When Ageism Became A Thing
And where it, and we, are now
Once again, Happy Saturday. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this as much as I did putting it together. The theme for the next two weeks is aging. We’ll start here, with a quote from the “father of ageism,” the late Dr. Butler
“When we act negatively toward old age, we are slashing our own tires.”
Amen.
Pioneering psychologist and gerontologist Robert N. Butler coined the term “ageism” in an interview with a young Washington Post reporter named Carl Bernstein (you may remember him).
It was 1968.
Dr. Butler was troubled by the societal prejudice against older people. He found it analogous to other “isms” of the era, specifically sexism and racism.
He nailed it with ageism.
How could he have known the term would become lodged in the American zeitgeist, a bête noire that, decades later, we still can’t quite shake.
Aging becomes a “thing”
A psychiatrist and gerontologist, Butler served on the medical faculties of George Washington and Howard universities. He later (1990) created the first department of geriatrics at a medical school in the U.S., at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.
But first…
In 1975, Butler published his seminal work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Why Survive? Being Old in America.
He wrote, “In America, childhood is romanticized, youth is idolized, middle age does the work, wields the power and pays the bills, and old age, its days empty of purpose, gets little or nothing of what it has already done. The old are in the way.”
A pretty doom and gloom message. His career was devoted to changing that perception of aging.
That same year, 1975, Butler became the founding director of the National Institute on Aging, part of the NIH. Under Butler’s aegis, research into aging blossomed.
His interest in cognitive health in older people led to establishing research into Alzheimer’s as a national priority.
In the 1990s, his gaze turned toward longevity and an interdisciplinary approach to aging.
He said at the time, ”... (what) we really needed now was an educational policy research center, a think and do tank, to identify the consequences of an aging population, the long-term economic, cultural, social, political, and health consequences of this unprecedented increase in longevity.”
It was prescient.
Butler established the U.S. branch of the emerging International Longevity Center, studying the impact of longevity upon society and its institutions. It is now part of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, based at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
In the last half-century, research into aging and longevity has flowered into an interdisciplinary array across leading universities and research centers, including the Butler Center at Columbia. To cite a few:
Yale - interdisciplinary geroscience and biology
Stanford - multidisciplinary approach to longevity
Tufts - nutrition and aging
The Mayo Clinic - chronic diseases in aging
Harvard - biology of aging
Beyond Academia - A refocus on aging in the public square.
The topic of aging led to a plethora of Amazon bestsellers. In various forms, these books describe what the NIH defines as “successful aging”: a high degree of physical, psychological, and social abilities, and the absence of significant disease.
The positive author tone - a combination of “how-tos,” acceptance, and encouragement - brings to mind two recent books.
A Well-Lived Life by Dr. Glady McGarey. Dr. McGarey earned her MD when most women couldn’t even open their own bank accounts. Her career was marked by professional misogyny, loss, and resilience. At 103, she wrote a book that is part memoir, part guide for a purposeful life. (Full disclosure: I interviewed “Dr Gladys” for this podcast.)
Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half by Kerry Burnight, PhD. Dr. Burnight, aka “America’s Gerontologist,” has reinvisioned what it means to age. Joyspan became a New York Times bestseller almost immediately; she was featured recently on this podcast.
Burnight taught geriatric medicine and gerontology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine for nearly two decades. Recently, she has become a force on Instagram, and often features her mother, Betty, who, at 95, epitomizes the virtues of Joyspan:
Personal Growth - never stop learning
Adaptation - learn how to pivot when you must
Social Connection - isolation is the enemy
Giving back - Dr Burnight insists, “Everyone has something to give,...whether it’s time, attention, patience, wisdom or kindness.”
Fifty years later, Dr. Butler would be thrilled.
NB. This is the first of a two-part series on aging.
Cheers for Dr. Butler -- and to you, Jane, for making us more aware of his work.
In the mid 1970s I was accepted into the Gerontology and Adult Learning doctoral program at the U of Michigan. The first person we were introduced to was Dr. Butler. I ultimately went in a different direction and became a clinical social worker and coach, but I’ve always drawn on his work. Thanks for the excellent post. Lynne Berrett