Why Do You Think The Word Old Is So Stigmatized?

What is your first thought, off the top of your head, about what it means to age successfully? Does it mean that you are physically fit and bustling about at the gym while also engaged in a variety of volunteer activities? Does it mean that you are happily retired and surrounded by grandkids? Does it mean that you are simply happy to still be alive? To classify success at aging using any characteristic that is beyond individual control is unfair, to say the least. It inevitably places blame and shame on those who don’t meet the defined criteria, which, in the case of aging, means everyone eventually. Thinking back to the Botswanan concept of botsofe, it can even be argued that we need to experience physical decline to maximize our emotional and spiritual potential. Tornstam, a Swedish scholar, suggested that developmental aging involves a normal and natural transition in which we redefine life, death, self, and relationships, and this process often takes place in a more solitary state.[20] Simply put, the choice to retreat into a place of quiet, thoughtful reflection can be a beneficial aspect of the aging process and part of a necessary and peaceful transition toward death. For someone experiencing gerotranscendence, active engagement in the community is antithetical and disruptive to their developmental goals. The successful aging paradigm provides a stagnant view of development by purporting that the developmental imperative of older adulthood is to maintain the status quo of midlife. Because we have collectively invested in the idea of successful aging as the continuation of activities and roles of adulthood, we have yet to define and differentiate elderhood as a separate and distinct developmental stage of life. Adulthood roles are intertwined with the image of productivity, and productivity is associated with value. As we transition to elderhood and naturally shift our focus to a state of being incorporating the cultivation of self and relationships, we begin to be perceived as having less productive value. Elevating the ideals of midlife roles and responsibilities as success in later life results in a shocking lack of understanding about roles, markers, and milestones specific to elderhood. To age successfully has meant that we distance ourselves from the idea of being old or in old age, internalizing the belief that decline is a failure, stigmatizing being old, judging others with limitations, and viewing diminishment as the outcome of poorly made individual choices.

Over The Wall We Go

Biological aging is the result of genetics, environment, and individual lifestyle characteristics. Research demonstrates that approximately 25 percent of the variation in longevity is due to genetics, while environmental and lifestyle factors account for most.[22] That said, we don’t age in isolated bubbles where genes, environment, and phenotypic characteristics separately determine the outcomes of health and longevity. Furthermore, we must also consider that environmental factors can affect genetic expression, a concept called epigenetics. Recognizing the impact of epigenetics, it is blindingly unreasonable to place the onus of successful aging on the individual. Revisiting the concept of cumulative disadvantage, it is undeniable that intersectional levels of discrimination and structural disadvantages negatively affect aging. Not only is placing responsibility to age well entirely on the individual lazy, privileged, and unethical thinking, doing so serves to widen longevity disparities and systemic inequity in elderhood. It was a powerful reminder that we see death as a failure despite the fact that the process of aging will invariably lead to decline and eventually to death. This is the nature of mortality. The definition of successful aging as the maintenance of health, function, and engagement eventually eliminates everyone from claiming success. It also distances us from tapping in to our capacity to accept, adapt, create meaning, and grow alongside diminishment. At the end of this quality time, the millennials are asked once more what age they consider to be old.

Hold On To This Hope

I sure don’t think so. Shifting old from forty or fifty to eighty or ninety does not change the fact that old is still being blatantly stigmatized. Rather than diminishing our fears, it provides fertile soil for cultivating ageism. Ageism will not cease without the acknowledgment that with aging we become old. It represents a fundamental flaw in many current interventions and strategies. We have socially constructed old to be a pejorative, and the time has come for it to be reclaimed. The illusion created by the differentiation of the third from the fourth age has further inflamed and stoked fears of aging, oldness, dependency, and death. It is not surprising to think that we want to push away people who trigger our existential fears. It is far easier to label, categorize, classify, and ultimately reject those we deem as frightening from our physical and emotional spaces. The desire to psychologically protect ourselves by blocking out the perceived threats associated with aging leads to internalized oppression. Internalized oppression is fostered by the social cultural ideals providing the narrative of the final stage of life as a state of decrepitude and dependence. The result is that we disassociate ourselves from identifying as aging.

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Someone jokingly referred to me as old and asked if I was her mother. I felt sharp stabs as if I had been injured and heat rising up my body to my reddening face. At the time, I didn’t have the cognizance to parse why I felt so insulted nor the skills to craft a coherent response. It took years for me to unpack that experience and identify that the comment had made me feel irrelevant, unattractive, and unimportant. Why do you think the word old is so stigmatized? Think for a moment about what images it brings to mind. Perhaps a frail person. What thoughts and feelings emerge? Perhaps someone irrelevant. We typically don’t value frail or irrelevant people. I also noticed the great lengths we will go to protect and shield ourselves from being identified as or called out as old. We do blatant things like dyeing our hair, wearing makeup to cover wrinkles, or even undergoing cosmetic surgery. Euphemisms for old, like mature, seasoned, vintage, and experienced, are used in attempts to conceal the stigmatizing wound inflicted by the use of old.