Review of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism

Throughout my adult life,  there have been a small number of books that are such treasures in wisdom, insights and new knowledge that I have been impelled to announce to friends, colleagues, and at least once or twice to elevator companions, that the book is something that they just  MUST treat themselves to because it will change how they think, how they view the subject at hand.  One of those books is This Chair Rocks by Ashton Applewhite.

What follows is a review that I provided at the invitation of a Sister in elected leadership in  her congregation for their Provincial newsletter.

We’ve all been there:

--  Shocked, unhappy at the growing expanse of gray hair --- or maybe just the growing expanse!

--  The dissatisfaction with hair that is getting thinner, the chin that is becoming a double chin

--The embarrassment that it is not always so easy to open that sealed jar of olives

--The embarrassment that it takes a little longer to get up that last flight of stairs

In This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, Ashton Applewhite sets all these experiences around aging in perspective, showing how almost universally we respond to these physical changes as negative. She calls it “age shame”, seeded and nurtured through the false, negative myths of aging that we have absorbed all our lives. We have never assessed these suppositions about age; we have just believed them and have been taken in by them hook, line and sinker! Believing all these negative myths about aging is a profound prejudice against our future selves and is profoundly harmful to our well-being

When God looked at Creation on the seventh day, God said, “It is good, very good.” God did not say, “The first forty years or so of human life are very good, but after that it is pretty much downhill”. This Chair Rocks releases – without ever using a religious context - the Gospel News that God’s creation of us is “good, very good”, not just for the first half of life but throughout the lifespan. Read it and it will turn your ideas of aging on their head! This is the good news that we should be preaching today in our works of mercy through word and example!

We are so immersed in it.

Each Wednesday’s local paper always includes a Food section. The feature article this past Wednesday was a story about Mr. ____ who makes dozens of fruitcakes each year, using a recipe that is at least three generations old.  The columnist wrote, “He doesn’t do all the work himself anymore.  Mr. ______ is 85, so most of the work is done by his grandson”

Hmmmm.    So Mr. ____ is described as being limited “because he’s 85”.  That is an expression of ageism:  categorizing a person based on chronological age.

Why might Mr. ____ not do all the work anymore? 

n  He may be mentoring an excited young adult who wants to carry on this family tradition.

n  He may be recuperating from surgery

n  He may have a bad back and can’t lift the heavy utensils holding ingredients for dozens of cakes.

Whatever the reason, the choice, if it is seen as due to this man’s chronological age, it is ageist.

As I read this sentence, I wondered how many readers would even question it. I was reminded of the story of the two young fish swimming along one morning when an older fish passes in the opposite direction and asks, “How’s the water, boys?”  The two young fish look at each other and ask, “What’s water?”  Immersed in it, they could not identify it.  That’s like ageism in our society.  It is so pervasive, we are so immersed in it that we do not recognize it many times.

Ashton Applewhite calls ageism the last acceptable prejudice in our society.  It is also the most perverse because every living person is subject to it.  Geography, gender, and socioeconomic factors have an impact on how much ageism affects given individuals.

Let’s begin to see the metaphorical water we are immersed in and resist it as a matter of justice work  --- and a healthy self interest.