Valdez: Getting old isn't all that bad

The baby boomers, AKA the nation’s silver tsunami, had better pay as much attention to changing attitudes about aging as they did to shaking up all those previous social norms.

In our culture, old things get replaced with something nice and new. Like the latest smart phone.

Apply the concept to people, and it’s called ageism.

It’s as current as Twitter.

A team of researchers at Oregon State University took a look at tweets about people with Alzheimer’s disease and found ridicule, stigma and stereotypes.

One unpleasant tweet: “Waiting until your grandparents become senile so you can trick them into giving you their money.”

Ageism came up frequently last week at the 68th annual scientific meeting of the Gerontological Society of America. The conference brought together science, medical, social science and behavior experts, as well as policy wonks and other researchers.

I was there on a Journalists in Aging Fellowship, a program of New America Media and the Gerontological Society, sponsored by the Archstone Foundation.

Experts from all over the world discussed research into the challenges of the old, the frail and those with dementia.

They talked about minorities and the poor, who, after a lifetime of being disadvantaged in our society, will face particular difficulties as they age, including the need to rely on at-risk safety net and entitlement programs.

Those in the middle class also face “food deserts” and isolation in their cul-de-sac suburban neighborhoods. Even some retirement communities built as havens from the hustle and bustle are less than ideal places to “age in place.”

Yet, the vast majority of Americans say they that’s what they want: to stay in their homes.

This is where baby boomers may face their own internalized ageism stereotypes.

Stephen Golant, author of Aging in the Right Place, says Americans are “repeatedly lectured” about how to “age successfully.” They are told the importance of remaining young in mind and body. To exercise. To eat right. To maintain their homes.

This can be pernicious. It suggests those who are not healthy have only themselves to blame. People guilt trip themselves even more when when the demands of homeownership make them feel like life is spinning out of control.

The perceived stigma of giving up one’s home for the Home can make life an “emotional battlefield,” Golant says.

Meanwhile, society does its best to accent the negative.

Asked to characterize the aging, some people recorded during on-the-street interviews dredged up cliches about spry retirees on vacation, but most talked about decline, disease, dependency.

“Society isn’t betting on them,” said one man.

FrameWorks Institute did the interviews as part of its work with eight national aging organizations.

The groups are the Gerontological Society, AARP, American Federation for Aging Research, National Council on Aging, National Hispanic Council on Aging, American Society on Aging, American Geriatrics Society and Grantmakers in Aging.

The goal is to find new metaphors for aging, says FrameWorks CEO Nathaniel Kendall-Taylor.

He says the way information is framed has an impact on how people use the information, which should come as no surprise to those who reframed cultural norms about race, gender, sex, the environment and entertainment.

The baby boomers have a lot at stake, and that includes me. I’m no fan of euphemisms, but I’m all for promoting a fine-wine view of life. It should get better with age. We should feel better about aging.

If some creative wordsmithing and mass marketing helps our society recognize that aging doesn’t diminish value or humanity, it would be a real contribution to our collective understanding of who we are.