EVERYDAY AGEISM

People Can Be Cruel to Older Adults — As I Learned First Hand

It’s time to fight back against everyday ageism.

As I was backing out of my parking space at Whole Foods, a big man in a black SUV yelled out his window at me, “Stupid (F**k) — it’s people like you who’ve got to go!”

He was impatient, waiting for me to back out and going postal over a parking space. Why was he so angry at a mild-mannered 79-year-old Clark Kent like me?

And what did he mean by “people like me?” White people? Older people? I assumed he meant older people because I was backing out slowly, and I do look old. I was shocked and hurt. And his “It’s people like you who’ve got to go” comment was downright threatening.

I Am Not Alone

As I drove home, I was sad that this relatively young man could be so unkind as to speak that way to an older person. But I managed to pull myself together. It turns out my experience is common in the US. In fact, there’s even a name for it: everyday ageism.

A 2022 study found everyday ageism prevalent among 93.4% of the US adults ages 50 to 80 years who participated in the study. These findings suggest that commonplace ageist messages, interactions, and beliefs may be harmful to health.

Here are the ten questions study participants answered by category. They’ll give you a good idea of what constitutes everyday ageism as defined by this study.

To how many of these questions would you answer yes?

Ageist Messages:

• I hear, see, or read jokes about old age, aging, or older adults.
• I hear, see, or read things suggesting that older adults and aging are unattractive and undesirable.

Ageism In Interpersonal Interactions:

• People assume that I have difficulty with cell phones and computers.
• People assume I have difficulty remembering and understanding things.
• People assume I have difficulty hearing and seeing things.
• People insist on helping me with things I can do on my own.
• People assume I do not do anything important or valuable.

Internalized Ageism

• Having health problems is part of getting older.
• Feeling lonely is part of getting older.
• Feeling depressed, sad, or worried is part of getting older.

The verbal attack on me at Whole Foods is an extreme form of everyday ageism and a hurtful one for sure. The questions above focus on the common stereotypes that older people are unattractive, can’t handle technology, can’t remember things, are sad and worried, and more.

These harmful cultural stereotypes are running rampant in our ageist society. And I, for one, won’t just sit here and take it. I will speak up and write for my older brothers and sisters. And I hope you’ll do the same.

Let’s take a closer look at everyday ageism stereotypes and how they negatively affect the mental and physical health of older adults.

Human Beings Are Aged By Culture

Human beings are aged by culture. It’s a simple anthropological idea . . . The process takes various forms in different subcultures, as those know who have envied, say, Chinese-born Americans or Jews because “they revere old age.” — Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Aged by Culture

“Human beings are aged by culture” is aging activist Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s argument against the decline narrative of aging. The decline narrative suggests that aging means inevitable decline, deterioration, decay, and dependency. In other words, after middle age — you’re on your way out.

“It’s people like you who’ve got to go!”

Her progress narrative opposes this and challenges the narrative of old age as an inevitable decline. Gullette interprets the events in one’s life as part of a continuum — older people, rather than having peaked in middle age, can continue to learn, change, and grow throughout old age.

In other words, your decline in old age is not inevitable. But if you internalize the belief that it is, you may set up a self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect.

Yale professor Dr. Becca Levy offers surprising revelations about the mind-body connection and old age in her new book. She demonstrates that many health problems formerly considered to be entirely due to aging are instead influenced by the negative age beliefs that dominate in the US and other ageist countries.

In study after study I conducted, I found that older people with more-positive perceptions of aging performed better physically and cognitively than those with more-negative perceptions; they were more likely to recover from severe disability, they remembered better, they walked faster, and they even lived longer.

― Becca Levy, Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live

In an interview on the AMA’s podcast, Moving Medicine. Dr. Levy was asked how she first became interested in Age beliefs. It was cultural. And it involved the beliefs held about aging in Japan.

When Dr. Levy was in Graduate school, she traveled to Japan to study why, at the time, Japan had some of the longest lifespans in the world. The first thing she noticed when she arrived in Tokyo was how differently people in Japan were treated as opposed to what she was used to in the United States.

She noticed that in Japan, older people were celebrated and integrated into society in many ways. For example, they have a national holiday that celebrates older people. It’s called Respect for the Aged Day, or Keiro-no-Hi. It’s celebrated on the third Monday of September and is a three-day weekend!

When she turned on the TV, centenarians and supercentenarians, 110 and older, were celebrated like rock stars on reality shows. It seemed to her a vastly different perception and treatment of the oldest members of their culture. She became interested in the idea that this messaging, the way that meaning is ascribed to aging itself, could be one factor driving Japan’s longevity advantage.

Thus began Dr. Levy’s research into how cultural age beliefs can impact aging health. Her findings don’t surprise me as I study daily, in meditation, how the voices in my head, the beliefs and concepts I hold close, can affect me mentally and physically.

So, just today, researching this article and discovering the pioneering work of Margaret Morganroth Gullette and Dr. Becca Levy is mind-blowing.

At the beginning of this article, I said, “It’s time to fight back against everyday ageism.” We can do that by dislodging the deeply held ageist beliefs and “decline narratives” in our society. We need to replace them with progress narratives.

Dr. Levy says there is a new cause brewing called The Age Liberation Movement. All I’ve got to say is, where do I sign up?

I think I have found my calling and my life purpose. I am still changing and growing at 79, and I believe that should be possible for everyone. I will start doing my part for The Age Liberation Movement by continuing to write about ageism and its consequences. Who knows what will come next?

Gary February 2024

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