Graywashing

I’ve been updating the Senior Centre listings on Senior Toronto, and I’m struck by all the name changes over the last few years. Senior Centres used to call themselves Senior Centres (and I still call them that on Senior Toronto). Then they became Elderly Persons Centres but that sounded, well, too elderly. So they perked up the titles and next we got Active Aging Centres. Now they’ve morphed into Active Living Centres. They’ve finally managed to stamp out any reference to the vile, shameful process of aging. Success at last!

Denial of aging runs deep in our culture. We’re constantly being urged to eat a healthier diet and to work out more than ever in old age. So if we deteriorate anyway, as most of us will, it will be our own fault. We’re bombarded with ads for anti-aging products and plastic surgery so that, when the inevitable happens, we hope the evidence will be erased. Seniors are celebrated only if they’re still mountain-climbing or bungee-jumping at 93; in other words, if they behave like young people.

What a fraud. Old age has its rewards but it’s undeniably a tough slog, a time of decline and loss, and it sure would help to live in a society that faced it head on. Instead, we have to confront ageism and stigma and graywashing. Instead of dealing with all the physical and mental and social changes that aging brings, we’re made to feel ashamed that we let this happen to us. So we’re emotionally unprepared for it and have trouble adjusting. We buy into the ageism that allows our society to duck its responsibility to us, to provide the medical care and home care and long term care that we will inevitably need. But our bodies know the clock is ticking, and we have to listen.