They also form a growing proportion of residents. Singapore’s statistics department said those aged 65 years and over made up 13.7 per cent of the population in 2018, with that demographic making up around one in four residents of areas such as Outram, Rochor, Bukit Merah and Sungei Kadut.

Doing their daily shopping at wet markets, lingering over kopi (coffee) at hawker centres, line dancing with their peers at open-air areas or just randomly shaking their arms at designated fitness areas is how they’ve passed their days for years. Those with existing mental and physical health conditions, such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, or the ones who need electric wheelchairs to ambulate, need a languid pace.

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But the narrative that “the elderly are stubborn” has empowered their adult children to scold them – if Instagram influencers are to be believed, anyone over 65 only understands the dialects of Hokkien and Teochew – for being cavalier about other people’s health.

In the cross hairs of Facebook vigilantes, they’re being recorded flouting the rules. Among the videos was one of an elderly man having a meltdown at a hawker centre, ripping off plastic covering a table and seats, then roaring at police officers (who, in an effort to calm him down, yelled back). He was clearly distressed that he couldn’t sit anywhere, at being denied his routine. “Boomers gone wild” was the accompanying caption in some chat groups when the video was circulated.

Other eruptions online would have you believe the elderly have “become mad”, accompanied by damning pictures of them standing too close to each other while buying groceries. Some Singaporeans claim they’ve been driven to threaten straying parents by saying the National Environmental Agency (NEA) officers will fine them S$300 (US$212), or that the police will throw them in jail.

It’s a wonder how anyone has managed to capture the action on their phones if they themselves are appropriately cloistered and “not loitering”. And how, up to the night before the official lockdown, many of these same haters had pre-lockdown parties at bars – gasp! – unmasked. #Yolo indeed.

Maybe apples don’t fall far from their trees. Or maybe this stay-home working and learning has made us, all at once, acutely aware of elements of everyday life in HDB (Housing and Development Board) flats. The great swathe of so-called errant elderly are not doing anything differently. The rest of us are.

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It’s too easy to make them the target of vitriol.

Let’s not forget the several generational differences between this group and the mobile-dependent set.

First, they’re not proficient with technology, they don’t trust it, and don’t spend every second on their phones posting pictures of home cooking on Instagram. If they’re calling anybody, it’s to make an appointment or get information. They’re not used to lengthy exchanges because they were conditioned to pay for longer conversations back when phones had rotary dials. If they’re cooking, it’s because their families need to eat.

They haven’t gone wild, they just need time to process. One day things were hunky dory, and then the country’s alert level was Dorscon Orange, then masks switched from optional to compulsory, schools closed, and their children returned to micromanage everything, cauterising their autonomy.

Shopping for groceries is not just about checking off a list, but interacting with their network. Waiting for 3pm midweek seniors’ discount time is their form of entertainment, as critical to their all-round wellness as Wi-fi is to their children’s. These activities fulfil their basic human need for independence, compared with the current situation, in which they feel like infirm liabilities to be resented for not immediately hopping aboard.

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Of course they’ll say they’re close to the grave, they’re going to die anyway, they’re not concerned. What else can they say if they feel ostracised, left without an alternative purpose or role? This so-called new normal of staying inside all the time, fretful about when their own turf will be safe again, frightened that officials will pounce if they go out, is likely a painful reminder of bygone normals in periods of oppression. I hear my mother on the phone to her older relatives, comparing the current situation to the Japanese occupation during World War II.

If there’s a better way to get the message through, the answer lies in speaking their language.

The wet market we frequent in the East Coast area, a mature estate with a high population of seniors, gets its share of National Environment Agency patrols. It is perimetered by residential areas Lucky Heights, Opera Estate and Bedok South, attracting shoppers from different races and income brackets, most of whom until recently would linger over youtiao (fried bread sticks) and coffee at the hawker centre, or queue up to buy lottery tickets.

There, a mother-and-daughter tag team of pork sellers who know their customers by name share a common idiolect with their customers. When an auntie stands too close to other browsers, or mistakenly thinks an empty spot in line is a call to step in, the younger vendor pipes up in Chinese: “Auntie, move back now! NEA come here, one day five times take photo leh! You want your pork to be S$300?” [Translation: “Lady, I’m trying to save you trouble and money, please do what I say because I am an eye witness.”]

Around the corner is a fishmonger uncle who says a kindly teenager helped him set up his PayLah! mobile wallet so he wouldn’t have to deal with wet dollar bills. “Young people help me like that, I also don’t know how they do, but better for me. Help me get used to it.”

And maybe that’s all that’s needed to manage the situation better: offer help, not hate.