The way you treat older people now is the way your generation will teach its kids to treat you.

Standards for how to treat old people are not written anywhere. They get set by what your generation does in waiting rooms, at family dinners and behind somebody slow in a checkout line, and then they get handed to the kids watching. Whatever becomes normal will still be normal when you are the slow one.

This week, take one interaction with an older person at half speed. Let them finish the sentence, answer the question they actually asked, and do not talk over them to your friend. Younger kids notice how you did that more than they notice anything you say about it.