You’ve all seen them: the headlines, the advertising and articles designed to make you buy into the idea that aging is bad, and the boomer generation must stay young forever.
Sixty is the new forty!
You’re not getting older, you’re getting better!
15 ways to look and feel younger!
Five tips to stop the dreaded middle-age decline.
This super star model is 62, but easily passes for 39.
And this, my favourite:
“8 signs the incontinence aisle isn’t far off!”
Aging is bad.
You can fight it or you can laugh it off.
These slogans and headlines are culled from our contemporary literature—blogs, news items, and advertising that are the vanguard of our current thought. They urge us to deny the power and reality of aging. They admonish us to look and act young, and if we can’t, at least don’t look and act too blatantly, obviously old!
On one hand, they tell us that aging is horrible, it will diminish us, make us weak and ugly. We must fight it at all costs!
On the other hand they tell us that it isn’t that bad, if we just look at the bright side, if we just use nicer words, if we can just stay sweet, compliant, invisible.
Truth is, we live in a deeply ageist culture.
The old version of aging is not working.
The reality that the oldest boomers, born in 1945, are now 70, is slowly sinking in. And the thought that the youngest boomers, born in 1960, are now 55 has got advertisers in a spin, and government agencies in a panic. The demographic bump, the pig in the python, is moving closer and closer toward the inevitable decline. There are so many of them, more and more each day. You can’t ignore them, you can’t hide them, they’re everywhere! What’s a society to do? What’s a poor advertising executive to do? Well the advertising world does what it always does—it takes the most obvious elements of the problem and runs with it. Hence the skin care ads, the retirement home ads, the ads for walk-in bathtubs.
Journalism is predictable also. Articles throb with warnings about the looming cost of health care, the scarcity of senior housing, and the drain on public funding.
Government departments say they are going to be overwhelmed, and please send more money. But Seniors are not a burden. In fact, current research demonstrates that age is less relevant than ever in predicting loss of health and independence. It shows that a large number of older people, are functionally indistinguishable from people 20 to 30 years their junior.
We are caught in an unhealthy paradigm
Aleah Chapin, a contributor to the Changing Aging blog, decries her situation:
So I see by the web, by the blogs, that I am supposed to be entirely different at this stage. Cute. Diminished. Creeping that much closer to the Dark Precipice, but you know what? This whole enfeeblement thing—there’s age, but while I don’t look the same—god, I was gorgeous at forty-eight—it is the inside of things that counts. I am such a believer in the interior. The unseen. The not yet born.
She knows that when we focus on the outside, the obvious changes as we age, we are playing a dangerous game. We are allowing the virtues of youth to reign supreme, and we are buying into the view that aging is equal to decline.
Advocates like Dr. Bill Thomas, (Join me in the Age of Disruption), while devoting their lives to turn current thought around, know that their hands are tied:
All the while, advocates like myself are encouraged to keep the word “aging” out of the titles of our books. We are told that we must accommodate ageist bigotry if we want to ever get mainstream media coverage. We can suggest that the problems our society faces are due mainly to our extreme devotion to youth and the false virtue of “independence.” But if we do so we are expected to keep our voices down, to be polite, to be deferential.
If this is the way it is, what do we do now?
We must say what we are all thinking—our physical condition and appearance are only part of who we are, we are so much more. We are vital. We are useful. We are wise. We are your elders, who have walked this road before. We can help you see the way forward.
We are still part of the whole human race. We are not meant to be cordoned off from the rest of society. We are meant to be its wisdom center, its sign of a better life to come.
We are all of these things—but we are NOT the new 40.
You have hit many fantastic points. I wonder if, just by virtue of our numbers, we’ll start to change perceptions to a more positive place? For example, it used to be noteworthy to see older people at a gym. Now it’s commonplace. Thus we change our thinking to “Older people usually exercise.”
The most profound method of change is to live the change. I encourage all older people to live the way you want, and don’t let yourselves be limited by the ageism that’s rampant. Call it when you see it. When a well-meaning young person says, “This way, young lady,” to your 75-year-old self, laugh and say, “Why are you calling me young? I like being my age!” Etc. We changed the world once. We can do it again.
Yes, it is insulting to be called “young lady”, although you take it so philosophically! My personal peeve is being called “dear”. hence my blog post, “Please don’t call me Dear” a few weeks ago. And you are absolutely right—the world will change again.
Great entry! I began to notice agism in my forties. I feel a bit ashamed that I only started to notice it because it was directed at me! As I get older I wonder more and more how my parents and grandparents tolerated the agism that has always been with us.
At some point in my forties I realized, that when one of the older generation said to me, “what can I do for you”, that it was irony. I worked hard after that to create relationships that were reciprocal in nature.
I continue to reject interactions based assumptions made about me, based on my age.
I like being older. I do not like age related decline, which I am experiencing as a natural part of my journey. Old injuries have become arthritic, and painful. My eyesight is not what it used to be. My knees have to be babied to remain functional. None of these things are due to inadequate lifestyle choices, they just go with the territory. I cope. I amaze myself with how well I cope. I look around me to see other older people coping and I think, Bravo!
Most important thing about all this is, what is going on in the outside (our bodies) does not reflect what is going on in the inside (our minds, spirits). Inside, we are gangbusters!
You caught my interest with the title and kept it throughout this entertaining, funny, wisdom-filled post. I can relate to every word, though I was born a few years too early to be a baby boomer. Thank your capturing my experiences.
Thank you. I’m not a boomer either, but find I need to include that demographic, since they are so all-pervasive! When you look at it from a long way off, anyone born before 1960 is quite “mature”! I found your site through another blog, and am very happy I did—really like your writing.
Ditto to the above compliments. Love the post!
We know the media features “remarkable” elders like they’re an exception. We know—but they seeming don’t, that so many Boomers and older are remarkable today.
Everything is relative, however, and journalists are mostly young–er. I remember another counselor and I were talking with the (high school) Sr. class president (age 17) about an event the class was planning and she mentioned her aunt had given her an idea, saying “but then she’s old and I don’t know if that would work.” My colleague asked: “How old is your aunt?” “39” was the reply.
Bottom line, “old” is chronological and relative–that probably won’t change much; but as we refuse to buy into the stereotype, our wisdom–if not our physical attributes and prowess–will move to the forefront and define us–I hope!
I’m counting on this, Susan. It’s not only our view of ourselves at stake. There are really serious issues here. Not to minimize the importance of self-concept. A poor view of ourselves leads to depression in many older people. We need to address ageism with the same vigor that we attacked sexism, and all of the other “isms”. Hope this isn’t getting to be a “rant”!
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