Ageism, alive and well.

On Fridays, we get the local free sheet, the Brighton and Hove Leader. It’s as good as any other free sheet out there. In it I read that 50+ aged local people could attend Golden Opportunities session. These involved arts and crafts (exciting, can’t wait), word search and number competitions (Bingo?), computer tasters, advice on back problems and other fun activities. Back problems are fun activities? A computer taster? Does that mean they cover how to click a mouse? Maybe not even that much actual involvement. The older generation knows what Golden means. Remember the Golden Girls TV show?

Recently I have noticed a lot of activities and benefits offered to 50+ aged people. This could be because that’s the age group I am in, of course. Smacks me between the eyes, so to speak. What’s more, they seem to be targeted at the lower levels of intellectual capacity.

It makes me question why the age of 50 and over is suddenly the age of senility, or close to senility. Hillary Clinton is running for President of the United States at the age of 59. If she gets in, she will be 61 when she takes on the job. I really don’t think one could peg her at the senile stage. Does the world view her then as special or extraordinary?

Some Western Countries and Japan have started doing the math in terms of how many 50+ people will be alive in the next years, and how few younger generation folk will be available to support the pensions of the top-heavy numbers of older people. The UK has moved to push through legislation to extend the retirement age by a few years. Germany is proposing and has implemented some far reaching benefits to families/mothers and babies, financially as well as setting up new child care facilities to entice a higher growth rate, or at least not a negative one as is the case at the moment.

Wouldn’t it be easier really to just understand that the 50+ folk are actually not senile as yet? Given half a chance they could continue to work well into the seventies, shock horror I know, and thus take some of the retirement and pension burden away from the state and younger taxpayers. If one were to survey the 50+ folk it would be found that they don’t actually want to retire so early. Possibly once they get closer to 70 they might wish to reduce some of the hours per week they spend at work. Have the challenge of work, or go to activity centres where you are treated as if you are senile? No brainer I would imagine.

Traditionally in the agricultural sector, there was no retirement age. Even if the body wasn’t that strong anymore, there were still things you could do to contribute to the welfare of the business unit, which of course was often a family. Every pair of hands was welcome. Not that many recorded Alzheimer sufferers either amongst the farming community, it seems. Every person, whatever his or her age, had a function to fulfil. And everybody was needed and his or her efforts appreciated.

I have often wondered, having spent many years working in the media industry, where the older creative directors, copywriters, account execs etc get to. Is there a hole somewhere where they disappear into once they reach thirty-five or forty years of age? Or possibly they leave the industry to spend more quality time with their children, as I read about a senior Ad Person yesterday. Read, put out to pasture, perhaps? He will probably start a small home business, or consult wherever he can. All that experience and knowledge could go to waste. This is just a speculation about this particular person, but check the industry and see how young it is. Very few make it to retirement age within the advertising industry. They disappear well before that. And as for online media, forget it if you are out of diapers! No chance of a job there then.