Ageism cuts both ways: Don’t Discount the Kids

Gen-Xers to Millenials
Sharper than WE were?

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
from the What Kind of World do YOU Want? Series

Eavesdropping on an interesting discussion

Found HERE

Shortly after calling for an end to Stigma in my 2017 September Awareness Days article, I had the occasion to revisit the topic through another lens.

Coming across a couple of “kids” in the nearby park where my puppy TinkerToy and I sometimes wander, I was reminded yet again of the need to guard against our knee-jerk assessments.

By looks alone, it would have been all too easy to dismiss the pair as yet another Blonde Barbie and an over-eager lad who wanted nothing so much as to get her alone and in private.

Since we seemed to be wandering the same paths, Tink and I just a bit behind them, I had an opportunity to eavesdrop on their lively conversation.

BOOKS! They were discussing classic novels, comparing and contrasting them in a manner that would have done any geek-level book club proud.

Their vocabulary was certainly equal to my own, and their knowledge of the books they were discussing was superior.  They looked to be no older than 18 –  freshmen or sophomores, most likely, attending one of the many nearby colleges.

When they turned around to head back my way, apparently reaching a dead-end on one of the paths that Tinker wanted to investigate, I asked them how well they knew the park and if they knew where a different trail led.

I discovered, in the lengthy conversation that followed, that they were both not only intelligent but delightful – and very kind to Tink.  It turned out they were just beginning their senior year in High School!

I hope they discovered that whatever they initially thought about me was inaccurate as well — especially since I am probably at least as old as their grandparents.

How many times do we assume a “generation gap” that doesn’t really exist?  And how many opportunities to populate our world with friends of all ages pass us by because we do?

Have you ever actually talked with a couple of dark-skinned dread-locked young men — or a few of those “kids” with spiky purple and green hair, belly-baring tee shirts with confrontational sayings — and nose rings? (I mean, about more than who does their hair and what happens when they have a cold and need to blow their nose.)

Respect goes both ways. Some of them have equally “out of the box” views on drug abuse, politics and life itself that just might save us all.

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Another young beauty

Found HERE

I gave my phone number recently to a graduate student I met on another walk with Tink.  She and I were both heading home in different directions, passing each other on the sidewalk.

She was truly gorgeous, with long dark hair, a beautiful smile, and obviously much younger than I.

She stopped me to ask if I’d mind if she pet my puppy, and wanted to take a photo of Tink to send back home to her family.

That comment led to a lengthy conversation during which I learned where she was from, that she was a devout Muslim, that she wore the hajib only once she returned home — and that her mother was originally from Iran.

I shared that an Iranian doctor and his wife lived next door to my parents when I was in High School, along with a few examples to underscore the point that they were some of the loveliest people I had ever met – and that my father was a pioneer in America’s missile program.

That’s when I found out what she was studying: astrophysics!!

We went on to discuss feminism and how difficult it is still for female scientists to be taken seriously. She joked that she sometimes wondered if she needed to tie up her hair and don the geekiest pair of glasses she could find.

I suggested going to lectures in a lab coat to hide her figure – although the outfit outlining her curves could easily have taken her to lunch with the most conservative of American grandparents.

Her ready laughter was contagious, as we segued into the topic of relationships, and how difficult it was to recover from heartbreak and move on.  We hugged as we parted company reluctantly.

Did that interaction shatter any stereotypes about Muslim women?  Or beautiful women?  Or young women in general — or the interests of the younger generation of the world we share?

She, apparently, held no such stereotypes in her mind that might have encouraged her to believe that an older American woman walking her fluffy little dog had nothing to say that would be of interest to her.

Even though she doesn’t drink, I hope to introduce her to my trivia team at Tink’s Cheers bar – we need a few more young people at the table who have a clue about some of the topics that leave us “oldsters” shaking our heads!

More Stigma Busting

Speaking of Tink’s Cheers Bar (where everybody knows his name) . . . I have been relatively recently adopted by the friendliest and most eclectic group of interesting people it has ever been my pleasure to meet.

I am always eager to talk with one particular 30-something male covered in “ink” — quite a few tattoos, even for a bar where they are commonly seen.  This really nice guy seems to seek me out as well.

We have touched on everything from disabilities to hemispheric neglect and neuroscience, to incarceration, to goal setting and making a living. Nobody walks away without being uplifted by his positive outlook.

At the other end of the calendar . . .

There’s Rif, the gentleman with whom I share a birthday — along with, he tells me, a much younger Indian student who frequents the bar.  We plan to party together this November, gathered around the wood-burning firepit that is a winter feature of the large fenced in patio space outside.

Everybody knows Rif – and adores him. The trivia team on which we both play every Sunday night is named for him: Rif Raff.  He looks so much like Gandalf (long grey beard and walking stick included) that the young female patrons want to stroke his beard, and snap photos hugging each other closely.

Rif is primarily self-educated, spending many of his younger years with grandparents in Appalachia, and knows more about the natural world and “eating wild” than anybody I have ever met.  He is MUCH more valuable to the team than I am!

Beginning as a youngster, he continues to read the Oxford English Dictionary for fun!

I could go on to mention more than a few interesting individuals approaching my age and older, who interact with abandon with the other patrons.  They are age as well as color-blind, it seems to me, their backgrounds and current situations quite different from my own:

• a Cincinnati bred “singing Irishman” who, winter and summer, will be seen in sandals, with a newsboy cap atop another of his huge wardrobe of tie-dyed tees. He is an artist with his own website where some of his 40 years of artwork can be seen, TDR Galleries . . .
• another interesting Cincinnati native — a part-time driver who drinks only cola.  He often walks me safely home, and has been kind enough to take me on several personal tours of the city — with so many past careers that it would, no doubt, take an entire blog article to describe the ones I know about so far . . .
• the single mom of an amazingly talented, ambiguously-gendered youth, who comes to support on karaoke nights in the front bar downstairs . . .
• and many more fascinating characters, with depth that transcends all stereotypes stemming from their appearance, age, sexual preference or race.

IMAGINE what delights I would have missed had I walked Tink quickly by the front doors of this neighborhood bar after taking a hurried look at the crowd inside.

It might have been easy to do, especially since a motorcycle club occasionally parks so many bikes in front of the place that a less adventurous soul might have concluded it was “one of those biker bars!” (as if they knew what those are like!)

Stereotyping of all kinds hurts everybody –
but most of all, it hurts US!

The next time you catch yourself making assumptions,
take some time to check them out.
You might just meet some new best friends.

Interested in More?

Click HERE to catch up with Audrey and Tom (and their chocolate lab, Tink’s friend Emma), as they journey through the United States, spending time with people they might otherwise never have met, listening to their stories, and searching for the connections they always find and share (along with photos and videos of some gorgeous countryside!)

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Related articles right here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com

• Awakening in Wisdom
• You Don’t HAVE to Lose it as you Age
• Good News on Brain-aging from the Nun Study

A Few LinkLists by Category
(to Series articles here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com)

• The Walking A Mile in Another’s Shoes Series (you are NOT alone here!)
• The Articles of the What Kind of World do YOU Want? Series

Related Articles ’round the net

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• Epitome of Stereotyping!
• Do Men Have It Easier Than Women Or Is This A Fallacy?
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• Disappointment in different accent: the perils of vocal stereotyping
• The role of schools in gender stereotyping
• The Google Diversity Memo: It’s still stereotyping—just not the way you think it is!
• Ageism Gone Wild! I Am Now Too Old to Shop At Zara—And So Is Your Daughter! (great version of When I’m 64 at the end!)
• Reclaiming the word ‘old’: How fashion is fighting ageism
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• Ageism Goes Both Ways
• Getting Old Does Not Suck!
• 8 Steps to Dynamic Living After 60 (Or Really Anytime)

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