"If These Walls Could Talk ..."
Too often we ignore or devalue the knowledge and memories passed down to us from older, more experienced people. Have you ever been...
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Ageful Living
- Dec 19, 2022
- 7 min
A Season of Surprise
How do we explain when memories of certain delightful gifts, years later, return to us as unexpected treasures? Dear Santa: Please bring...
- Sep 13, 2022
- 4 min
From the Catcall to the Catacomb
You’d think there were only two inevitable experiences for women over the course of their adult lives. I can’t recall when I first saw...
- Jul 19, 2022
- 5 min
A Is for Ageism, B Is for Bigotry
C is for “Can we prevent these from taking hold in children?” You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught from...
- Jul 19, 2021
- 4 min
Who Cares About Caregiving? Part 2
As time passes, caregivers will need greater recognition, acceptance, and support from all parts of our society. In Part 1, I presented...
- Jul 6, 2021
- 4 min
Who Cares About Caregiving? Part 1
It's not a disease or disability. It's the future of health care. On November 26, 2002, The Charlotte Observer published the following...
- Mar 3, 2021
- 4 min
Let's Teach These ABCs, Too
While we’re teaching elementary students how to read and do math, we should add lessons on the benefits of Aging, Belonging, and...
- Jan 23, 2021
- 4 min
An Iconic Solution
Instead of creating a new “warning” symbol depicting older adults, why have one at all? Four months ago, the Centre for Ageing Better in...
- Apr 9, 2020
- 4 min
Could Appreciation of Old Age Go Viral?
One huge impact of this pandemic might just be a gradual integration of the positive qualities of elderhood into the rest of society. In...
- Feb 19, 2020
- 4 min
Ageism: The Next Generation
Gen Xers have their own views of aging and ways to counteract discrimination. The recent “OK, Boomer” meme is just the latest example of...
- Jul 8, 2019
- 4 min
Building Toward Age Equity: Three "Inter"-Changing Models
Strategies that are interdependent, intergenerational, and intersectional can help abolish ageism. After decades of struggle, pro-aging...
- May 21, 2019
- 3 min
The Tony Bennett Effect
How the iconic singer has chosen to live exemplifies three basic realities of the older adult experience: adaptability, resourcefulness,...
- Nov 12, 2018
- 4 min
What’s Fueling the Anti-Ageism Movement?
Dedicated grassroots activists and innovative organizational campaigns are fighting to end age discrimination. In 2011, it was Occupy...
- Oct 16, 2018
- 2 min
Grains of Truth
What if we re-examine how we evaluate age-appropriate behaviors and we actively "stir up" our collective culture to allow greater...
- Jul 31, 2018
- 3 min
What's Your "And"?
I invite you to join me in improvising our way through these later years. It's easier than you think. All you have to do is answer this...
- Apr 10, 2018
- 3 min
The "Wow" Factor
We commit a great social injustice by failing to recognize and accept the variety of ways to be a child, or a teen, or a middle-aged...
- Jul 7, 2017
- 5 min
Does "Elder Wisdom" Exist?
Do older adults inevitably acquire a special kind of inner knowledge, or is this a mere stereotype? Is there such a thing as “elder...
- Apr 22, 2017
- 4 min
Caveat mentor
There’s no doubt that being a mentor carries responsibilities. But so, too, does being a mentee. Here’s part of a conversation I...
- Dec 9, 2016
- 3 min
Embracing the Spectrum
More broadly than any other time since the Civil War, Americans have experienced domestically the human impulse to “otherize.” Red....
- Oct 26, 2016
- 3 min
On Asking "the Question"
When is it ever acceptable to ask a person’s age? In other words, when is the question relevant? “How old are you?” I was asked this...
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