Getting Older Is Not That Bad!
Can you believe so many younger Canadians look down on seniors that ageism has become the most tolerated form of social discrimination in Canada? Leger Marketing conducted a survey of 1,500 Canadians and found eight in 10 believe seniors age 75 and older are seen as less important and are more ignored than younger generations. Six in 10 seniors age 66 and older say they have been treated unfairly because of their age, while 35 percent of Canadians admit they’ve treated someone unethically because they were “over the hill”. I don’t buy it unless ….
According to the survey, the three most common forms of age discrimination faced by Canadian seniors are: Being treated as though they are invisible (41 percent), being treated like they have nothing to contribute (38 percent) and assuming that seniors are incompetent (27 percent). I may not be as nimble-fingered as I once was but I make darn sure I’m seen and heard but never invisible. I still don’t buy it ….
Jane Barratt, the secretary-general of the International Federation on Ageing, says it’s unfortunate that so many Canadians have such negative views about aging, especially given that almost all of us will become seniors ourselves one day. “By 2050, one in four Canadians will be a senior, and we all need to look at our behaviour because ageism is alongside racism and sexism as social prejudices,” she told CTV’s Canada AM. The vast majority of Canadians –89 percent — associate aging with negative outcomes such as being alone and losing independence, the survey found. And yet older Canadians are more likely than all other generations to say that “age is just a number.” I do agree that it is just a number but the larger that number gets the softer I repeat it.
In fact, 40 percent of those 66 years of age and older say they believe the “best is yet to come.” I personally can’t envision anything much better than when I was in my prime, but now I am a senior living in Whitewater Region township and I have said it too. Hearing that those statistics were Canadian ones, I had to give my head a shake as I thought they had surveyed seniors in a third world country. Those stats do not apply in our region. Consider last week when one of my neighbours, a veteran and war hero of WWII who fought behind enemy lines and who is in poor health, struggled to get to the cenotaph on November 11th to lay a wreath. I quizzed him, “Have you ever been discriminated against because of off your age?” He emphatically said, ‘never’. He is already looking ahead to the next year’s Remembrance Day.
“Younger Canadians might see older people as burdensome and grumpy, not involved in the community” in general but I haven’t observed those situations around here. In fact, there was a new youngster about 9 or 10 moved in next door recently. When I introduced myself to this very polite kid he said, “If there is anything I can help you with please let me know.” I was taken aback by his remark and later pondered whether he was just being kindhearted or he thought I was old and useless! I have the impression that the vast majority of seniors I know become more optimistic as they grow older. As well, they are much more of a bonus to this community than the younger generations. They basically keep on going while most teens wouldn’t lift their little finger to earn money by cutting grass or shovelling snow. Maybe the survey should have looked into the contributions each generation makes to a community. The results might be shocking.
Ageism is not just reflected in the negative attitudes and stereotypes many younger Canadians have. Society is structured based on the assumption that everyone is young. That means that society fails to respond to the real needs of older people. Eight-five percent of baby boomers, who are now just beginning to retire, say they want a different aging and better experience than that of their parents or grandparents. “Against this backdrop, we need to challenge our assumptions of aging and recognize the valuable contributions of older adults to society,” the Leger Marketing report concludes.
Last year a retired couple relocated from Pembroke to their dream home on the Ottawa River. They were impressed at how much more quickly they made numerous friends and got involved in all the activities that were available to them – so many were offered, had to be selective. They both said, “Their social life here in only in a few months is fuller now than it was in more than a few years where they lived before.” They had exactly reiterated what earlier newcomers discovered as well and as the local residents have professed this for years. There are so many social activities in Westmeath and area as well as the township itself, all available for the asking.
I for example am fairly involved; a board member on the Westmeath District Recreation Association, a member of the Riverview Seniors Social Club, Canada 150 committee, a men’s club, writing weekly for Whitewater News, currently enrolled in square-dancing lessons and playing poker once a month and losing big-time. Options for everyone nearly every month at the Westmeath Hall are ongoing exercise classes, yoga, crafts, bingo, fishing, hunting, cycling, skating and now even broomball. Then there are dinners, dances and concerts (comedy ones to disguise our aches and pains for a few hours).
Since last spring and for one whole year, the RVSSC’s funding grant from the New Horizons for Seniors Program, has scheduled wide-ranging events until next spring, for all seniors in the township at no cost. There have been informative lectures, tours, a woodworking class, various dancing classes and much more to come. In addition to all that, the WDRA, working closely with their partners, has a strategy to launch a number of events to celebrate Canada 150 in 2017. There will be sports, music, a barn dance, cycling, native dancing and a pow wow, trivial pursuit and many more. The program will be volunteer driven with a co-ordinator needed/assigned to each event.
Around here we all know that moderate-intensity physical activity and socializing can help you live longer and reduce health problems. If you are involved in all or most of the activities being offered, you will either live longer or surrender to sheer exhaustion.
