Personal essay | Nonfiction
What We Say About the Old
And why we’re saying all the wrong things to President Biden
With my favorite season upon us, I really don’t want to think about the debate and how scared everyone is about President Biden’s ability to do his job. I’m going to leave it to others to write about him, because I’m more interested in what no one talks about — which is how we see getting older and how we talk about the older adults we know.
I say “we” because I’d like you to take a few days and listen — to the radio, to your friends, to anyone you normally listen to — and track what they say about older generations.
For several years now, I’ve heard President Biden called “feeble” or “senile” or other words related directly to stereotypes about being older. Having worked for a decade helping older generations and the people who care for them tell their stories, it’s really disheartening for me to hear words like this — though not surprising.
Watching the president talking with George Stephanopoulos last week reminded me of conversations I heard between parents and adult children (and endured between my parents and myself). The conversations usually start gently and end emotionally, and they are almost always about how the parent is growing older and needs too much care to live on his or her own.
The adult children typically try and find every example they can, showing why their parents are no longer capable of being independent. The parent often tries, sometimes desperately, sometimes humorously and sometimes angrily to shut down the discussion. I can’t help but feel that we are treating President Biden like a wayward parent who is refusing to make the decision we want him to make.
And I want to say to George Stephanopoulos, “What you’re saying is making him dig in his heels and refuse to budge.”
Still, I don’t want to talk about the president, or what he’s going to do. I want to talk about how we see people as they reach their eighties, and what we think they can or cannot do, and above all, should not do. Through years of interviewing and listening to older adults, I was able to learn about their lives from getting to know them — which was a great privilege for me.
I met a woman in her eighties who enjoyed sky diving, as well as walking and other physical activities. I met a 106-year-old minister who still led worship services and wrote spiritual books and articles.
I met older women who were politically active and an artist in his late seventies who befriended a little girl and her mother during the pandemic. They had great conversations because the girl also hoped to be an artist one day.
When talking to the older generations I met, some let me know they believed the world saw them as useless, finished, over the hill and worthless. I don’t think they were wrong, because I have heard too many people talk this way about older adults. I also found people who seem to shy away from older neighbors, friends and family members, as though aging is contagious and younger generations are afraid of catching it.
In fact, we will catch it — unless we die before we become old. We also have interesting ideas about illness and old age — for example, the idea that Alzheimer’s disease is only something you get in advanced age. I have seen people in their early sixties with the condition, and sometimes younger. It is by no means a disease that is solely connected to older adults, and we need to stop thinking of it as such.
On the other hand, if you are thinking there are numerous people in their eighties, nineties and beyond that have Alzheimer’s and similar conditions, or who can no longer walk or who have had strokes (which again, can happen at any age, including childhood), you would, of course, be right.
You’d also be right in saying Alzheimer’s does ugly things to those who are dealing with it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t transcend some of the gaps they face or have loving family relationships. It means they have a disease, and that disease, like many others, does not make them less human. So, when people throw words like “finished” at parents, siblings, neighbors or presidents — what are they saying about humanity — and themselves?
What I most want for the older adults in all our lives, and for the older adults we become, is for people to listen to what their grandparents, friends and loved ones are saying. If we listen, perhaps the older adults in our lives won’t have to insist so hard that they are still capable and thoughtful. If we listen, they may be able to share insights that illuminate our own lives and choices.
Instead, we are often ashamed or afraid of getting old. We also feel ashamed at times about our parents and our public officials getting old, and blame them for still wanting to participate in life and do the things they’ve always done.
So, for example, if a president decides not to run for a second term, or a teacher or bus driver decides to retire, do we treat them like a horse being put out to pasture? Or do we offer them ways to contribute to their world that don’t make them feel ignored?
What if we asked people what they wanted at this new stage of their lives, instead of insisting they had to give up everything they love and understand? What do you want when you get older? What inspires you and makes you look forward, instead of back?
The best answer I can give you for myself right now involves author Helen Hooven Santmyer. She wrote “And Ladies of the Club,” a huge bestseller that was published when she was in her eighties.
I’m betting her publisher at Putnam didn’t think of her as a doddering old bag when her book became popular and the money poured in. Santmyer’s story is a huge inspiration to me. That’s who I want to be when I turn eighty — or older.
Whatever we choose to do — write, teach, swim 100 miles from Cuba to Florida like the renowned swimmer Diana Nyad did on her fifth attempt at age 64 — we need to acknowledge there is great value in human experience. Living many years is actually what teaches us about human nature — and we can’t learn about that any other way.
When we are talking to or about older adults, we need to remember what they know — and be willing to stop criticizing, humiliating and discounting them. They, after all, are us — down the road, yes — but closer than you think.
