Ageism

When I was a teacher, I never used the word 'teenager'. I still don't. Some of the young people I worked with were cleverer than me and have gone on to become politicians, academics, artists, theatre producers, farmers, etc. Calling them teenagers made no attempt to identify who they actually were.  Some were irritating little sods but others were smart as whips.

I object to the word 'pensioner' for the same reason. Just recently, I was complimented by a 111 call responder for being 'so alert'. That was after she'd asked me my date of birth. I wasn't phoning about anything to do with my age. I was looking for advice about how to deal with a flare-up of collagenous colitis. This is a challenge during a pandemic when it seems the world is focussed on Covid-19.

It seems people lose brain power when they reach pension age -  whatever that age is - and that allows the people they deal with to treat them as morons. Newspapers are the worst in this respect. They are obsessed with age and think everyone over the age of 60 can be placed in one group - and they are all gaga. The headlines are shocking, as if journalists are still stuck in a 19th century view of age. Just in case they haven't realised, let me tell them three score and ten no longer applies.

(Another group that I've always noticed are quite caught up with age are the police, but that I suspect is because of all the rubbish paperwork they have to fill in). 

Medics are not much better. In hospital recently, talking to a consultant, I mentioned that I'd once done some translation work (Russian to English) for Glasgow doctors on the topic of 'non specific ulcerative colitis'. Suddenly, I saw myself turning into a person in his eyes: look, she's talking my language - she has a brain! It was a pleasure to talk to him and his (what are they called these days?) registrars? from then on. You would think people who are often referred to as 'junior' doctors well into their 40s would be less inclined to be ageist.

Watching the TV news these days, I don't hear anyone expressing surprise or even shock at the number of elderly people dying of Covid-19. Their deaths are written off as: well, what else can you expect? They were old. In fact, the death rate for people up to the age of 75 is fairly low. Here's a statistic from the ONS: (76%) of all deaths involving COVID-19 to date were of people aged 75 or over.

If you've lost your 85 year old dad to Covid-19, it's no less shocking to you because he was 'old' or 'elderly'. So can we stop trying to pigeonhole people, whatever their age?