In our prior post, Drs. Austin Kilaru and Rebekah Gee outlined the ways in which organizations and policies can discriminate against the elderly. Have you experienced ageism as you got older and how have you dealt with it?
Ageism can affect your ability to stay in your home as you age. Nancy Healey described the importance of remaining in your home in her post of January 25. Many elders would prefer to stay at home as they age, but there are many organizational and financial barriers to doing that. It may be too expensive or not reimbursable to have someone come into your home and help you dress, bathe, clean, or cook, etc. Yet the costs of institutional care far exceed the cost of an occasional home health aide. There are few options for paying family members or friends to help you stay at home. New initiatives such as the Village movement, that attempt to link seniors with community resources in order to remain at home, remain largely nonprofit and supported by volunteers. Medicare reimbursement remains largely targeted at hospitals and nursing homes, and Medicaid mainly funds nursing homes not at-home options.
Another source of ageism can be the health care system itself. While qualifying for Medicare at age 65 is a huge relief for many seniors, having that source of reimbursement does not wipe out the way your providers may treat you. Have you experienced ageist attitudes when seeking medical care? Do your doctors treat you kindly but as if you are a little “dim” when you report symptoms that don’t immediately suggest a solution? Have you ever been made to feel as if it was all in your head or just because you are old? Pain and disability are real, and if you were 30 years old, you might have felt that your complaints would have produced a better response.
Ageism lurks in social media as well. A comment made anonymously on Twitter might receive a Like or Retweet if the audience does not know how old you are. If you said you were 80 years old, would the response have been the same? Not “getting” Instagram may be a feature of old age and make your family laugh at you, but who goes around taking photos of everything in their day? Not most folks I know! I do have an Instagram account and my grandkids do “like” my photos when I add them, but I honestly don’t get the purpose.
What about your status once you are retired? How do you feel when you fill out a form and need to check the “retired” box? It is normal to feel that your career and work history no longer matters. Now that you are not in the active workforce, what value do you have? At parties people used to ask “what do you do?” If they asked “what DID you do?” it somehow relegates your career to the dustbin. During the pandemic, of course, we haven’t had very many parties! As for jobs these days, some elders have been laid off or downright fired while younger employees were retained. Elders who want to work are finding it harder these days for sure.
How many times have you been called “dear” or “sweetie” or “young fellow” while on the phone with a customer service agent or talking to the person at your car repair place? Even worse, are you offended when someone tries to downplay your age by saying “my, you don’t look 80” when you very clearly do! I guess most of us know how we look when we see ourselves in the mirror. One of the very reasons we started this blog is that the three of us felt proud of our age and didn’t want anyone to talk down to us or tell us we should not feel our age!
Ageism can be very subtle. It can be as simple as someone assuming you need help with your computer when you are perfectly fine doing what needs to be done. Or it can manifest as a kind of “patting on your head” attempt to be kind. How many times have you done something that your kids said was “cute”? Cute is ok if you are under 10. Not so much if you are over 70. Yes, we lose some competencies as we age. We don’t jump as high or get up off the floor as easily, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we always need help. We can ask for help when we need it.
There is another side to ageism, however. It is tempting to take advantage of ageism when you need help to navigate a bumpy terrain and someone offers to help you. Moving to the front of the line because you are older is hard to resist (especially when it comes to vaccinations against COVDID-19). But those advantages don’t balance out the ways in which being old can make us feel less useful or less competent. We may not know all the latest music or memes (or even what a meme is), but doesn’t it balance out that we really know Ella Fitzgerald or Miles Davis or Frank Sinatra or so many other iconic musicians? Many cultures value the wisdom of their elders in ways our American culture does not. We would do well to look to Japan or other Asian cultures to understand how better to treat those of us who are “elder”. (I like that more than “old”.)