The Hard Truth About Getting Old

Sixty isn't the new 40, and 80 isn't the new 60. I know it. You know it. So why do we buy into it?

The author as a young woman and as she appears now

I don’t know about you, but the chirpy tales that dominate the public discussion about aging — you know, the ones that tell us that age is just a state of mind, that “60 is the new 40″ and “80 the new 60″ — irritate me. What’s next: 100 as the new middle age?

Sure, aging is different than it was a generation or two ago and there are more possibilities now than ever before, if only because we live so much longer. it just seems to me that, whether at 60 or 80, the good news is only half the story. For it’s also true that old age — even now when old age often isn’t what it used to be — is a time of loss, decline and stigma.

Yes, I said stigma. A harsh word, I know, but one that speaks to a truth that’s affirmed by social researchers who have consistently found that racial and ethnic stereotypes are likely to give way over time and with contact, but not those about age. And where there are stereotypes, there are prejudice and discrimination — feelings and behavior that are deeply rooted in our social world and, consequently, make themselves felt in our inner psychological world as well.

I felt the sting of that discrimination recently when a large and reputable company offered me an auto insurance policy that cost significantly less than I’d been paying. After I signed up, the woman at the other end of the phone suggested that I consider their umbrella policy as well, which was not only cheaper than the one I had, but would, in addition, create what she called “a package” that would decrease my auto insurance premium by another hundred dollars. How could I pass up that kind of deal?

Well … not so fast. After a moment or two on her computer, she turned her attention back to me with an apology: “I’m sorry, but I can’t offer the umbrella policy because our records show that you had an accident in the last five years.” Puzzled, I explained that it was just a fender bender in a parking lot and reminded her that she had just sold me an insurance policy. Why that and not the umbrella policy?

She went silent, clearly flustered, and finally said, “It’s different.” Not satisfied, I persisted, until she became impatient and burst out, “It’s company policy: If you’re over 80 and had an accident in the last five years, we can’t offer you an umbrella policy.” Surprised, I was rendered mute for a moment. After what seemed like a long time, she spoke into the silence, “I’m really sorry. It’s just policy.”

Frustrated, we ended the conversation.

After I fussed and fumed for a while, I called back and asked to speak with someone in authority. A soothing male voice came on the line. I told him my story, and finished with, “Do I have to remind you that there’s a law against age discrimination?”

“Would you mind if I put you on hold for a few moments?” he asked. (Don’t you love the way they ask you that, as if you have a choice?) When he came back on the line, he told me he’d checked the file and talked to the agent who couldn’t recall saying anything about age, nor was there anything about it in the record.

“OK,” I said, “then sell me the umbrella policy.”

“No,” he was very, very sorry for the misunderstanding, but they never sell an umbrella policy to anyone who’s had an accident in the last five years, and their policy is “absolutely age-neutral.”

And if you believe that, I know a bridge in Brooklyn that’s for sale.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it: Where are all those sources of personal power and self-esteem we keep hearing about as the media celebrate the glories of the “new old age”?

That’s one from my file of personal stories about ageism, but there are other older and bigger ones: discrimination against older workers in the job market among the most important. True, the law now offers a possible remedy in the form of an age-discrimination lawsuit, but who’s going to pay the legal and household bills during the years it will take to work its way through the courts? Who’s going to help those workers deal with the psychic wounds that come from being so easily expendable, so devalued just because of their age?

In her groundbreaking book “The Coming of Age,” published in the early 1970s, Simone de Beauvoir spoke passionately about the stigma of old age — about the loss of a valued identity, our fear that the self we knew is gone, replaced by what she called “a loathsome stranger” we can’t recognize, who can’t possibly be the person we’ve known until now.

Her words give life to a core maxim of social psychology that says: What we think about a person influences how we see him, how we see him affects how we behave toward him, how we behave toward him ultimately shapes how he feels about himself, if not actually who he is. It’s in this interaction between self and society that we can see most clearly how social attitudes toward the old give form and definition to how we feel about ourselves. For what we see in the faces of others will eventually mark our own.

As a sociologist, I have been a student of aging for four decades; as a psychotherapist during this same period, I saw more than a few patients who were struggling with the issues aging brings; as a writer I’ve written about the various stages of life, including a memoir about aging daughters and mothers. Yet until I undertook the research for my recent book, “60 on Up: The Truth About Aging in America” — until I began to read more deeply and to interview people more systematically — I didn’t fully realize how much ageism had become one of the signature marks of stigma and oppression in our society.