Step II - How to Identify Ageists
1. The Pretenders - These are misguided older folks who believe that age is "all in your head".
2. The Discriminators - Some of their best friends are old, so how could they be ageist? However, they are quick to point out the realistic limitations of older applicants to jobs in their sphere of influence.
3. The Exceptionalists - These elders consider themselves the fortunate exceptions to society's negative view of old people. While they think of themselves as vigorous, productive and useful to society, they imagine most of their peers to be in bad shape, useless and boring.
4. The Colonists - This type is frequently found among politicians, and is not at all rare in the ageism establishment. They may easily be identified because they always preface any word for the ageing with the possessive pronoun, such as "OUR senior citizens" or "MY elderly".
5. The Patronizers - This garden variety is common found in senior programs. To them, the old are just delightful when in "their place" and, like children, should be catered to and played with.
Step III - (The Hardest Step to Accept) We are ALL ageist.
Whether we're young, middle-aged or old, whether we've taken courses in gerontology or not, whether we think we're immune or too well-meaning to be afflicted, we are all ageists.
We're ageist because the society we live in is permeated with ageism. We can no more escape it than we can the chemicals in our food-- or sexism or racism for that matter. But at least in the case of the other two social diseases, there's been some progress and some serious efforts to combat them.
Ageism, by comparison, has been analyzed very little and manifests itself in variations with hardly a challenge.
Step IV - What You Can Do to Help Stamp Out Ageism
1. Quit complimenting people on how young they look.
2. Promote intergenerational job sharing, part-time hours, and no hiring or retirement according to a plan based on chronological age.
3. Try not to blame old age for fatigue or disorganization or forgetfulness. In our youth, we blame poor planning, lack of sleep, and a bad memory.
4. Criticize your local news media when a headline or cartoon is offensive.
5. When selecting a birthday card, keep your sense of humor. Just learn the difference between laughing WITH rather than laughing AT.
I could not read the post it was too dark could you if you have time maybe change the color of the font to a much lighter color.
ReplyDeleteI also could not read it but I think it was covered earlier??? Maybe I saw it in another class. Some of the material overlaps. From what I could read, I think the suggested principles are very useful and we can use them in our everyday lives. Thank you, Cindy
ReplyDeleteI guess I feel as though I am an ageist. I disagree a little with the job aspect that keeps getting brought up. Altough I do believe some elderly can do certain jobs just as well as the younger generation, I also believe some elderly can not-at a certain point. There are also certain jobs that many elderly should not have to do. Almost like driving-it can be dangerous if our elderly remain doing certain things when they (including myself when I am there) shouldn't. Like i said before we should let our elderly relax after a hard life of exhausting work and make it so they don't have to work but do what they enjoy and volunteering and having hobbies.
ReplyDeleteI also do want to note that I agree we, as Americans, breed this ageist culture with wanting everyone to stay young and portraying being old as bad but I feel as though the job topic is a factor in that. Just let us age! Let us embrace each year we get older and wiser. And let us stop having to work as elderly people and enjoy the rest of the life hard spent. It is a contradiction saying that ageism is both not allowing people to get old and then saying we should have our elderly work because we shouldn't tell them they are getting old. I don't know but maybe I am still not getting it. Can some one explain to me?
Hi Melissa. I really enjoyed your post and most especially your honesty and open-mindedness. I agree that elderly shouldn't have to work after a certain age. The unfortunate part is that many cannot afford health-care and other incidentals and so as you say should let them "relax after a hard life of exhausting work and make it so they don't have to work but do what they enjoy and volunteering and having hobbies" Unfortunately because we don't provide for them, and medical care can be very expensive, many of them do not have the luxury to pursue relaxation and hobbies. Many of them are forced to decide between their prescriptions and food. It is very sad. I agree that we should make it so they can retire in peace, but the reality is that we have not made that available to this population, and many are forced to live in poverty or work while not being up to it.
ReplyDeleteThe only other issue I see is the question that who decides when and at what age someone should stop working? That is a slippery slope to government being involved in one's personal life.
One 65 year old may be very healthy and vibrant while another is ill and unable. Maybe testing is in order like they do at the DMV?? but again, who constructs the tests and who decides?
I feel as though I've added more questions that answers to your post but I hope this post has added some value.
Hey Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI like your thoughts because they are honest and real. It soudns to me like your trying to say that whether the elderly are "allowed" to work versus whether they should is different. I was reading that you wanted the elderly to have a choice? I get what you are saying about letting people who have worked their whole live's retire, but I think empowerment comes from control and choice. I want people to be able to choose when they retire, and that there should be financial support for them if they do decide to retire.
hey everyone! I too think that choice is the key to working with elderly clients. It may be more difficult personally to accept ageism and try to move past it to be effective with clients, but working with the very young and very old means that we still have to respect their self determination and self-efficacy. Its weird but I find myself having more patience with the elderly than my own child sometimes! Perhaps my internal belief is that I know he can understand me...but that "old man" at the grocery store may be hard of hearing. It has really been resonating with me lately that being ageist is deeply embedded within our society and its values. It frightens me now because every time I catch myself saying/thinking/assuming something that is probably not accurate I immediately stop and think "whoa where did that come from?" I had an interesting conversation with my mom the other day about how being perceived as "too young" in the SW profession can work against you...even though society values youth and wants you to stay young in appearance forever. She said your credibility can be called into question if you look too young to have enough experience in the field. it left me wondering if we as new graduates this year (those of us graduating) will be taken seriously in the world field and what kind of attitudes/opinions/prejudices we may face based on our perceived youth. * I would like to add that I know there are some people graduating who are non traditional students and I wonder what the employment process will look like for them as well. (I am technically one of them)
ReplyDeleteWe used to always hear the term " respect your elders." Now we hear or at least I have, "because your old." I think we have a finger pointed at everything now a days, "your old," "your black" "your young" "your poor." It's sad that we can't just try and embrace the cycle of the human life as well as the differences we all bring to the world, that could benifit everyone if we just took as much time as it takes to point a finger, to learn more about one another.
ReplyDeleteI like your discussion of the varieties of agists. However, I find it odd that the "pretenders" are elderly who do not recognize their age limitation whereas all the other types of agism consisted of people who believe elderly people are limited by their age. Therfore, agism occurs in both the recognition and lack of recognition of limitations due to old age.
ReplyDelete