Reframing Aging

Michael Hughes 00:07
Hi, and welcome to this episode of The Art of aging, which is part of the abundant aging podcast series from United Church homes. On this show, we look at what it means to age in America and in other places around the world with positive, empowering and compelling conversations that encourage everyone everywhere to age with abundance. But we have been doing a series of shortcuts for this run of series. And we’re gonna be sitting down with Beth Long Higgins, who is the head of our Ruth Frost Parker center for abundant aging, which is also the sponsor for this show. Beth,

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 00:35
welcome. Hello, Mike.

Michael Hughes 00:37
Hello again, and I say hello again. Because we’ve had a great time really unpacking different issues and aging and also many of the age tropes that the roofers Parker Center hopes to overcome and end with its work. And the topic of the show today is really around the idea of ageism, and the benefit of reframing the idea of age and the idea that it’s not just for those who are older today, but really, for our for ourselves today and for our future selves. So looking forward to getting to that Beth. But before we do, putting in a plug for our annual symposium, which is coming up very shortly, on Friday, October the fourth at the nationwide conference center in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. More information on attending our symposium in person, or by joining virtually, please visit UnitedChurchHomes.org/Parker-center. The subject or the theme of this year’s symposium is meaning purpose and redefining retirement. And we’ve got terrific speakers lined up like Richard Eisenberg, Anna Hall, and Janine Vanderburgh. But Beth, back to the subject of today, this idea that reframing aging does not just benefit, who are who we may consider to be older, you know, for a 10 year old being the oldest 20. But it really is a benefit to your current cells, not just our future selves. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 02:05
So first of all, when we talk about reframing aging, what we’re talking about is acknowledging that ageism is alive and very active in our culture and in our own internalized ways of thinking about life. This has to do with ageism, an ageism is how we think, how we feel, how we act about ourselves or others based on how old we think that they are. So I have discovered that when I provide presentations to groups of people, and most of them are folks who are 50, or over in age, that some of them just they’ve not thought about ageism at all, and they don’t see it as a problem. They’ve not had, you know, doctors say authentic offensive things to them like, well, at your age, what you’re experiencing, that’s just normal aging, oh, that’s an ageist statement, or they haven’t had the experience of being ignored when they’re in the store. And having the sales staff go and help folks who are younger, they haven’t had the experience of being invisible. There, all kinds of ageist experiences they hit may not have had the experience of not being able to get an interview for a job because from the resume, people can assume similar that they’re older

Michael Hughes 03:25
or having or being told that you have to hide the graduated from school, and you have to hide dates of certain jobs, because you don’t want to, you know, just trip that, right.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 03:37
So there are individuals who have not had those experiences. And so they don’t think that this whole idea of rethinking aging is important. Until I point out that half of the grandchildren that are part of their family, or half of the neighborhood kids that live around them, in general, half of them are very likely to experience and celebrate their 90 as her hundreds birthdays. When we were younger, that was not an assumption that half of our class would be around to celebrate our what 70 A high school reunion, right. But usually we think by the time we get to that age, that maybe just a couple, half a half. That’s a large number of people or so we can leave for them a culture which continues to be ageist to embed these ideas that are harmful to our collective health that are harmful to our society as a whole and set the world up so that those half of our grandchildren that make it to 90 or 100 years old, are going to spend the last 3040 years of their life unhappy and battling their age. In trying to hide or deny it, or spending lots of money with organizations that are that are convinced that we’re going to cure aging, like it’s a disease, or we can be aware of what ageism is the effect that it has on us individually and as a society, and that this is really kind of a justice issue. And we can reframe this thinking so that when those grandkids celebrate their 90 them 100th, birthdays, there, they are happy, and they are experiencing the abundant life as we say that they are flourishing, because the barriers that ageism has put in into is embedded into our culture are not as prevalent. I’m not. I would love to say that they don’t exist. But I would like to be a little more realistic and say they’re not as prevalent. And it is easier for people to say no to those and to embrace the gift that aging really is because,

Michael Hughes 06:05
You know, this is where I really appreciate the work of the senator bath because I don’t think anybody ages normally, I don’t think there’s anything that we can call normal engagement. But I do think that in society, there is this concept of normal aging. That is just as you described, this just inevitable downward slope of function and looks and mental capacity and ability to be relevant. And all those things that essentially just informed him I can’t say infantilize until I say infantilized that really do infantilize older people and kind of put this into this state of learned helplessness where they’re just sort of happy for anything that they get. And I say that because I think that there needs to be more around. If that’s what people think is normal aging, then let’s introduce what normal aging quotes really is not the person who’s 90 That goes skydiving, right, the person that night, that’s 90 that goes and plays golf every three times a week, or the person that is still teaching or contributed, you know, I’m just contributing or

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 07:14
the person Yeah, the person who’s 90, who has a sense of what their purpose is in life, and they’re able to fulfill that. And that may be as mundane as being the one to go over and check next door for their neighbor who works. And they take their next door neighbor’s dog once a day. Yeah, that may be flourishing, they’re contributing to others. So we can’t define for anybody else, what they understand the purpose to be and what it means to flourish in their later life. And to your point earlier, when you started this conversation, the reality is that those ageists built really are barriers to how we are aging right now. And this does affect our kids. In January of 2024. Earlier this year, a headline came across my news feed from the BBC. And I thought, oh, and I took a screenshot of it. And I thought I’m gonna throw that into this presentation I’m going to do on Monday morning for training of the health department, here in the county where we work, and so I threw it in and I thought, okay, you know, this is just an example. It’s, yeah, it’s kind of far away in England. But the article was an article that dermatologist England had made a statement alerting parents, that for children, for children in elementary school, that it is dangerous, it’s a health risk for them to be using face creams that have retinal, because there are messages that are being sent and received by elementary school aged children, that if they start now using age cream that’ll go chuckles as they age, they won’t have any wrinkles. Oh, no. And retinol can cause serious damage in children. So when we’re talking about changing aging, we’re not only talking about changing and improving the lives of the half who might be 90 or 100. We’re talking about affecting the lives of the younger generations who are in our care who we still have the opportunity to be in relationship with to affect how they are experiencing the aging process right now.

Michael Hughes 09:29
And again, I think I just you know, quoting Bob Kramer in our previous bar that you know, ageism is a bias against our future selves.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 09:37
Yep. And so here I am in the middle of Ohio, and I share that screenshot thinking okay, you know, this is kind of an out there thing. And the person sitting in the chair in front of me, raised his hand and said, I’ve had this conversation with my eight year old, stop it. This is not something that’s happening out there. Across the pond, these are messages that are infiltrating and being shared with our kids right now, we have to reframe and if we can’t, if we don’t see it for ourselves, and we figure, okay, I’ve, you know, I can handle this, we have got to change as a society for for the health of all of our kids, even those who make it to 50 or 60 or 24. It affects how we’re aging right now. Right?

Michael Hughes 10:31
Right. Well, Beth, incredibly compelling subject. This is your deal. You live this every day. This is part of the good works that the Ruth Ross Parker center is fostering under your leadership and just such a privilege to sit down and really unpack these ideas with you. And more thanks, though, to our listeners for tuning in and being a part of this show about the art of aging. We’ve had church homes and please join us in person, or virtually for our annual symposium, the rainforest prepper center annual symposium, Friday, October 4 at the nationwide conference center in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. You can find out more about this symposium, the theme this year of meaning purpose and redefining retirement with information on how you can attend in person and virtually by visiting UnitedChurchHomes.org/Parker-center. We hope to see you there. And Beth my thanks again for a wonderful session.

Rev. Beth Long-Higgins 11:25
Thanks Mike.