Attitudes towards the Elderly?

Question

Old is a relative measure of time, yet it conveys mostly negative impressions. How might these attitudes about old affect one’s attitudes about growing old? About being with older people?

Answer 1

Our culture has encouraged the elderly to devalue themselves with the dream of the useless retirement.

Answer 2

I say stable for them. Why might desire to I even have an approach of any type in direction of the elderly? I do my very own housekeeping plus help hubby seem after the horses and do different chores exterior. i'm sixty 4 and nevertheless do a large type of activities. i wish to proceed on a similar time as I improve older. Poppy

Answer 3

I think the fact that our society tends to view growing old as negative definitely impacts people's attitudes about growing old. People try all sorts of things to stay looking and feeling young physically, such as surgery and staying fit and keeping up to date with the current trends. Meanwhile, people who are still young tend to keep away from the elderly when they should be embracing them for their wisdom as well as stories from the past which should be recorded for future generations because once their generation is gone, these family stories will disappear with them. There are definitely cultures that embrace the elderly and revere them for their wisdom, our civilization can certainly learn from this example.

Answer 4

Just remember that the elderly were once young vibrant people that loved and worked and played and time went by and they got older. You can learn a lot listening to the older generation. If we live long enough we will be able to tell our history to the young people.

Answer 5

In our western culture, we don't like to see people age. We put them in nursing homes, retirement communities, etc.. pushing them away so we aren't reminded of growing old and dying ourselves. We've trained ourselves to distance ourselves from aging, seeing it as a negative undesireable condition, as if it was something we could stop or change. These attitudes have made us afraid of growing old.

Answer 6

Other people have answered your original question already, so I'll add this extraneous comment:

Of all the Isms, ageism (I think there's a better word for this but can't remember...) makes the least amount of sense.

While racists will never know what it's like to be of another race and gender-bigots will never know what it's like to be of the opposite gender, everyone (barring premature death) will be old someday; everyone who expresses ageism will someday be subject to it.

Just a thought.

Answer 7

Some old people become helpless,and sickly,and they hate their situations, that is why most of them are cranky and not too nice to be around with.They need love,kindness, caring compassion,tenderness and patience.When I see an old person,I felt compassion to her/him, thinking maybe during his/her younger days he/she contributed( Job) the best of his/her effort to make this world a better place to live.

Answer 8

It makes people afraid of growing old. The U.S. is unique in it's culture of pushing old folks aside and not respecting them. this has to change with all of the baby boomers starting to retire. I was raised to respect aging people and I am in the minority.

Answer 9

Well, these "negative impressions" are a self-fullfilling prophecy and a result of sterotypes people hold. Think about what these stereotypes are. Continue goodgoodgood...and do your own homework!

Answer 10

Don't want to worry about being old. When it comes, we have to face it.