While watching the video, “Once We Were Young,” I couldn’t help but notice how life is much more difficult for an older person than I thought. I think at the root of the issue is that life moves fast. Today, many jobs are moving at a mile a minute and people automatically look at older people as if they cannot keep up. Also, in a medical sense, ageism works to support health care providers who think it is risky to cover someone who is older. I do not think it is right but it seems to be the way things have been. When thinking about myself being ageist I would have to be honest and say, in certain circumstances, yes I am. The video shows a group of teenagers walking by an old lady and calling her things like, “grandma.” Now, grandma is not a bad term but the way they said it was filled with sarcasm. They were being jerk for no reason. I am not like that, however sometimes I see an old person and I think to myself that in some way, because they are old, they are helpless. That itself is being ageist because all I’m basing that on is the fact they are old.
I think the reason why we do not talk about ageism so much in our society is because there are so many more glaringly obvious issues in our society. Racism and heterosexism are two issues that are always up for debate. For example, there was a time when a “mixed race” marriage was looked at as very negative. Gay couples are fighting for the right to be married. Yet, no one has ever seemed to care if two old people want to get married. While ageism of old and young does exist, especially concerning jobs, it seems like older people have it more tough. I think people try to sugarcoat things to older people when denying them a job.
I think you're right when saying that it sort of gets sweeped under the rug because of the more pressing issues, which is not to say that it is not important.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote about that - that our society is really fast now and when something disturbs that fastness we get frustrated and angry and pass judgement on someone/something. In some cases, it is the older people we get frustrated at...perhaps for taking too long to get their money or for driving too slowly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Heather that our society tends to run in the fast lane and when elders force us to slow down we often get aggravated with them because we are so impatient. In "Once We Were Young" when the woman was trying to purchase some fruit, the girl behind her got impatient and was basically talking to the cashier about the old woman as if she couldn't hear. I thought that was so rude.
ReplyDeleteI really liked when you pointed out how life moves fast today, its almost hard for elderly people to keep up with the pace of our society. Employers and what not need to give these people a chance because a lot of the time, I think, these elderly people can keep up with their work load.
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