By Debbie Reslock for Next Avenue
Writer Ceridwen Dovey didn’t think it would be difficult to write a novel from the point of view of a man in his late 80s. But as Dovey wrote last year in The New Yorker, her effort revealed the problem with assumptions. After reading her first draft, an editor inquired, “But what else are they, other than old?”
What a great question
When age is the defining feature, our personality, beliefs, and individuality are replaced with stereotypes of incompetence, debilitation, and dependency, which leads to one of the most damaging of the discriminating behaviors of ageism — we start treating older adults like children.
No longer a man
I remember the embarrassment on my friend Joe Svozil’s face when they gave him a bib to wear for dinner one night at his Denver nursing home. He usually ate alone in his room, but I’d stopped by for a late afternoon visit and he’d asked me to join him.
He was 91 at the time but, of course, he was more than just that. Besides being funny and incredibly kind, he was one of the wisest men I’d ever known. He also was a piano man in the Big Band era and had played with Glenn Miller.
But that day, he was humiliated at being treated like a child in front of his friend.
Rejecting the “nurturing” language
It’s a fairly common practice for health care professionals and even families to interact with elders as if they’ve somehow moved to the other end of the age spectrum. Most will tell you they believe it conveys a sense of caring or nurturing when they lapse into using child-like vocabulary or refer to those adults as “honey” or “sweetie.”
And when asked, almost everyone agrees this behavior isn’t intended to hurt anyone. But that doesn’t take away the sting when it happens. Or the insult when a doctor talks to someone else about a patient, without permission or necessity, while that person is present in the room, not unlike the way he or she would to a parent of a small child.
Stereotypes can turn into ageism
We learn negative stereotypes at an early age, according to Becca Levy. As a Yale professor of epidemiology and psychology, her research focuses on ageism. But since the stereotypes only apply to others when we’re young, Levy says, we don’t fight back or build up defenses.
Reinforced as we grow older, they can then become self-stereotypes with dangerous consequences. Her studies have shown these negative beliefs can diminish our will to live and take years off our lives.
Stereotyping also stops us from knowing the person behind the assumption. Which explains why some people shout at the elderly even if there’s no hearing problem or when adult children take over the decision-making of a still-capable parent.
Going beyond the stereotypes
It is clear we need to speak up. “Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t call me ‘honey’ or ‘sweetie,’” says Ronni Bennett, author of the popular blog Time Goes By. Her response is to pleasantly but firmly reply, “My name is Ms. Bennett. You may call me that.”
After a few seconds of silence, she says, they usually apologize. “I like to think they realize how demeaning it is and change their behavior with other elders,” notes Bennett.
It’s not too late — yet
Levy’s 2014 research found that positive age stereotypes led to stronger self-perceptions, which, in turn, improved physical function.
As a nation, we need to decrease the negative bias and ageism that exists in our society, according to Levy. “But as this starts when we’re young, a good strategy to reduce the negative stereotypes would be to introduce and reinforce positive images of aging starting in early child education,” Levy says.
There’s no doubting the damage that has already been done. Levy references one study where 66 percent of 4 to 7-year-olds said they wouldn’t want to be old. In another, the majority of reactions from preschoolers to sixth graders asked how they’d feel about becoming elderly were rated as negative. They included, “I would feel awful.”
Levy was one of 50 people recognized by Next Avenue in October as a 2016 Influencers in Aging. When asked what one thing they would want to change about aging in America, many, including Influencer of the Year Ashton Applewhite, cited the ageism endemic to our society.
So, we know we have our work cut out for us. There was a time when we didn’t understand the damage of negative aging views. Now we do. We know there’s much more to us than just being old. We need everyone to recognize that.
Copyright© 2016 Next Avenue, a division of Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.
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