Appreciating instead of depreciating the old in older people
First published in the September 2021 edition of Comet.
In a beautiful article in which a daughter has written lovingly about her parents, what is wrong with these touching and family-minded sentences (from the 23 July Big Issue)?
Dad’s nudging 80 and shouldn’t be pushing around a lawnmower..… Not that he’ll accept help. It’s one step closer to admitting he’s getting old.
Let me count the ways, assuming that the dad in question is not suffering from any ill health or physical handicap (none were mentioned), and noting that I – too – am nudging 80:
1) Why on earth shouldn’t Dad be pushing a lawnmower if he’s fit enough to do so? Especially since the combination of walking and pushing (resistance work) are both relatively mild forms of the sorts of exercises older people are recommended to keep on doing in order to maintain fitness and a healthy body into – and in – old age.
2) In light of 1) above, as well as enjoying being independent, why should he accept help? We’re in the fortunate situation of living longer and healthier lives, and what that means is that we’re able to go on doing much of what we’ve been used to doing throughout our lives, and to make our own decisions about them, rather than being cossetted just because we’ve reached a certain age.
3) As for concerns about admitting to old age, that sounds like something that he’s got problems with. And there are some good reasons for why that’s not surprising, and so, that’s something that I’d like to explore further, right here, and right now.
What this is all about is the stigma around the notion of old age, and that is something that I’ve been tackling for years. Only recently, in fact, an article that I wrote on exactly that subject attracted quite a bit of attention. In that August 6 article – which The Sydney Morning Herald arrestingly titled “I’m old and happy, so don’t dare to call me young for my age” – I talked about the general reluctance for people to admit to being old in a culture and society that values youth. And in which, as a result, it’s regarded as a compliment to tell someone that they look young for their age, or that they’re 80 going on 50, or words to that effect.
At the same time, a top dictionary definition for “the old” is as follows: “The old are people who are old. This use could cause offence”. So, you can see what we’re up against. The problem is that this is not just a semantic issue. There has been some powerful research carried out in the USA, that found that the stigmatisation of old age in society can be internalised by some older people, into negative self-perceptions and that these – in turn – can result in those individuals living up to seven and a half years less than those older people with positive self-perceptions of being old.
The not-surprising remedy that the researchers suggested was that there needs to be a societal change in attitude to old age, from stigmatisation to appreciation. And that is something that we should all be working towards, and not just for altruistic reasons. The bottom line is that the majority of us are lucky enough to grow old, sooner or later – so any positive changes that we can bring about will benefit everyone, ourselves included.
So, both keep on mowing, Dad (provided you’ve got the all clear from your GP), and start growing positively into your old age, as we approach October 1, the UN-endorsed International Day of Older Persons, with its over-riding objective of fostering respect for older people and “the need to ensure that people can grow old with dignity and continue to participate in society as citizens with full rights.”
Anne Ring ©2021