Embracing Age Diversity
And valuing our elders
American culture worships youth: not necessarily the energy of youth or the creative mind of youth, but the appearance of youth. So as we age we seek to preserve the look of our younger selves. But why are we doing this? When I look into the faces of older people I see character, experience, wisdom and beauty. And yet the culture bombards us with ways to change our look to remove all signs of aging. But the signs of aging are signs of wisdom and lived experience. Instead of hiding aging away we should bring it into the forefront and celebrate the fact that people have lived long lives and likely have learned many lessons. We should be seeking their wisdom and expertise in the art of living, instead of ignoring them. There is a human tendency to deny death. This is a blindness we must overcome. Death comes to us all. We are born, we live a life and then we die. There is no way around this reality. We must face our own mortality as well as that of our loved ones in order to overcome our fear of it and face it with dignity.
As increasing numbers of people are living longer we are building more and more “senior housing”, assisted living facilities and nursing homes. This way we can hide our elders away and pretend that none of us will grow old. The societal denial about the stages of life and the fact that we all die eventually is a missed opportunity. When we are gone our wisdom goes too. But this is the way American society sorts people, we have black neighborhoods, we have Chinatowns, we have schools for children, we have Irish neighborhoods and Italian neighborhoods and now we have old people neighborhoods. Wouldn’t our lives be so much richer if we all lived with each other and learned about each other’s cultures, wisdom and ways of living.
As a teacher I used to invite elders into the classroom to share their stories. What an amazing experience this was for the children. They had so many questions and received wonderful lessons in oral history, something you can never get from a book. My life growing up in post war England was dramatically different from anyone’s life growing up today. Sharing my life experience is an offer of living history and I’m just a person who lived in a different place at a different time. And that is the case with any elder in our society. Each person can offer us living history if we could only embrace that opportunity.
I have always thought that it would be a wonderful experience to intentionally develop senior housing next to schools and have an open door policy. This would give both children and our elders the opportunity to develop relationships with each other. There is a failure to value aging when our young people are not exposed to it. Imagine if the old people were always welcome to visit a school and walk into a classroom and sit with children as they do their work, and offer them support and companionship. The opportunities to build intergenerational relationships are so limited and to not intentionally develop them is to deprive our children of a precious gift. When I was in high school we were paired with an elder in the community who we would visit once a week. This allowed me a glimpse into the life of someone who came from a different era and lived a different life.
Multi-generational living is common in many parts of the world and aging is given more value in these countries. In many Asian and African countries it is common to have multi generational households and in many European countries they have intentionally designed multi-generational housing projects where seniors and young families live as neighbors. In other countries housing is also not segregated by race, economic status or national origin. In the US we have a long way to go in order to embrace the rich diversity of the people in our country. It is not easy to meet people who are different from ourselves if we remain in segregated silos.
As I have aged it has become increasingly important to cultivate my beliefs about life and death and to have those conversations with others. We can believe what we want and I choose to believe that the transition in death is one of separation of body and spirit. This helps me to deal with the loss of my loved ones, knowing that their spirit is still around, it is just the body that has gone. I can have conversations with them in my mind and this brings me comfort. I have also intentionally cultivated friendships with people younger than me to ensure there are some people in my life who will outlive me. And I also love the energy and perspective of young people. Most importantly I surround myself with people who are on a journey of growth, learning and spiritual connection. Learning isn’t something we just do when we are in school or when someone teaches us something. It is the journey of life; every experience offers us an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves and others. I feel fortunate that I have a community of people traveling this road with me. We never need to do it alone.