Why don't we oppose ageism as discrimination in a similar way to our opposition to racism or sexism?
-- Richard from Massachusetts
There are many costs to ageism, especially in a society which has been described by the anti-ageism crusader Ashton Applewhite as “grotesquely youth-centric,” but among them is the negative self-perception of aging adopted by older people themselves. Over the course of a lifetime, older people have been conditioned to think of themselves as less useful, more forgetful, and less worthy of respect – with one of the results being that older people are less likely to seek social connection, especially intergenerational social connection. To quote Pogo Possum from the comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
It’s not terribly surprising to me that lots of people don’t take ageism seriously, because we are surrounded by social cues that tell us it is ok – even fun – to run down older adults. My colleague Emma reported to me that she recently went to buy a birthday card for someone turning 60 and all she could find were cards that said things like: “You deserve respect on your 60th birthday, so if anyone calls you old fart, you look them straight in the eye and say . . . . “that’s Mr. Old Fart to you!”” Hilarious. My teenage son Nate has been making fun of my age since he was in the crib. I asked him how he picked up that particular bias and he blamed it on the modeling of his older, rotten cousins, who have been similarly chastising their parents for their age for decades. The Sterns have probably been passing it down through the generations, since our days in the shtetl, though perhaps it sounded better in the original Yiddish.
I do think that progress is being made, partly due to the tireless efforts of people like Ashton and organizations like the American Society on Aging. There is even an “anti-ageist birthday card project”, so Emma will not have to resort to construction paper and magic markers after all. I’ve also been heartened by some trends in popular media that frame older adults in more central roles and depict them in fuller, more complex and meaningful ways. I’m personally excited for the return of Man on the Inside this November for its second season, because shows like that are likely more effective in shifting public perceptions around aging than long missives from people like me.
Sincerely,
Ken