Aging is Living: One Writer’s Mission to Change the Narrative

This week on the Art of Aging, host Rev. Beth Long-Higgins welcomes Margaret McDonald, an award-winning writer and pro-aging advocate. During the conversation, Margaret shares her passionate journey combating ageism through language, art, and personal experience. She discusses how her own workplace challenges in her late 40s sparked her advocacy, highlighting the pervasive and often subtle ways ageism manifests in everyday conversations, media, and cultural attitudes. Margaret’s work includes a daily blog writing 100-word essays on everyday ageism and creating the “Aging is Living” yard signs and artwork to challenge negative stereotypes about growing older. Key takeaways include the importance of recognizing and challenging ageist language, understanding that aging is a natural, dynamic process of continued growth and self-discovery, the need to shift cultural narratives that diminish or mock older adults, and so much more.