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A woman we have known for decades came to visit recently. It was a trip postponed several times earlier because of Covid. She turned 90 six months ago, but did not look any different than when we saw her about two years ago (pre-pandemic). A fairly recent widow, she has adapted to her single status by filling her days with aggressive games of tennis that she usually wins, daily hour-long swims, weekly concerts and lectures (Covid permitting), and studying Portuguese online (her fifth language). So one would think that despite moving into the next and probably final decade of her life, she would escape the stigma of being thought of as OLD.
Not so. “I am going to lie about my age,” she told me, as we were catching up with news about each other. “If people ask how old I am, I am going to say that I am 80.” In response to my raised eyebrows, she went on to tell me that she is being shunned when people learn how old she is. “Not my friends, of course, but anyone I might meet now. If age is mentioned, or if I talk about my 90th birthday celebration, there seems to be an immediate loss of interest in talking with me. People seem to think that there is no point in getting to know me better because I will be dead soon." And seeing my disbelief, she described several incidents when this had happened.
This woman, let’s call her Mary, is experiencing ageism. A report on how older adults are integrated into a mixed generation neighborhood describes ageism as the process in which older people are stereotyped based only on their age. It is as if any other aspect of their entire identity is irrelevant; only their age is important in defining who they are. They are old. That’s it.
Defining people solely by age leads to their often being excluded from interactions with social, economic, religious, and other groups. What could someone who is old have in common with others who are not as old? Or how can they contribute to the agenda of our organization? And even more worrisome, ageism may be associated with discrimination, and possibly abuse and violence.
Our government and organizations like the American Psychological Association provide help in combatting ageism both in the community in general and specifically in the workplace. Geropsychologists who work with an older population are trying to halt the negative perceptions that many have about older adults. A compelling report about ageism by Melissa Dittmann for the American Psychological Association includes examples of how adults over 60, for example, have had people assume they are impaired cognitively and/or physically because of their age.
Older adults with mental health problems may also receive suboptimal care, according to this article. Some therapists assume that their older patients are too old to alter their behavior, and behavioral disorders that could be side effects of their medications may go unrecognized.
Congress enacted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"). It forbids employment discrimination against anyone 40 years of age or older in the United States. Unfortunately, although this legislation was passed more than forty years ago, job discrimination still exists today and is hard to eradicate. To be sure, there are jobs that require skills that might diminish with age and risks that may increase with age. But according to the AARP, hiring practices that discriminate against older adults is so common, many employers don’t even realize that it is illegal. In a survey, AARP found that one out of four workers over 45 received negative comments about their age from co-workers and supervisors, 3 in 5 older workers experienced age discrimination at work, and 76 percent of older workers found their age to be a serious obstacle to finding employment, or were prematurely pushed out of longtime jobs.
What is so bizarre about the discrimination, negative attitudes, and belittlement of an older individual’s physical and mental status is that those who are discriminating may, in enough years, be on the receiving end of the same discrimination as they age.
Many or most of us never think we will be old, look old, or act old. Until we are.
A friend who was above average height for a woman told me rather woefully that as she aged, she shrank in height and, now in her seventies, she was approaching the height of her grandmother. "I used to tease her because she needed a stool in her kitchen to bring items down from her shelves. Now I do the same. I always thought I would be tall...until I wasn’t." Another friend who was the star cyclist in her gym’s cycling class until she turned 81 was chagrined to realize that younger participants were now outpacing her. “I just assumed my body would continue to perform better than all the much younger riders, but my age got in the way."
Of course, aging changes our bodies, memory, cognition, hearing, sight, cardiovascular outpoint, and so on. Evidence of the toll aging takes on athletic performance is seen in every competitive sport in which the new young competitors outperform the older veteran athletes. It is not clear if this is also true of intellectual endeavors, but mental fatigue may increase with age. And the normal decrease in memory with aging may make multi-tasking more difficult, as it is hard sometimes to remember one task, let alone three or four.
Is it possible that the decrease in the number of multi-generational households might influence current attitudes toward older adults? If a person grows up with grandparents or older aunts and uncles in the house or on the street, familiarity with the lifestyle of an older person replaces stereotypes. To be sure, the limitations age confers on older people would be known, but so would their strengths, accomplishments, and interests. It is possible that friendships with people much older may create bonds of mutual interest and support that replace stereotypes.
My husband and I have been fortunate to have had close friendships with several couples who were more than thirty years older than we were. Our differences in age were insignificant, except for stimulating our envy at the ease with which they negotiated the world and their accomplishments.
That Mary feels she has to present herself as a decade younger to avoid being thought of irrelevant is sad and absurd, especially when she probably would still beat them at tennis.
