to be fed up with casual ageism?

I also still think that someone doing one of the most boring and unrewarding jobs in the world ("hovering assistant") needs to be given some slack. A lot of slack in fact.

Well said, M0nica.

I still one can be oversensitive though. Most stereotypes have arisen because in general they are or have been useful. Their usefulness sometimes wears out, it is true, and I guess that's where problems start.

Ha ha. One of those is (surely) a man M0nica

My Mum was always fiercely independent, and cutting in her manner.

At her diabetic review one year she was told she qualified for free chiropody treatment and did she want to arrange an appointment?
"I told her in no uncertain terms, I'm perfectly capable of cutting my own toenails," was her sharp reply.

I was grumbling to my son one day about something she'd said to me and he just laughed and said, "Face it, mother, Grandma's always been rude!"

I wouldn't want my grandchildren thinking that about me ☹️

springishere

I'm not proud! I wish someone would help me at the checkout.

Me too, we have all retired from our careers, most don’t need to work but the extra cash is always welcome, the managers ar3 good and the discounts on shopping welcome

For me it's the assumption that groups of people are not individuals in their own right.
The Disabled
The Elderly
The Young.
Particularly annoying when applied to people who have a disability.

Baggs because it is casual ageism. You could make the same comment to someone subject to racism or sexism.

I challenge it, not because, I am bothered by what people think of me. We have both been on GN long enough to know that isn't true, but casual agism, sexism, racism comes form ingrainedsteroetypes within the other person's mind. It is their own institutional bias and could affect how they treat people in corcumstances where it matters.

I'm not proud! I wish someone would help me at the checkout.

There is still ageism in employment, I have been trying for 18 months to get a job in my 70s. I have excellent qualifications and many years experience in the sort of roles I am applying for. I have no problem getting interviews, but there is such a look of surprise on the faces of the interviewers when I walk in or pop up on screen. Twenty years ago I would have been confident of sailing through, the interviews go very well, but at the following phone call I am always told that it was so close, but someone just pipped me too it. I took this on the chin the first few times, but it has happened too often now. If you want to volunteer, you are made welcome, but the idea of paying someone my age seems anathema! 🤔 🙂

That tickled me pink!

In short, why do we mind so much what people who don’t know us (might) think about us?

It makes me feel really old.

And there’s the rub.

But why does something make anyone feel “really old” if they really aren’t or, if they really are but can manage just fine?

I'm with Kittylester. I don't like it being assumed I can't manage. It makes me feel really old.
Recently in a store the self-service checkout wasn't working and the assistant assumed I'd done something wrong. She proceeded to check everything out, while I stood behind, then told me how to pay. (Put your wee card in) I gave her a look and told her I know what I'm doing!
I think they should wait until asked, or at least be more sensitive.

My folks, who were only in their 60s at the time and comfortably off, were once surprised to find a pair of young teens at the door shortly before Christmas, with a decorated box of groceries and goodies evidently intended as a present for the needy elderly.
But my father, who always had perfect manners, accepted it graciously.

Years later, when dds’ school were doing similar, more than one of the girls was upset at having the door slammed in their face, with a, ‘We don’t want charity!’
You can understand it, though.

On a similar note, their school, along with the boys’ ditto next door, used every year to hold a massive Christmas party for various local elderly - whether anyone ever declined I don’t know, but it was always hugely popular. Dh or I used to be detailed to drive guests to and from, and I still remember the very elderly couple who said they hardly ever got out, and what a treat it was to have a ride in a car. 😥

kittylester

*baggs*, but, surely, to assume that the next old person through the tills will need help is the definition of casual ageism.

I don't think it is. It's behaving in a way that was necessary with the previous six old people so the odds are in favour of it again.

If it were young people needing help with some problem young people have and old people don't, the same analysis would apply. I think that's all that was happening in your case.

Your feelings tell you different. So be it. We just differ in our outlook on this.

I'd be disappointed if you weren't anno!!

annodomini

I'd like to be the one protecting her cat with a gun!

Yes!! 😀

😲

Most have got grey hair and wrinkles too!!

I think I'm most like the serene indigenous Brazilian woman (well, perhaps that's wishful thinking 😀) but I've not reached 80 yet.

Oh to see ourselves as others see us!!

I'd like to be the one protecting her cat with a gun!

"Oh you do look good for your age",
I smile but it hides my rage,
Why did nobody see my worth
Until eighty years after my birth?

One of my little pomes

My DS and he DH took my DH and I out this week to celebrate our 80th birthdays(nt due for a month or so).

She said to us: 'Neither of you look 80', which I know was meant as a compliment, but it always annoys me when people say that, because, again, it is dealing in stereotypes of what a person of 80ought to look like.

In fact the older we get the wider the range of how we look - and it starts at birth. I was watching DGS, 13, in a school production last week, now DGS is one of those slight thin boys, yet other 13 year olds in the show were tall and nearly fully formed men. All were 'typical 13 year olds.

I do look like a typical 80 year old, as does Mick Jagger, my very near contemporary. Keith Richards, Catherine DeNeuve, Barri Manilow and Billy-Jean King. I look more like Billie-Jean than any of the others

But google the generic '80 year old women' and you get this. www.istockphoto.com/photos/80-year-old-women

I do take your point kittylester though but I think I'm giving in to casual ageism- sleepwalking probably.

I wish someone would help me if I'm shopping alone as my hands are bad, I drop things all the time and I confess to getting a bit flustered these days in supermarkets. The other day I dropped my debit card when paying at the local Tesco and I could not pick it up off the floor so I had to ask the person behind me who helped me immediately but I do wish the man who was serving me had stepped in.

baggs, but, surely, to assume that the next old person through the tills will need help is the definition of casual ageism.

I was very happy to be asked in Sainsbury's yesterday if I needed help, when my nectar coupons wouldn't work. The assistant noticed my frustration.

The ageism which bothers me was when I was in coronary care and asked what this pill was, which I didn't recognise. The nurse muttered: " Oh we give this to all our eldery patients!" I was 64! 😡
I think the look on my face made him realise, he had made a faux pas.

I had the opposite experience recently in hospital, when the consultant said to me: " You are much to young to be like this, we need to get you better!" I was 67.