What if there is no meaningful difference between people of different age groups? We tend to stereotype based on age, but the similarities between the groups might be more numerous than the differences. Here are some common ones:
- Naivete or innocence: A young person may be exploited due to lack of experience, but other ages fall victim as well.
- Independence: Young people can’t live alone or drive a car. Some older people are in the same situation. Commonality, not distinction.
- Appearance: Older people may start to look funny, but remember those pictures of yourself as an adolescent? You say the younger people will outgrow it? So will the elders.
- Dreams: Older people set out on the path of new dreams at every age. And some younger people just aren’t interested.
- Frailty and illness: An older person may have physical limitations, but when I was in elementary school, a classmate missed a whole year due to rheumatoid arthritis. She was infirm. She was very young.
- Death of friends and relatives wounds all of us.
- Intellect: do I even have to explain?
- We all go through physical and hormonal changes in life. Think of your own pubescence. Now think of menopause. Was either more fraught?
Yes, some characteristics are more typical of a certain age group, such as physical decline, but we certainly have a lot of commonalities. Why do we ignore those in favor of artificial differences?
I think because it’s easier. We stereotype people, throwing them into groups, because it saves us from having to see a person as an individual. We label them for our own convenience, but labels might dictate how a human is perceived or treated, leading to a huge waste of potential, not to mention heartache. Besides, labels and stereotypes change over time. One hundred years ago, in the United States of America, women were forbidden to vote. Everyone agreed they were insufficiently intelligent or rational to handle that responsibility.
Maybe someday our perceptions about age will change, too. We might come to think the differences between young and old are so trifling as to be immaterial. Why not start now? Let’s focus on what we all have in common, and beyond that, get to know each other as people. And as far as allowing those labels to limit you, stop right now. Decide who or what you want to be, and become that, regardless of age.
Your time on earth is finite and precious. Don’t waste it trying to comply with some soon-to-be-antiquated standard of behavior.
I’ll be away for the next two weeks. Enjoy your Thanksgiving! See you on December 6.
I’ve always been indifferent to age and have collected friends of all ages. I do think it’s sad, when people allow a “number” to limit their choices and options. And it’s sad for society, when stereotypes disqualify anyone from participating/contributing.
Absolutely right, Tracy. Agree re the “number” limitations – sad.
Re: women 100 years ago “Everyone agreed they were insufficiently intelligent or rational to handle that responsibility”
I believe it was only the men who thought that!
We’d sure hope so, Elizabeth, but lots of our sisters drank the Kool-Aide, then as now!
Lynne, I’ve been AWOL here but not due to lack of interest. As always, your points resonate. I take my lessons from my 90 year old mother who has always insisted age is merely a number. It makes perfect sense to ignore all the stereotypes our youth-oriented society places on us. Enjoy your break and have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family.
Buddha did not want to teach after he achieved enlightenment.
He realized enlightenment is sharing information without expectations and began sharing. We assimilate knowledge based on our individual levels of comprehension. If we keep in mind life is appreciating the moment and remain students of life we have a greater understanding of the relationship between youth and aging. Our attitudes (thinking) have a profound effect on our health and our psychological outlook on life. I am amazed by the fact, the older I get the younger the age I’m at seems. I don’t see white hair when I look at the mirror. Our youth enter a world ancients would have perceived of as magic and expand the possibilities. Both enrich our understanding and appreciation. In an ideal environment life becomes collaboration… If we appreciate the moment the future is improved for all.
Jim, every sentence in your comment is worth savoring. I dedicate this blog to this one sentence, though: “In an ideal environment, life becomes collaboration.” So great to hear from you.
Excellent, thought-provoking post, Lynne. I teach about intolerance and yet I have never discussed discrimination against the elderly. I want to address this with my adolescent students and get their feedback on the issue.
Pat, if you think it will be useful, have them read my blog, or even better, this one: http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2013/11/conspiring-with-euphemisms.html
Thanks, Lynne.
There was a picture posted on FB a while back that supports what you have said here, Lynne. The image was of an older man and a young girl who were wearing similar T-shirts with statements printed on them.
On the man’s shirt: ”Talk to old people – they know cool stuff you don’t.”
On the girl’s shirt: “Talk to young people – they know cool stuff you don’t.”
Across the photo was this sentiment:
INTERGENERATIONAL FRIENDSHIPS ARE A WIN-WIN
Having spent the biggest part of my life working with middle school students, I have enormous respect for young people. Thanks for sharing your observations that we are more alike than we are different.
Please enjoy your time away…see you on the 6th!
In our hemisphere, the value of seniors is not understood.
You’ve captured wonderful points, which need to be better understood and embraced. Two thumbs up.
The merry-go-round of “success”
At age 4…success is…not peeing in your pants.
At age 10…success is…making your own meals.
At age 12…success is…having friends.
At age 16…success is…having a drivers license.
At age 20…success is…having sex.
At age 35…success is…having money.
At age 50…success is…having money.
At age 65…success is…having sex.
At age 75…success is…having a drivers license.
At age 80…success is…having friends.
At age 85…success is…making your own meals.
At age 89…success is…not peeing in your pants.
As usual well thought out and right on target. I suspect aging hasn’t changed you much just enhanced what was already you. Glad I’m around to celebrate that.
Ditto, Sis. Love hearing from you, Dolores. Hope you’re well and loving life.
Great post! No labels…No limits! Anita
Anita, if that’s not copyrighted, it should be posted everywhere.
“No labels. No limits.”
Amen.
Lynne: It’s always about ‘Them’ vs ‘Us’…be it age, intellect, religion, spiritual, sexual, political etc. And like you said, until we begin to understand that we are all really just the same…there will always be the chasm of ‘Them vs. Us’.
Shawn, tribalism is comforting, but it’s seriously limiting, too. Not everything is football. Not politics, not religion, not age. Or shouldn’t be, right?
Have a great two weeks “off.” I think we seniors need to be in front of the camera more. Sharing, not lecturing. Taking away the wrinkles of time. Now that I am comfortable with being a senior, I want to make friends with death. I think Buddhists do it best because they some how give it life. Christians offer hope, but I also want to be friends with the practical.
See, Bob, that’s exactly what I was talking about last week in the “tools” post. What a huge goal: making friends with death. What a promising and impressive endeavor.
And as for your “hope” comment, as an agnostic, I took very much comfort from the last words of the great Steve Jobs: “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.” http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/oct/31/steve-jobs-last-words
Jobs is one of my favorite guys, inspite of himself, and that is one of my favorite quotes. I take great comfort in it too.
I enjoyed the post very much. I think much of the key to mutual understanding between age groups are in your words “. . . and beyond that, get to know each other as people.”
Seeing others as individuals rather than objects — because when we stereotype that’s what we’re doing — is the only way we can, as you put it, change our perceptions about age.
Enjoy your time off.
Thanks, Martin.