Tracey Gendron, gerontologist, professor and author of “Ageism
Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It” says it best: “even the most
well-intentioned efforts to educate people about age are often misleading and
damaging.”
Here are two examples of damaging effects that
well-meaning people can inflict on their audiences.
From a website advertising educational resources for Sisters: “As we age, it is expected that we will lose things – health, independence, loved ones and friends, and even meaning.” (Emphasis mine.)
That “it is expected that we will lose meaning”
as we age is a shocking statement, a despairing statement, a damaging statement
and totally unfounded. Losing meaning in life is not the natural,
developmental state of our later years. But that very concept aligns with the ageist
belief that our later years are circumscribed by loss and decline.
A second example of misguided and incorrect understanding
of aging in material marketed to Sisters is a program titled, “From Autonomy to
Interdependence”. Now, there are some good points in that title, namely acknowledging
that at some time we live in a mode of interdependence. Actually, this is true not
only when we are physically or cognitively limited, it is true throughout our
life. The obvious examples include depending that the corner convenience store
will be open so that I can buy the gas I need to get to work, or remembering the
panic many experienced when the grocery store shelves were so empty (especially
the toilet paper shelf) during the COVID pandemic.
And about trading autonomy for interdependence –
Autonomy, according to the Collins online dictionary “is the ability to make
your own decisions about what to do rather than being influenced by someone
else, or told what to do.”
So, autonomy has to do with choice. It is one
of the domains of quality of life. If we have no autonomy, we have a very
diminished quality of life. With
cognitive and/or physical decline, a person may not be as independent as before
the onset of these conditions. But the opportunities for autonomy remain. I may
not be able to dress myself, but I can choose the dress I would like for
another to help me put on. I may not be able to drive to see a dear friend, but
I can use Zoom, email, telephone, Facebook, etc. to stay connected with that
dear friend. Or I may invite her to come, to do the driving I cannot do.
When we read and unthinkingly absorb phrases such as the two
I have indicated here, we are deepening within ourselves the false and negative
myths of aging. As a result, we too would react in the
same way those young Black children reacted in The Doll Study when they were
asked, at the end of their session, “Show me the doll that looks like you.”
(The narrative about The Doll Study and internalized ageism can be found in the first page and a half of a longer piece I wrote. Find it here:here:
