Challenging Ageism and our Perception of Aging

And in today's episode, we are going to talk about our perceptions of aging and how society perceives older people. Our perceptions always based on truth. Well, each side of this election perceives the other, the other as evil.

Each side sees the other as cheating and lying. Each side fears the other. Think about that the other.

When we see someone as the other, we do not want to get to know them, to see what might be true about them, or to determine for ourselves what might be good or bad about them. We simply assign them the term other and see them as different and therefore fearful.

We are bombarded with media images and social posts that tell us how to perceive the other. This is what has happened and continues to happen.

When we talk about older people, we have been told that old means bent over, disabled, cognitively impaired, and we want none of that. So old people become the other and we are not them. We are not old.

Well, today we're going to challenge the assumptions we make about old older people and hopefully remove some of the fear we associate with getting old.

We hope to look at some of the advantages that aging brings us and how we can help to change the dialogue to be more encompassing and empowering rather than othering. Welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging.

Well, my name is Wendy Green and I am your host and my guest today is Jeanette Liardi.

Jeanette is a social gerontologist, community educator, writer, editor, public speaker, and aging wellness leader who has a passion for older adult empowerment and finds special personal fulfillment helping boomers and older generations identify and share their wisdom with others.

Jeanette has a Master's degree with honors in English from Rutgers University and a graduate certificate in Gerontology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is also the author of a new book called Aging Changing Our Perspective on Getting Older.

Before I bring Jeanette on, I want to invite you to join the Boomer Believers community. Boomer Believers is a community where we are learning together and thriving together as we age well.

If you are yearning for a sense of camaraderie, if you're looking for opportunities for personal growth and development, if you want to gain knowledge and support for aging well, you will want to be part of the Boomer Believers community.

Twice a month we meet virtually and the first time we meet, which is actually the second Tuesday of the month, we talk about all kinds of thoughts and issues and problems that come up for us as we age.

And on the fourth Tuesday of the month, we are able to meet with one of our guests from that month to have some real Q and A with that person and really dig into some of the questions that may have been left over from the interview we had with them.

Gain confidence about what is possible as we age well together. All right, let's bring Jeanette on. Hi, Jeanette.

Hey there, Wendy. How you doing?

I'm doing so good, and I am so glad to have you in our studio today.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So we have a lot to talk about, and I'm just going to jump right in and I want you to tell me what you mean by Aging Sideways and how changing perceptions about aging might influence our personal experience of growing older.

Well, it's a great question to start out with because we have a general perception about aging, as you talked about in your introduction, and that is that we fear it. We think aging is nothing but deterioration, deterioration and decline, that it's downhill past a certain point in our lives.

It's all downhill from there. So we're wearing kind of side blinders, seeing aging in narrow terms. My question is how can we take those blinders off and get a wider view?

If you take a photograph of a chair, let's say, and you ask a person to copy that photo to draw a picture of that chair, well, they'll do their best. And, you know, they have the preconceived notions of what a chair is, and they'll look at the photo and do their best.

But she found that if you turn that photograph upside down and you ask people to draw what they see, the upside down chair, what happens is it kind of puts that part of our brain that's editorial and has expectations and a history with chairs and all of that, it kind of puts that to rest and what you wind up seeing are only the lines and the spaces between the lines.

And so when you draw that upside down chair and then turn your drawing bright side up, what you actually have is a more accurate picture of the chair than if you were just copying it side by side.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, I mean, isn't that cool? So what if we could see aging just as accurately for what it is and what it isn't?

You know, we don't need to turn our brains completely upside down, but merely, you know, tilt them slightly to the side and get ready for some unexpected, expected, maybe quirky ways of looking at aging. So my book offers examples of this and strategies for taking this approach.

And once you see aging more realistically, you become more optimistic and hopeful about getting older. It'll broaden your sense of options and better help you advocate for them.

Totally, totally. And I really love how you made that analogy with how we see things visually and how we can see things conceptually.

So let's go on with that developed.

Or you describe the concept of perceived age and you, and you make the distinction between perceived age and chronological age and how that also might influence the way we experience aging. Can you explain that?

Yeah, sure. Well, you know, first let's define both terms. So chronological age is the number of years you've been alive.

So when somebody asks how old you are, well, that's your chronological age. Your perceived age, which is also known as your subjective age, is your own personal idea of how old you are.

So do you feel younger or older than you actually are?

That's because we're used to seeing the faces of people of our own generations. So the big question is, how old is old?

There have been some surveys done where people in their 30s tend to think that, you know, 60, you're probably an old person when you get to be about 60. But ironically, people in their 60s and above, we tend to add 10 to 15 years to our own age, which is kind of, you know, interesting.

It's like we're still resisting calling ourselves old. Now I'm 72 and this is what one 72 year old looks like. That's what one 72 year old looks like.

So let's keep in mind, when we look at somebody and we think we see their age, we, you know, to have this feeling like, wow, you look so much younger than. Than you are. Than you are. It's like, no, I look what I am. So that's. Let's take aging as individual terms. You know, there.

There are two statements, common statements, that I really would like to abolish. If you've ever heard the phrase aging, age is just a number, right? We've all heard somebody say, well, age is just a number.

Well, actually, no, it's not. We shouldn't dismiss how old we are. We should appreciate and cherish that number, no matter what it is. So we can start by admitting our age.

But I'd like us to go further and declare our age. So there's one statement I'd like to see go out the window. Here's another statement I don't. Like 60 is the new 40 or 70 is the new 35.

I know. I hate that.

You know, kind of crazy, because 60 is the new 60, right?

Exactly, exactly.

So to keep. Yeah.

And like you said, you know, 72 looks like 72 for you, 71 looks like 71 for me.

Exactly.

They're different. And yet that's what it is, Right.

Well, you know, to keep wanting to push back, that number still reflects our fear of aging. It's like, well, 60 is the new 40. No, you know, let's accept where we are. You know.

Yale psychologist Becca Levy, she's done incredible research into perceptions about aging, and she found that people who have negative perceptions about aging actually can reduce their life expectancy on average by seven and a half years, and they can increase their chances of getting dementia by 50% just by having negative feelings about aging. So let's address that, and let's. Let's stop having these negative feelings.

So that's. And you asked the question, you know, how old do you feel? Right. And that's also almost a gotcha question.

Just like, you know, 60 is the new 40, or, no, how old do you feel? I feel 71. That's how old I am, you know, but we tend to. We tend to reduce that. I think a lot of times we go, oh, I only feel like I'm 50, you know.

Well, when you were 50, you felt 50.

Right? Exactly. And our bodies change all the time. And, you know, we're. We're, you know, we older people are the master changers.

We're dealing with change all the time, and we've dealt with change for decades. So yes. Want to know what it's like to change? Just ask an older person.

That's right. That's right. So another term that you used in your book, I mean, you use some wonderful terms in your book, Jeanette. I really enjoyed it.

So the book again is called Aging Sideways. And you make the case to replace the term successful aging, which we hear all the time, with the term empowered aging.

So explain to us the difference between empowered aging and successful aging and why it might be a more inclusive term to support older adults.

Okay.

Well, if you Google the phrase successful aging, you're going to find millions of hits about what individuals can and should be doing to stay vibrant and young as long as possible. And we know what those rules are. Eat right, exercise, work hard, save money, stay engaged.

It implies that it's the individual's behavior that is solely responsible for how well we age. But aging involves far more than that.

It involves who we are in a socioeconomic context, what our race or ethnicity is, our gender, our physical and or mental ability, where we live, our level of education, our level of income. So, for example, all right, we should be eating right. But what if you live in a food desert? What's considered a food desert?

You don't have easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables. We should be exercising. But what if you're challenged because you're working two jobs or you're a full time caregiver? We should be working hard.

Well, age discrimination can prevent you from getting a job, or the local economy where you live has reduced the number of jobs or businesses you'd otherwise qualify for. We should be saving money. Well, what if you have health problems and that requires a lot of medical costs?

What if you have poor or inadequate insurance? What if you do unpaid caregiving so you don't have an income coming in? What if you lack affordable housing or unequal pay for women?

And this is where the notion of intersectionality comes in. We're all aging. But I'm aging while female. You could be aging while being a person of color. You can be aging while being a person with a disability.

And if you're an aging female who's a person of color with a disability, you get a triple whammy of the fact that society does not support our aging process.

Empowered aging involves an equal responsibility on the part of society as a whole to establish practices and policies and systems that don't discriminate against age or any other factor of identity. So let's move it away from solely blaming the individual for not aging. Right.

And say it's 50% of the individual's responsibility, but it's 50% of our society. That's what empowered aging is about. When society and the individual together work together in the aging process.

Yeah. So like you said, it takes the responsibility off of the individual. So we're not failing if we're a full time caregiver who's not getting paid.

And so therefore we're not saving money and we're not exercising and maybe don't even have time to eat. Right, right. But where is the support that would help us do some of those things? I think that's what you're saying.

Right? Exactly. It takes some of the responsibility of the individual. We still are responsible for some of, for making choices as best we can.

But the choices have to be out there. And if society doesn't provide us with the choices, what are we going to do?

Right, right. Lots of things that we can talk about about society, but we'll get to that.

So let's, let's talk about the power of words and how they influence our perceptions of aging. And we talk about, I do this with my coaching, how words are so powerful, so, and sometimes we're so unaware of our own self talk.

So now we are looking at the individual, the responsibility of the individual. So sometimes as we age, we say to ourselves, oh, you know, aging is an enemy, aging is a stranger. I don't want to get old.

And you talk about how do we switch that around to embrace it as a friend.

Right, Exactly. Yeah, you're right in calling out the idea of aging as either an enemy or a stranger, because I think that's how many of us choose to see aging.

So to perceive aging as an enemy or a stranger means to fear it. We're still afraid. You're afraid of an enemy, and you may be afraid to confront a stranger as well with an enemy.

We fight getting older or looking older at all costs. So we're into the Botox thing or the anti aging products or dyeing our hair or whatever because we're just fighting, resisting getting old.

We want to stay as young as possible, as young as possible, as long as possible. If we see aging as a stranger, it means we're not identifying. We refuse to identify with it at all. We deny it. Who, me? I'm, I'm not old.

I won't get old for a long time. And that's a more, more of a factor of flight than fight. But I say we need to see aging as a friend.

That's to welcome it as a Necessary part of the progression of life. We're supposed to age. We're meant to age. So the alternative. What's the alternative? It's to die. Right.

So just as we seek to spend joyful, meaningful, engaging time with a friend, we should do so with our ever older versions of ourselves, keep remaining friends with the aging process. Now, of course, as with a friend, you can have challenges to the relationship.

They may arise, but we believe that they're worth the effort to resolve. So just as we would defend or advocate for a friend, we should also defend and advocate for ourselves as older adults.

And these are the approaches I propose in the book.

Yeah, and that's a hard one. That is a hard one, you know, because you hear aging is not for sissies and that my hip hurts, my knee hurts, my shoulder.

You know, I don't have the energy I once had all of those things that we tell ourselves and to try and reframe that into yes, but I'm still able to walk or I still enjoy music, or I, you know, I am able to smile and see the love of my grandchildren. I mean, find the things that reinforce what you're so happy about still being here.

Right, right. And that's wonderful that you brought that up, because in my book, I talk about the improvisational technique of yes.

And I don't know if people are familiar with this, but if you've ever seen an improvisational comedy troupe, somebody suggests a really wacky premise. You know, you're on a desert island and all of a sudden you see a shark floating by.

And then somebody else takes that idea, the yes of the situation, and goes with the. And. And wait, hey, maybe we could ride that shark and escape off the island so they do something with the.

And well, the same thing goes for ourselves as aging, you know. Yes. Our yeses, we're all too familiar with yes. My eyesight may be not as good as it used to be, and yet I still love to read.

So I'm going to find large print books or I'm going to go read, listen to audiobooks.

Right.

But also the talents that we've got. So what's your and Keep asking yourself, what's my and. Yeah, I'm this and this and this. I'm getting older and.

And boy, am I really gung ho into hiking. I love hiking. You know, whatever your and is, that's what we need to be more aware of, is what are our ends.

So, I mean, like, I've been trying to walk and my back, my low back has been killing Me after every walk. And it was. I said, you know what? It's not because I'm getting old. I don't have the right shoes. I went out and got new shoes.

Right.

And I walked two miles yesterday. No problem, so.

Right, right.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, there are some. There are some conditions that we tend to get as we get older. But.

But the way to separate the idea of being old and your condition is if everyone was the same age as you, they should have the exact same condition as you. That would mean that aging is causing it. But since aging isn't causing it, we're all different. So age is not part of that equation.

We may tend to get stuff more as we get older, but what we get is not reliant on the specific age that we are.

Yeah, that's great. I'm going to take one little break here to ask people to support the Boomer Banter walk to end Alzheimer's team.

We had our team out walking yesterday with thousands of other people who are walking to end Alzheimer's so that maybe the next year when we walk, we walk to celebrate the end of Alzheimer's to support the Boomer Banter team in reaching our goal. We still have until December 31st to raise money. So please, please contribute to this cause.

Go to act.alz.org goto heyboomer and let's end Alzheimer's. Thank you. All right, back to Jeanette and the author of Aging Sideways as we continue into this exploration.

So, Jeanette, what are some of the ways to overcome the tendency to other eyes, otherize by age, and instead appreciate the wide spectrum of individual experiences, as you were just saying, and capabilities across different stages of life?

Well, you know, I'm glad that you mentioned the phrase wide spectrum of individual experiences, because to describe us older adults as the elderly couldn't be further from the truth. Because the older we get, we actually become more diverse from one another. So think of. Think of people growing older together as a tree.

And when we're younger, we're like the trunk of a tree. We have much more in common with each other developmentally, preference wise, experientially wise, you know, experientially so.

But as we get older, we. We make certain choices.

Those choices lead us to certain options, those options lead us to making other choice, and we get more and more diverse from each other.

So as for otherizing, we have a natural tendency and urge to categorize and stereotype things and people in order to feel a sense of comfort and control. The more we're afraid of any group of people. The stronger our tendency is to stereotype them and to distance ourselves from them.

As you mentioned before, you know, we create a dynamic of us versus them. Now here's the irony of the whole thing.

While it's easier to otherwise people who don't look like us, you know, male versus female or white versus people of color, we're all aging.

So eventually, if we're lucky enough to live long enough, the us become the them or the them become the us, we're eventually going to be the them that we, that we shun or that we don't want to have anything to do with. That's going to happen to everyone if we're lucky. So there are three ways, I think, to overcome this tendency to otherize.

You know how we can stop otherizing? First, accept the fact that you're aging. Okay, that's a biggie.

Second, to educate yourself about the entire reality of aging, the gains as well as the losses that you mentioned before, Wendy, in your introduction. We actually gain some really good things as we get older, which we could talk about little later.

And finally commit to forming relationships with people who are significantly older and significantly younger than you. You know, demystifying all stages of the lifespan is really what's going to help us.

Rid us of any ageist impulses we have and tendencies to other eyes people.

That's such a good point. That we. Yeah.

That we are hurting ourselves and we're hurting others by not knowing people in different age groups and having those friendships because we learn from each other and we share with each other. Yeah, right. So, so part of that other rising, though, Jeanette, is really part of our own internal ageism. You know, we're like, well, I'm not old.

You know, I'm, I'm not bent over or I'm not using a walker or I'm not, blah, blah, blah, you know, and so we categorize that as old and that's not me, but that's really internalized ageism, isn't that right?

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, when you mentioned I'm not going to use a walker or I resist using a cane and everything.

Think about your entire life, every single stage of your life. You have needed help in some form or another. Right. When we're children, we need lots of help.

When we're teenagers, we need certain other kinds of help. When we're middle aged people, we need other kinds of help. So why should we resist getting help for ourselves, seeking help when we're getting older?

So this internalized ageism is when we're actually prejudiced against our current selves, where we are right now. So if we're old, as you say, we say things like, I'm too old to learn this new technology or my knee really hurts, it must be because of my age.

Like you said, Wendy, if we're young, we may say, I'm not experienced enough to try out for this job or I won't be given the opportunities that I want because I'm too young. So how can we older adults in particular overcome our internalized ageism?

Well, you know, we're often worried about acting or dressing or looking appropriate for our age and not being. Not being appropriate enough. Here's the thing. Once you're an adult, there's no such thing as being age appropriate.

You want to dye your hair shocking pink. If you want to go dancing in a club at 2am, do it.

As long as you're not harming yourself or others, you can do anything you want to do and you should feel free to do anything you want to do.

So let's do what feels right for us and let's leave it up to others to deal with it because it's going to be their prejudices they're going to be dealing with, but not our own, against ourselves. And who knows, we might even be able to serve as role models for future old people.

Another way to overcome our internalized ageism is to seriously consider what our decades of experience have gained for us. What have they gained for you? What skills have you developed and honed?

What experiences have you stored in your memory so that can serve as powerful comparisons to newer experiences that can help you make better judgments? Do you remember the story of Sully Sullenberger, the pilot, US Airways pilot?

Yes. Amazing story.

The Miracle on the Hudson. He was 57 when he landed that plane safely in the Hudson river and made that emergency landing.

Well, when he was on 60 Minutes, an interview with Katie Couric, he said he compared his reaction. How did he know what to do and how did he do it so successfully?

He compared it to accessing decades of compounded stored knowledge, skill and intuition in his brain like a bank in order to make a major mental withdrawal when the time was right.

So think of yourself as constantly feeding this bank of knowledge in your brain and that, that when you're ready or from on a daily basis that you draw from, that's a real plus about getting older.

And I love that. I love that because, you know, I think that you're right. We we say to ourselves, I'm too old to do this.

You know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, those kinds of things. Right.

And I think if we could start to recognize all of our years of experience, all the skills that we've gained, we may not be using them at the moment.

Right.

But they're there, and we need to stop denying that they're there. They are part of our. Part of our DNA, part of who we are, part of our wonderful gift to the world.

And that is one of the advantages of aging is we keep, like, having more and more of these, so.

Right, exactly, exactly. That's great that you point that out. Absolutely.

Yeah. So a lot of what we've talked about is, you know, how we can change our internal ageism.

And we talked a little bit about the other rising and, you know, how we perceive things. And you did mention responsibility on the individual and society. So I want to start to look at what your thoughts were around society.

So you did talk about some steps that society can take to ensure that older adults are valued and included as active, contributing members of society, rather than, like many of us have experienced, feeling invisible.

Exactly. Right. Well, you know, where does that invisibility come from?

A lot of times it's that society doesn't want to look at us or doesn't think of looking at us. So there are three. I think there are three factors that society has to take into consideration. The first factor is representation.

In other words, creating true depictions of the overwhelming majority of older people. Yes, some of us are seriously physically or mentally incapacitated, by the way. So are some younger people, too.

And some of us do skydive or run marathons. Yeah, that's true. But plenty more of us also work at all kinds of jobs.

We start businesses, we take care of sick relatives, we raise grandchildren, and we do other things that people of younger ages do. ARP research came out with a really interesting result.

46% of Americans are over the age of 50, but are depicted in only 15% of advertising and other media images. So nearly half of us are around, but only 15% of us are visible.

And negative depictions of us occur seven times more frequently than the negative depictions of people under the age of 50. So who's in charge of creating these images? So what can society do? Have us older adults on your marketing teams.

You know, you've heard the phrase, nothing for us without us. Get us involved. We can tell you whether or not your depictions of us are really off base or are demeaning to us.

You know, making fun of us older people as crotchety or clueless or whatever. So representation is important. Another factor is validation. Society should recognize our worth, especially regarding the assets of the older brain.

And Wendy, you may know this, but you know, you know, I love to talk about the older brain there. I'm going to, let's get real here.

Here, go, go.

Here are some real things about the older brain. First of all, yes, as we get older, we slow down in terms of processing information.

It may take us a little longer to learn some things and we may have more problems with short term memory. But here are some really good assets of the older brain.

As we get older, we get better at problem solving from different perspectives because we're better able to use both hemispheres of our brain simultaneously better than when we were younger. So we're able to be empathized with other people and see things from their point of view better than when we were younger.

We're also good at something called information discrimination. We know better which piece of information is relevant and which is irrelevant when doing a task. We know that you could skip certain steps.

We know the shortcuts, we've created the shortcut. So that's also another gift, pattern recognition. Because we have more stuff in our heads that we've stored.

We have more things to compare anything to. So we're better able to see, oh, this is like that. I see this pattern forming.

And then we have greater soft skills such as empathy and organization and leadership and a work ethic and pro social behaviors, thinking of others, ways to benefit the social good. So what can society do about validating us? For one thing, end workplace discrimination based on age.

Believe it or not, only 10% of companies include age as a criterion in their diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Take a look.

When you see a company talking about we don't discriminate against, they'll say gender, race, sexual preference, sexual orientation, whatever. Hardly ever do you see the word age in there.

And in terms of healthcare, providers should stop dismissing our conditions as simply part of getting older. As you said, Wendy, if your back hurts, maybe you need some good shoes. And should also include us older adults in clinical trials.

So that's validation. And then the final factor is expectation. Provide us older adults with more opportunities to remain as productive and engaged as possible.

How can society do this? Let's increase accessibility in urban planning, provide better public transportation, more affordable housing.

We older adults are the greatest untapped source of human capital that's going to waste. We're not being used. We're not being let in. Let us in. We've got so much to share. We're like little, we're like Sully Sullenbergers walking around.

Use what we know because we can help society.

Yeah. And so what happens when we try to get in and the society says no or closes the door?

What happens, what happens is we're stuck in a. We're, the doors are closed to us.

You know, you've, if you've heard the, if you've ever heard the phrase silver tsunami, older adults from Silver Tsunami, you know, we're wiping out Social Security, we're wiping up Medicare. There's so many of us. Well, it's because we're not a silver tsunami. We're a silver reservoir and we've been blocked up.

All our talents and skills and knowledge are behind these floodgates. If we open up the floodgates.

If you let more older people into the workforce, believe it or not, when those older people and younger people work together in the workforce, their work teams are far more productive than if you just have young brains working on them or just old brains working on them. So we have to start advocating for ourselves and for other and for others as well. So when you come, we come across situations like that.

We've got to speak out, we've got to advocate for ourselves and enlist people who become our allies in this.

So a lot of it has to do with first getting it straight, aging straight between our ears in our brains and then helping others get aging straight too.

Yeah.

And it's not reinventing the wheel in that there are some communities that are age friendly, that have good transportation for older people, that have easier access to activities and volunteer and work and things like that. So, you know, we can use some of those as models in our own communities to bring this age friendly awareness to the community.

So besides that, that's a strategy there.

But what other strategies can older adults use to challenge age related limitations imposed by society and cultivate a more, as you say, empowered approach to aging?

Well, again, I'll say the main thing I believe is behind all strategies is advocacy, advocate advocacy. So we have to advocate for ourselves and advocate for others. So as a strategy for ourselves, we have to resist self isolating.

Don't let's not retreat and say, okay, you know, I'm done. I can't really do much. We need to insert our presence in places and at events and activities where we're not expected to be show up.

You may be the only old person in the room, older person in the Room. But that could be a good thing because then you could say, hey, why aren't there other people my age here?

You know, maybe let's, let's bring more people of older cohorts in. We need to again believe that we have the knowledge, ideas, and skills to share.

As far as advocating for others, I believe that we older adults need to believe and act on what I call the power of one. A lot of time we tell ourselves, I'm only one person. What can I do to really make a difference in, you know, creating a pro aging world?

Well, when I was a newspaper journalist for a long time and I needed to seek out information, I believed in going right to the top. The first step was go right to the top. Call up the president of a company, call up the CEO of a company, Just go right to the top.

Now you can always be kicked down a couple of rungs on the ladder where the CEO will refer you to some vice president who might refer you to some assistant manager or whatever. But you start at the top and you might be surprised that you actually sometimes get to talk to the CEO or the president.

I did that with a, actually with a greeting card, a very large greeting card company in this country and got them to start a line of pro aging birthday cards.

Oh, gosh, we need those.

Yeah. So, but it's not just, I mean, I'm an individual. What, what, you know, what power did I have? I just took a chance.

So when you experience ageism, speak out, especially in print or social media.

How many times, I bet a lot of people are ticked off when they see a headline that calls somebody a grandma and has nothing to do with that woman being a grandparent. So call out, write a letter to the editor, call out the instance and offer a suggestion of a way to change it.

And then let's get our friends involved too. We can create our own little rapid response teams. Hey, did you see that social media post?

Let's all write to the person who posted that and say, here's why this is ageist, and here's a way you can do something differently about it. So we could do it through emails, through letters to the editor. Those are some ways we can do it.

And you do point out that I see your posts on LinkedIn. You catch things that, you know, I'm so indoctrinated, I guess, in society that, that I miss it a lot of the time.

And I'll see your post and I'll be like, oh, yeah, that is kind of ages.

We all are indoctrinated I mean, I, you know, I still catch myself sometimes thinking ageist things or saying ages things. So we're, we're all in this together. And it, you know, it, it's understandable.

We've got decades and decades of brainwashing to under, you know, to, to, to get rid of.

Yeah.

So, you know, let's begin with ourselves.

And just like everything else we've done as boomers, we didn't have those role models. Right. Like, we saw all grandparents or aging parents as old. And, and we did not see that as a good thing.

And so we were like, I'm not going to be that. And so, so we're like changing, like you said, being role models. Now for upcoming generation to say, look, this is what aging can be.

It doesn't have to be decline and decrepit.

Right. And well, and also think about the boomers as a generation. We were the first generation to be marketed to directly as children.

You know, Saturday morning cartoons started with us or get that, you know, that Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox or the Barbie doll or whatever. So we've spent our whole lives being aware and knowing that change that we're capable of changing or having an influence on our society.

So, you know, whereas our parents may have been more reticent and more didn't have, they didn't have role models from which to base that on.

So yeah, Jeanette, you have given us so much information. Is there, is it possible for you to kind of summarize two to three things that, you know, your book Aging Sideways gives so much to.

You are just a font of knowledge. But give me two or three things as takeaways that we can share with the audience today.

Okay. Well, you know, the epilogue of my book is called. The last part of my book is called Aging Right side Up.

So after we've been looking at things sideways, let's just, you know, turn the, turn the drawing the upside down chair, turn it right side up and let's age right side up. And so I, here are some takeaway questions.

I think we should already have preloaded in our minds that whenever we experience anything that has to do with ageism or discrimination, let's ask first of all, who benefits from this ageist policy, situation or condition?

There may be, chances are there may be somebody who's making a buck off us being fearful of getting older, especially in the anti aging products industry. That's a trillion dollar industry getting us to be afraid of the next wrinkle or the next gray hair.

We have also, you Know who, who benefits from us having this intergenerational conflict of boomers, you know, dismissing millennials or millennials dismissing boomers? Who benefits from that? Who keeps, you know, journalists keep that flame going because it sells clicks, you know, it sells, it's clickbait.

Right, Right.

So that's one question. Another question is, does this situation, this ages situation have to do with actual chronological age or is it really about something else?

You know, in this political atmosphere, a lot of times there's been a word called gerontocracy that's been floated around that means that there are too many old people running the government. Well, is it really about chronological age or is it notions about competence and power sharing?

And let's remember that older adults, we become more different from one another. There are plenty of older adults who are mentally extremely, extremely competent. So let's not stereotype.

And then another question is, what would happen if this policy didn't exist and what can I do to change it? So if you see something aging ageist say, well, what would happen if I, if I could help to get rid of this, what might happen?

Well, we might have more merit based salaries in the workplace. We might have greater willingness to collaborate and share ideas.

So we need to envision a world of greater justice and productivity and interdependent support for the benefit of all. So ask questions. Have those preloaded in your mind so the next time somebody says, oh, I'm too old to, you know, do whatever you say. Really?

What makes you say that? Why do you think you're too old? You know, just have questions preloaded.

Be curious. Jeanette, thank you for all of this.

You can find Jeanette book aging sideways on her website, Jeanette, which is spelled J E A N E T T E Jeanette Liardi L E a r d I.com and I will put that in the show notes. So I would recommend going and checking out the book.

It really is an interesting book with lots of ideas and I hope to see you in the Boomer Banter membership group. Remember, you're invited to two virtual meetings a month where you will learn and be supported on your journey of aging.

If you enjoy what we talk about on Boomer Banter, I want to suggest that you check out a wonderful podcast called women over 70.

In that podcast, Catherine and Gail capture the essence of women aging through their award winning weekly podcast, their life experience, and their knowledgeable approach. So look for women over 70 wherever you listen to podcasts. Jeanette, this has been a fascinating conversation.

Thank you for for all that you're doing to help us accept and embrace aging.

Well, well, thank you for inviting me, Wendy. And thank you for your work in spreading the word about boomers and what we can do about changing our society.

Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

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