When you think of age discrimination, you probably think of discrimination against older people in the workplace. Certainly age discrimination encompasses that. I’ve witnessed more than one person in their 50s or 60s who, after losing their job, struggled to find a comparable position — or sometimes any position at all. Some of the people I’ve seen suffer the most are in technical fields. Sometimes people fail to keep their skills up to date, but sometimes they aren’t hired because they are “too old.”
But age discrimination goes beyond employment discrimination against older people. It can include infantilizing older people through the way you speak to them. Calling an older woman “young lady”? You may mean to flatter her, but she knows she’s not young and probably doesn’t appreciate your “compliment.” It also includes the way you treat older people. I love what this post on alcohol in assisted living facilities has to say about the purpose of assisted living: “Assisted living does not and should never mean loss of freedom or rights, instead it promoted [sic] independence by providing seniors the tools and care they need to live the best life they can.”
And just as bad as treating seniors like children is pushing them aside or ignoring them altogether.
I also believe that age discrimination doesn’t just apply to older adults. When a member of one generation looks down on members of another generation, that’s a form of discrimination. I once heard someone in the workplace state that Millennials were lazy and spent too much time watching Netflix. Many of the Millennials I know work really hard — both in the office and outside of it. I should have spoken up on their behalf but didn’t; I allowed myself to feel intimidated by the person who made the statement and just sat in stony silence. It is true that the environment in which a generation grows up shapes the members of that generation. Nevertheless, members of each generation are individuals and should be treated as such. Judgmental statements about generations, such as “Boomers ruined the world” or “Gen Xers are slackers,” are no better than judgmental statements about people based on categories such as gender or race.
And now I’m going to make what may be a controversial statement about age discrimination. In the past five years or so, I’ve run across many people who declare vehemently that not only do they hate babies and/or children, but that such an attitude is perfectly okay. I believe that hating babies or children is just as unacceptable as hating senior citizens.
I absolutely do not believe that everyone should become a parent. One of the most troubling experiences I’ve ever had was conversing with a mother of two school-aged boys. I’d only just met her, but during our conversation she confided that she hated her children. I was not a parent, so her confession prompted me to do a lot of soul-searching before my husband and I decided to become parents. I think that’s a good thing to do; parenthood is not something to undertake lightly.
But there’s a big difference between not wanting children and hating children as a group of people. You don’t have to drool over babies. You don’t have to be happy that you’re sitting near a baby on a plane (while I don’t believe in banning parents from taking babies on planes, air travel is not particularly pleasant, and a crying baby just makes things worse).
But take a look at the last paragraph of the opinion piece I linked to:
If you are my friend and you decide to have a baby, I will feel nothing but genuine joy for you, because as your friend, I value your happiness. I will bring you meals and toys and those adorable little baby shoes (which I will find far cuter than the kid itself), and I will always lend a sympathetic ear when you’re tired and need to vent. I will do so with glee and sincerity, because you are my friend and I love you. But I will still hate your baby, and for that, I will not apologize.
What if I rewrote that to tell someone that I would feel joy for them and bring them a present on their wedding day but would hate their spouse — not because the person they were marrying was horrible, but because I didn’t like “that kind” of person? I think people would be right to call me on my discriminatory attitude. So why is it okay to say about babies?
Some people call age discrimination the last acceptable form of discrimination. I’m not sure I agree with that statement. But age discrimination may be less visible to us than some forms of discrimination. It’s time to notice it and take a stand against it.