Check your attitudes about aging

Mary Lou Ciolfi and colleagues, University of Maine Center on Aging

Published in the Bangor Daily News on August 6th, 2024

No matter our age, gender, race, geography, income or other group status, each of us deserves to be valued for our actual skills, knowledge, insights and contributions, not those that others assume we have or, more to the point, do not have. We often assume that advanced age alone makes us less skilled, less knowledgeable, less able to contribute to our organization or community. More tragically, we often assume this of our own aging selves.

Our long, dark history of negative attitudes toward aging and older people has fostered both conscious and unconscious bias against older people. All too often, we make automatic assumptions that aging is accompanied by frailty, disability, incompetence or ineffectiveness. While these challenges may affect some older adults, applying them to all disregards the skills, expertise, experience and perspective accumulated over a lifetime. In fact, many life skills, particularly those needed for complex decision-making, such as in politics and policymaking, develop only through long years of use.

When we equate older age with loss of capacity instead of opportunity, everyone suffers. Worse, as we get older, we feel the weight of society’s negative judgment, and we question our own abilities and worthiness which, in turn, affects our physical and mental health and our quality of life.

Why should we care? Society’s long-standing ageism is reflected in the design of our social systems and institutions. These structures were designed for younger and middle-aged individuals because, until recently, our average life expectancy was in our mid- to late 60s. As a result, social structures do not accommodate the needs of older adults. This mismatch has become increasingly apparent as our population ages and more of us live far beyond our 60s.

The results of a statewide needs assessment to inform Maine’s State Plan on Aging confirm that older people living in Maine are worried about housing and home repairs, transportation, financial security, food security, scamming, disaster preparedness, caregiving burdens and socialization. We did not sufficiently prepare for the needs of late life, and now we must make up for time lost. We are all aging and likely to need support and services from our family, friends, community or state and federal governments.

Let’s do more now to listen to older Mainers’ needs and get their input on how we can all age more comfortably and securely and contribute our ideas and skills to benefit all for as long as possible.

How can we change this? Awareness and examination of our beliefs and attitudes about aging is a critical first step. Change your language. Use “older person” or “older adult” instead of “elderly,” which is associated with frailty. Notice how often you utter a disparaging comment about getting old. Check whether it’s truly about age (it usually isn’t) or whether it is situational, temporary or not even reality.

While research tells us that all humans harbor anxiety about death and dying and we unconsciously avoid reminders of our own mortality, including older people, we are not fated to that result. Greater awareness, acceptance, appreciation and normalization of aging lessens our fears. We are living longer and many of us with less disability. Let’s use those extra years in ways that benefit our own selves and our communities. Let’s continue paid work, volunteer, provide care to others, socialize with friends and neighbors, recreate or otherwise enjoy leisure time.

It is our collective responsibility to include older adults in all levels of public policy decision-making. A society that sees older people as assets will increasingly value and support those assets, thereby righting historic wrongs and bringing greater worth to all of us as we age.

Aging is living. For as long as we are alive, we are accumulating life experience and have value to contribute to our families, organizations, communities and society.

Take Maine Council on Aging’s Anti-Ageism Pledge and see ageism resources at the National Center to Reframe Aging for updating your age-related language.

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