Carman: How Old is Too Old to Serve? Let’s Look at the Facts.
Diane Carman 3:02 AM MST on Feb 18, 2024
Ageism is the last acceptable form of bigotry in our society and is yet another product of ignorance. Voters should focus on competency.
Recently, I went to a physical therapist to learn some exercises to improve my skiing. Before my appointment, I had to complete a form asking whether I could dress myself, feed myself, bathe without assistance and if I could get out of a chair on my own.
A quick glance at the office staff suggested that probably no one was over 40, so it was no surprise that it seemed fine to them that I spend 10 minutes completing a form that was entirely irrelevant.
Sure, it was a standard form, but using it indiscriminately is insulting and blatantly ageist. And it’s hardly unusual.
Ageism is the last acceptable form of bigotry in our society, and Manfred Diehl and I are plainly fed up with it.
Diehl, distinguished professor of human development and family studies at Colorado State University, specializes in research on aging, physical and mental health, cognitive functioning and psychological well-being.
Like other forms of bigotry — racism, misogyny, discrimination based on ethnicity — ageism is the product of ignorance. Or as Diehl prefers, “basic misconceptions.”
Three misconceptions reign in the realm of ageism, and they seem to persist despite mountains of evidence refuting them over decades of longitudinal research.
The first is that everything goes downhill as you age.
That is so wrong.
“There’s clear evidence that in the personality area, most people get better,” Diehl said.
We’re not talking about your garden-variety sociopath, he cautioned, but “older people generally are more emotionally stable, more agreeable and for the most part more conscientious.”
That’s why in a workplace when conflicts inevitably arise, younger people might want to view the disagreement as an opportunity to prove their superiority by vanquishing an opponent, while older adults are more likely to seek a solution agreeable to both sides.
“Older adults are not as conflict-driven,” Diehl said. “They’re not so confrontational.”
They have emotional maturity, are adaptable and are more likely to seek a better way to handle things by relying on positive emotions.
“Most individuals learn and grow rather than decline,” Diehl said.
The second big misconception is that decrepitude is inevitable.
“People think aging runs its course and you don’t have any control over it,” Diehl said.
Wrong again.
The research indicates that at most 30-40% of age-related conditions are due to genetic factors and, therefore, baked in.
“That means 60-70% are not genetic. They’re environmental and mostly under our control,” he said.
So, people who eat a healthy diet and are active, cognitively engaged and have regular medical checkups are likely to have vital, healthy lives well into older adulthood.
“The evidence shows we can control a lot that might otherwise drive us in a negative direction,” Diehl said.
Even such conditions as high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, when treated effectively, can have little or no effect on an older adult’s vitality.
The other big misconception is that once age-related losses have happened, they are irreversible.
It’s only true if you give up.
Smokers who quit experience improvement of lung capacity; people with osteoporosis can reverse bone loss through medication and exercise; and cognitive performance can be revitalized and improved through training.
“We all have a lot of physiological plasticity,” Diehl said.
But too many older adults don’t understand this and, even worse, have internalized society’s rampant ageism. They exchange ageist greeting cards and tell offensive jokes, and then wonder why young people dismiss them as doddering old fools.
“In aging research, we often say that chronological age is an empty variable,” he said.
All you have to do to understand its insignificance is compare a 55-year-old with dementia to an 85-year-old who is as sharp as he was at 30 to realize that birthdays are unreliable predictors of physical ability or cognitive strength.
“Chronological age in itself does not predict a lot.”
There’s one exception, he said. It’s in the speed of information processing.
And this brings him to the donkey and the elephant in the room.
If a reporter asks Joe Biden a question about a complex issue, “he might at first hesitate to articulate his answer,” Diehl said. “But his answers will be well-informed, based on decades of experience and his knowledge of leaders from all over the world.”
It takes time to process all that and produce a thoughtful response.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who is four years younger than Biden, might show no hesitation in answering questions, but it’s largely because he displays no understanding of the issues, no grasp of reality or even a passing respect for the facts.
“For me, it’s very clear who is the sharper of the two candidates,” the expert on aging said. “Biden is the victim of age-bashing and older adults need to speak out about it.”
Voters should stop focusing on chronological age and “instead look at competencies and achievements.”
OK, but what about the actuarial tables, the risk factors, the odds, I asked.
“A person’s vulnerability increases,” Diehl said, “and 80 is pretty much a watershed number.”
Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term.
“He could still be functioning at a perfectly fine level,” he said. “He could still be processing information at a high level, maybe it’s just slower. But if he can’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning, that would be a concern.”
The bottom line is that we all need to look at older people as individuals, not numbers. We need to look at the facts, not parrot the prejudices.
“It’s politically convenient to pit generations against each other, and people do it in shameless ways,” Diehl said.
Instead of being complicit with that, we should be showing younger generations what is possible, he said.
Through educational opportunities, better health care and less dangerous workplaces, Baby Boomers as a generation are healthier and more vital than their parents and still have much to offer, Diehl insists.
We should dispense with the drooling caricatures and the adult diaper jokes, look at all we have accomplished and continue to accomplish every day, and stand up for ourselves.
And as for medical providers who require older adults to complete ridiculous forms, well, consider yourselves warned.