It’s no fun getting older in our youth-obsessed culture. As for those who would mock their elders, two words of advice: just wait
Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyPhotograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyJust before President Biden turned 80 in November, he said something that I could identify with – that he didn’t even want to say his age out loud.American media serves as a constant, enthusiastic choir for the nation’s youth worship. Being older here is not only not for sissies, as the saying goes, but can be downright debilitating.displayed during the Grammy awards show.
Men, at least, get a few more years of viability. The late actor Sean Connery was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” at age 59. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were celebrated on a recent episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” though several band members are over 60. Even in the wake of the president’s much-praised State of the Union address, the calls mounted for him to step aside for 2024. My Duke University colleague, Frank Bruni, for example, wrote in his New York Times newsletter that he reluctantly agreed with Times columnist Michelle Goldberg’s plea for Biden not to run for reelection even while she praised him as a great president. “In saving us from a second term of Trump, Biden quite likely saved us from ruin,” Bruni wrote.
Ageism goes far beyond celebrities and public officials. Noting that 35% of the US population is now 50 or older, the advocacy group AARP calls age discrimination “the last acceptable bias.” Three in four Americans over 45 see ageism as an obstacle in job-hunting, the group reports, and half of older workers say they have been prematurely pushed out of longtime jobs.
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