrutiny and study has been devoted to bullying in grade school and high school these last few years, less attention has been paid to another category of bullies: those with gray hair, false teeth, hearing aids and canes. But according to experts, gray-haired bullies do exist and, as with their younger counterparts, their behavior can run the gamut from verbal intimidation to physical violence.

"It's kind of an institutional thing," says gerontology expert Robin Bonifas, an assistant professor at Arizona State University School of Social Work, who's currently researching senior-to-senior bullying. "It tends to take place in senior centers or nursing homes or assisted living facilities, places where they're spending a lot of time and need to share resources, whether it's chairs or tables or TV stations or staff attention."

Mary Noriega, a 64-year-old from Phoenix, says she has had run-ins with a group of "mean girls" at the senior complex where she and her husband moved a year and a half ago.
"I've endured a lot of bullying," she says. "There's a clique here of probably 20 women and they feel they control the property. I'm their kicking stone."

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