At 62, I believe I speak for many other late-stage boomers when
I say: Wait, what?
More than 20 million Americans ages 60 to 65 got a rude
surprise this year.
Many of us, BC — before the novel coronavirus — had counted on a little more time before
we had to see ourselves as “old.” Yet in recent weeks, we’ve been shoved toward
senescence as supermarkets have scheduled “senior hours” for those 60 and
older, and major media have reported experts’ warnings that the elderly,
starting at age 60, are extra vulnerable.
Suddenly 60 is the new 65. At 62, I believe I speak for many
other late-stage boomers when I say: Wait, what?
“I turn 60 later this year so I noticed that acutely,” said
Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy, which he calls the world’s
first midlife wisdom school. “It was all of a sudden: I’m in a high-risk group?
I’m perceived as elderly?”
I don’t mean to reject any help that might keep me and my
graying cohort alive. Bring on those peaceful senior shopping hours. Nor would
I ever argue that policing these linguistic limits should be a top priority
when thousands of Americans have died, tens of millions are out of work and our
democracy is floundering.
All the same, this sudden downward pressure on the boundary
of old age strikes me as un-American. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and the Census for years have used 65 to define older Americans. (It
was only last Thursday that the CDC tried to calm the confusion with a press release
stating: “It’s not just those over the age of 65 who are at increased risk for
severe illness.”)
You still can’t get Medicare until 65 or full Social
Security benefits until age 66. So maybe this is something else we can blame on
China and the World Health Organization, given that both use “over 60” to
define old age, and both have been the source of a lot of coronavirus news.
Denial
plays a vital role in human survival, which helps explain why most prefer to
bask in it as long as possible.
More important, for those of us in the early-60s gray zone,
the slipping standard harms more than our vanity, stealing our last shred of
deniability even as the shutdown deprives us of tools we’ve relied on to pass
ourselves off as younger, such as Botox, hair salons and gyms.
Denial plays a vital role in human survival, which helps
explain why most prefer to bask in it as long as possible.
“From age 40 onwards, people report feeling about 20%
younger than their chronological age, an amount that obviously gets bigger over
time,” Sarah Barber, an expert on cognitive aging at Georgia State University,
told me. As we age, we also tend to imagine “old age” as beginning later and
later, she said, further boosting our illusion that we’re still young.
We’re only as old as we feel, as they say. The hitch is we
can be made to feel older — and frailer and less competent — when reminded of
our age and the inevitable downsides. This has been established by studies of
the “stereotype threat,” meaning that when old people, or mothers, or other
groups, for example, are reminded of the stereotypes about their group, they
unwittingly tend to validate them.
In one seminal study, older adults — in this case ages 62 to
84 — were split into three groups. One group read articles linking age to
cognitive decline. Another read articles describing older people who stayed
sharp as they aged. The third group did no reading. All three groups then took
a test that challenged them to remember several words. Guess which group forgot
most of them? The first one, of course.
Focusing on gloomy images of aging can make you less
coordinated and even less healthy. Researchers have found that people who feel
more negative about aging in midlife may later be less competent drivers and
have a harder time recovering from a heart attack. People who accept the most
depressing cultural images of aging may also take worse care of themselves,
even shortening their own lives by an average of 7.5 years.
Pandemic culture floods us with constant reminders about
aging and death, not least with its nasty Twitter hashtags like BoomerDoomer
and BoomerRemover. Stories about “seniors” are frequently illustrated with
images of stooped postures and canes, or photos of lonely, white-haired
grandmothers peering out of locked windows.
Focusing
on gloomy images of aging can make you less coordinated and even less healthy.
No wonder my knees ache and I’ve recently switched to
stronger reading glasses. More than once, I’ve asked my husband what day it is,
which is unsettling for both of us, as much as I’ve heard other age groups are
having the same trouble.
Seeking to stop stereotypes from becoming self-fulfilling
prophecies, groups like Conley’s Modern Elder Academy and AARP have been trying
to “reframe” aging, emphasizing the many purported benefits, such as wisdom and
contentment. They’re casting a wide net, given that the average age of Conley’s
“elders” is 52, and AARP starts mailing you membership cards when you turn 50.
Ageism has long been one of America’s
favorite prejudices, even though — if we’re lucky — we’ll all become its
target. “We disparage elderly people without fear of censure,” wrote the
psychologist authors of a study on aging stereotypes, “Doddering but dear.”
Among other discouraging news, they cite research demonstrating that on top of
discrimination in hiring and medical decisions, older adults are more likely
than any other age group to appear on TV and in movies “as conduits for comic
relief, exploiting stereotypes of physical, cognitive, and sexual
ineffectiveness.”
No wonder even many in the over-65 set don’t feel ready for
the new considerations and limitations based on being officially over the hill.
“I feel grounded like a wayward adolescent punished for
underaged smoking or drinking,” complained Politico editor Paul Taylor, 65,
referring to his cohort of “fit, never-been-busier, un-retirees” as “the
twelderly,” inspired by the word “tween,” for a pre-adolescent.
Before the pandemic, I too imagined myself as, at worst,
pre-elderly, while assuming there was widespread agreement about the endpoint
of plausible youth. I’ll even confess to a shimmer of schadenfreude on reading
Texas Lt. Gov. Daniel Patrick’s controversial call for old people to consider
sacrificing their lives for the economy, given that Patrick’s standard was “70
plus.”
But then I realized just how much the coronavirus may be
infecting all of us with the most dreadful view of aging, in which “old” is
synonymous with useless and expendable. And who’s ever ready for that?
Ellison’s latest book is “Mothers
& Murderers: A True Story of Love, Lies, Obsession . . . and Second
Chances.”
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