Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON Vol. 3, No. 3, May 1999 - Articles

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Does Age Really Matter?
By Ele Pawelski, Human Rights Project Officer, UNA-Canada

Older people are volunteers, workers, community leaders, community members, teachers, students, guardians, dependents, caregivers, care receivers, mothers, fathers. Older persons perform roles as diverse as the rest of society - they are simply persons placed into one group because they have reached a certain chronological age. As James Thurber put it: "I’m 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I’d only be 48."

Our society has always been captivated with chronological age: She’s a young fifty year old - He’s accomplished so much in his twenty years - I can’t believe the age difference between those two - Why don’t you act your age? The tendency to see people as just a member of their age group, rather than as individuals, is a relatively common practice. Certainly, we speak of entitlements accruing to people once they have reached a particular age such as driving privileges or Old Age Security benefits. Age has always been a remarkably easy way to classify people.

Granted, people in various age groups do have shared characteristics, but it is trite to use these as defining characteristics. In our society the prevalency of ageism and stereotyping makes this type of classification even more suspect. One of the concepts of the International Year of Older Persons, 1999 is to encourage an age-inclusive society. This will be accomplished in part by breaking down, or exploding, the myths and stereotypes that confront older persons in their daily lives.

Older persons can and do contribute to our society and will keep contributing in meaningful and useful ways. They are active, interesting, and their enthusiasm for life should come as no surprise. Perhaps we need to rediscover the fact that age is, after all, only an indication of time lived on earth.

The next time you want to consider someone solely based on their chronological age, remember ability - and not age - should be the key to how one sees other people.