to be fed up with casual ageism?

I have never experienced this prejudice. Perhaps because I don’t go looking for it. I take life as it comes and am always pleased to hear friendly words and to be offered help even if I don’t need it.

How is a "helper" supposed to suss out when help is needed and appreciated, and when it is not?

The other day my husband who is 73 stopped to buy a carton of beer and a flask of whine, the guy serving him then asked if he would like a hand carrying it to the car. He wasnt offended, he thought it was funny.

fancythat How is a "helper" supposed to suss out when help is needed and appreciated, and when it is not?

You ask someone if they need help and if they do not, you leave them alone. At least that is how I do it. Usually people appreciate it, now and again they are rude. Hey ho, that's life

A friendly smile and welcome might mean people would ask.

Kindness is the most important response in the world. If we ‘try’ to respond to what’s said to us, with kindness, despite any irritation we may feel, then we help to make the world a kinder place.

I use the phone app in Sainsbury’s because I get discounts on things I buy regularly, the Lidl app because it gives me freebies depending on what I spend and the ASDA app, though I rarely shop there (distance).
I’ve lived with being asked, “Would you like a seat or a hand or help?” and being called love, or dear, since I was carrying my babies around, though it does surprise me to be called babe
I’m happy to accept any assistance offered, in the hope that when I do need it, it will still be available.

Sainsbury's Nectar prices are available when buying on line so long as your Nectar card is linked.

kittylester

It's not being called old that is the problem, it is the prejudice that goes along side it.

How is one to know it is prejudice? Maybe it's just observation and reaction to what is observed. Many old people do need help with stuff. Many don't. But the proportion who do is greater than in the groups that can largely be called middle-aged or young.

Assumptions based on the above are not prejudice in my view, even if in individual cases they are mistaken. We all generalise about everyday stuff. It's a natural way of coping with the world.

At the risk of being bawled out for saying this, I think assumptions of prejudice against one because one is old might be called "age fragility" – an over-sensitivity to people just trying to be helpful or, as often in shops, just doing their job as they've been instructed to do it.

In your case, kitty, perhaps the previous six old people at the self serve checkout you went to had needed help.

Obviously if help is offered with a sneer that's another matter but sneers in Waitrose?¿?¿?

Personally I enjoy being asked if I would like some help. Not that I'm doddery or anything like it but rather that I have earned the right to be able to step back a bit and let younger people with more energy offer to help

Earlier I went to open the gate for the Tesco delivery and it was jammed in position so that it wouldnt open. I lost my temper, screamed at it. swore and threw my full weight against it to force it open. When the Tesco man arrived I told him about my misadventures and that he might have had to go right around to the side gate. He had a look at it and fixed it. Sometimes Im grateful to have a sturdy young man around when something needs a bit of brute force.

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.

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

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.

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

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

"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

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

😲

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!!

annodomini

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

Yes!! 😀

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

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.

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. 😥

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.

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?

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