Why Old People are Mean
I took the class, Adult Development and Aging, from Professor Kinderman at Portland State University. He had wanted to be a geologist but couldn’t do the math, so he became a psychology professor. I knew how he felt. I became a lawyer for the same reason.
Dr. Kinderman taught a lesson about stereotypes. They exist, he asserted, because there is some truth to them. They are dangerous because they don’t contain enough truth and can never be reliably applied to a specific individual.
For instance, I am an American of Norwegian descent. The stereotype is that I will be tall, blond, moody, introverted, alcoholic, socially awkward and devoid of athletic or musical ability.
Okay, that may be a poor example, but there are lots of Norwegians who are none of those things.
One of the stereotypes about old people is that they are mean. There is some truth to that. I hang out with a bunch of guys who I call the grumpy old men. We sit around complaining about the state of the world and condemning the latest new-fangled thing that we don’t understand. We are all old and mean. I love those guys.
There are three reasons old people are mean.
We were mean young people.
I practiced elder law and probate for decades. I met a lot of families containing…
