Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 60: You’ve Internalized Ageism and What It's Costing You — A Frank Conversation with Ashton Applewhite

Transcript

Ep. 60: You’ve Internalized Ageism and What It's Costing You — A Frank Conversation with Ashton Applewhite · Age Like a Badass Mother

• 0:00
  Hi friend! I am thrilled to have the legendary Ashton Applewhite on the podcast today.
• 0:07
  You likely know Ashton from her viral video with Jane Fonda, in which they discuss adding seven years to your life.
• 0:14
  Today we talk about that plus the insidiousness of ageism, especially for women, and the ways that these beliefs quietly shape everything from our self-worth to our relationships.
• 0:29
  If you're new here, you might not know that some episodes back, I discussed how I reversed my heart disease by following a whole food plant based diet.
• 0:38
  After the podcast, just head over to my website.
• 0:41
  Well, elephant.com to download my free whole food plant based cookbook to start exploring how you can transform your health while you're there.
• 0:51
  Check out my online course, Face Plant Based Eating.
• 0:55
  If you're really ready to reverse disease like I did.
• 0:58
  Finally, please comment on social media, the podcast, YouTube, or wherever you find age like a badass mother and let me know what topics you'd like to see covered.
• 1:11
  I truly listen to everything that you have to say.
• 1:14
  I value your opinion and I appreciate you immensely.
• 1:19
  Now here is Ashton Applewhite, right?
• 1:23
  Hi friend, I'm Lauren Bernick and I'm flipping the script about growing older.
• 1:28
  From rebels and rule breakers to wellness warriors and wise women.
• 1:34
  My guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing, and we're not even close to finished.
• 1:42
  Welcome to age like a badass mother.
• 1:46
  An internationally recognized expert on ageism, Ashton Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks a manifesto Against Ageism and co-founder of the Old School Hub.
• 1:57
  She speaks widely at venues that have included the United Nations and the TEDx Main Stage, and is at the forefront of the emerging movement to raise awareness of ageism and make age a criterion for diversity.
• 2:10
  In 2022, the United Nations named Ashton one of the Healthy Aging 5050 leaders Transforming the World to be a better place to grow older.
• 2:19
  So I cannot think of a better person to talk about aging to Ashton Applewhite welcome, Ashton.
• 2:26
  Thank you. Lauren, good to be here.
• 2:27
  And this is Ashton s book for anybody who's watching on YouTube.
• 2:30
  I'm just holding it up.
• 2:32
  This chair rocks some. Underrated I promise.
• 2:34
  It's way.
• 2:35
  Underrated. You know what?
• 2:37
  It was a really interesting read.
• 2:39
  I, what what did you do before you were an advocate for aging?
• 2:46
  I'm I that's always, You're never get a satisfying answer because it's.
• 2:50
  If you look at my bio on my website, I have never had a clear plan for what I wanted to do.
• 2:56
  I never knew what to major in in college.
• 2:58
  I never wanted to be a writer.
• 3:00
  I'm an introvert, so the fact that I'm now a public figure seems absurd.
• 3:05
  But. So I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 3:07
  But I will tell you that I really love doing this.
• 3:10
  I've been at it now for about 20 years, and if you had told me 20 years ago I'd be fascinated by aging, I would have said, why do I want to think about something sad that old people do?
• 3:20
  And of course, I've learned so much among them, the fact that we are aging from the minute we are born.
• 3:26
  Right?
• 3:26
  So, you know, people talk about aging parents, aging celebrities.
• 3:29
  Your newborn is aging, and it touches on every aspect of being human, every domain of knowledge.
• 3:36
  And it's and it's also really unexamined.
• 3:39
  So there's so much like unbroken ground, so many new ideas available for everyone.
• 3:44
  I. Yeah.
• 3:45
  And what what made you first become aware of of ageism?
• 3:50
  I started getting old.
• 3:51
  You know, I don't think I don't think that's just, And I was apprehensive about it.
• 3:59
  You know, and I, I think, I think I don't have a deeply researched or philosophical answer on this, but I think it's really hard to imagine getting old.
• 4:08
  And part of that is because we live in an ages culture that says everything's going to go to hell and be awful, but part of it, I think, is just human.
• 4:15
  We age slowly.
• 4:15
  I mean, as a kid, you cannot.
• 4:18
  Why would you sit in a chair when you could run around?
• 4:21
  Right. And it's hard to imagine.
• 4:23
  But in my mid 50s, you know, I probably had that look in the mirror a moment.
• 4:27
  I'm like, oh, it is happening to me too, like every other human surprise.
• 4:30
  And being nerdy, I started I sort of, I sort of go at the thing that frightens me and, that's my nature.
• 4:39
  And I started researching longevity and interviewing people over 80 and learned in a matter of months, if not weeks, the fact that I started my Ted talk out with a decade later that the fears are real.
• 4:53
  You're not going to get me saying just, you know, you know, cheer up or eat a lot of kale and it's all going to be great.
• 4:58
  You know, there are there are real things, real challenges to aging made much harder by the society in which we age.
• 5:05
  That's my self-appointed mission, is to get people to think how the culture in which we age shapes our aging.
• 5:12
  But I just realized, like most of what I thought I knew about later, life was flat out wrong or not nuanced enough, and I became obsessed with why we only hear the, you know, the negative side of the story.
• 5:25
  And I was off, right?
• 5:26
  Yeah. You know what?
• 5:27
  That's very similar to my story.
• 5:29
  Now, I was in my mid 50s when I started this podcast because.
• 5:35
  Because I was in my mid 50s.
• 5:37
  Not just that, but like I, I've talked about this on the podcast before, like, I reversed my heart disease by following a whole food plant based diet.
• 5:45
  The doctor told me, no, you can't reverse your disease.
• 5:48
  And I did.
• 5:49
  And then it just got me thinking, like, what other things have I been told that are just bullshit and.
• 5:56
  I just accepted. Never thought question.
• 5:58
  Don't question it.
• 5:59
  The doctor says you have to take a statin and you have to.
• 6:02
  Actually, as a woman, and especially to a figure in authority like a doctor.
• 6:08
  Yes. And I've told this story too, that, after about six years on this diet, I wanted to get confirmation that I had reverse disease.
• 6:15
  So I went to I had to get a referral to go to a cardiologist to get all this testing done.
• 6:22
  And I didn't have a primary care physician.
• 6:25
  So I walk into this new place.
• 6:26
  The doctor walks in with her clipboard.
• 6:29
  I swear to God, and I'm sure you believe this.
• 6:31
  She doesn't even look up at me.
• 6:33
  She's looking at the clipboard.
• 6:34
  She's like, okay, you're 52 years old.
• 6:37
  What are you here for?
• 6:38
  You want your statin again or you need your blood pressure medicine?
• 6:41
  Or I was like, look at me, look up at me.
• 6:45
  Really?
• 6:45
  And doctors, good doctors, tell so much from just looking.
• 6:49
  They have, like, X-ray vision.
• 6:51
  They can tell so much about you from just looking at you in one.
• 6:55
  I think it's a thought experiment in the book, is I.
• 6:57
  It's really important to our age is, is important a significant component of our identity and a component of our medical profile.
• 7:07
  However, I would love it to be on page two.
• 7:10
  Same with dating profiles. Right.
• 7:12
  I think you should say how old you are but I don't because and this is no judgment.
• 7:16
  Honestly the minute we have a number all sorts of assumptions about that person click into place.
• 7:23
  That's just it's one of the ways we use like where someone from and what you know, whether they speak your language or whether they're a vegetarian that we use to socially locate people.
• 7:33
  And age is one of those factors.
• 7:34
  And it's, you know, it's important not to pretend or, you know, I think not to say all age is just a number or not to be embarrassed to say our age, but it's also important.
• 7:45
  And it's kind of a it's not a paradox, but it's a delicate balance to push back against the idea that that number tells you all that much about me.
• 7:55
  Yeah.
• 7:55
  And the at a corollary to that, if I may, is that the longer we live, the more different from one another we become.
• 8:03
  Each of us ages at different rates socially, biologically, physically.
• 8:08
  So the older the person, the less that the your chronological age says about you.
• 8:14
  You could have, you know, you could be operating great in two years and have a chronic illness.
• 8:18
  You know, that doesn't mean you're not in the world in interesting ways, for example.
• 8:21
  So, don't don't let we, you know, we're all guilty of it.
• 8:25
  We love to make assumptions.
• 8:25
  We love to categorize.
• 8:27
  Don't get me started on generational labels, which are sort of the, er, stereotype that everyone born sort of roughly around the same time everywhere is the same.
• 8:36
  Yeah. Absurd.
• 8:37
  So is that, is that ageism to to talk about generations because I didn't even realize that because I well.
• 8:46
  It's a term it's like, I mean, this is one of my many private crusades or hopefully public crusades.
• 8:51
  And no judgment.
• 8:53
  I mean, language is a moving target.
• 8:55
  I am not here. I'm not the language police.
• 8:57
  I'm not the what you should wear or say police.
• 8:59
  But I am really not a fan of General stereotypes because they are based on the assumption that everyone the same age, around the same age is similar in fundamental ways.
• 9:13
  Clearly that's absurd.
• 9:14
  I mean, just on the face of the face of it, imagine all the 73 year olds who, you know, in Ghana and London and Santiago that are not a whole lot like me.
• 9:24
  But people love to categorize, we are being aged just any time we make an assumption about someone on the basis of how old we think they are, and generational labels are used for that.
• 9:40
  And humans love to categorize, and it's a really hard habit to break.
• 9:44
  But I if I were the the boss of the world, the word generation would be, struck by lightning any time it was used.
• 9:53
  Except there's only one.
• 9:53
  There's only one agreed upon.
• 9:55
  Meaning your child is another generation from you, and your parents are another generation.
• 10:01
  Other than that, there's no scientifically agreed meaning for the term.
• 10:04
  It can be as little as six years or as many as 20.
• 10:07
  So it's not scientifically accurate.
• 10:10
  And it does two things.
• 10:12
  It it inherently reinforces age stereotypes because it is a generalization about age.
• 10:18
  And also it it lays the groundwork for us versus them framing, oh, those greedy boomers, oh, those lazy millennials, etc., etc.
• 10:27
  and that is the root of all evil.
• 10:28
  Yeah, I agree with you about that.
• 10:31
  But I just do feel like I identify with, generation X now.
• 10:37
  I'm like scared to say this, but I feel like I do.
• 10:40
  I'm glad.
• 10:40
  I got to on the road more than you. Do.
• 10:43
  I I've been terrified to interview you, but thrilled and terrified.
• 10:46
  And I hope not.
• 10:47
  No, I want to learn.
• 10:49
  I mean, obviously I wouldn't have had you here, but, I mean, I do feel like what.
• 10:52
  We all are learning, you know, I view and plus, I mean, I'm not God.
• 10:57
  You may disagree with me, but, you know, I mean, if I ever write another book, which I hope the hell I'd never do because it's the hardest thing I've ever done, it's going to be all I have is the title.
• 11:08
  I have always, but I've always come up with the title miserably months after writing the damn thing.
• 11:13
  But in this one I have the title and it is things I Used to Say.
• 11:17
  Yes, right, right.
• 11:19
  And I used to say generations all the time.
• 11:21
  And now I don't for political reasons that are important to me.
• 11:24
  You don't have to think like, I think I appreciate you listening to what I have to say and considering, you know, thinking differently.
• 11:31
  Yeah, that's a big yes.
• 11:32
  I just feel like for people I know who are around my age, that we did have like so many similar, similar cultural touch points.
• 11:43
  I mean, everybody has that with people around their age and.
• 11:47
  Right. We do, we do.
• 11:48
  My dad was shaped by the Great Depression, living through the depression and World War two.
• 11:52
  So we do have a whole set of cultural and historic references that we share with people born at the same time.
• 12:00
  But but we're probably honestly talking in your, in my case, about like, middle class white girls. Yes.
• 12:07
  In the United States, that was not the experience of pick a, you know, up, you know, lower or higher socioeconomic status person living somewhere in the majority world who doesn't speak English or whatever.
• 12:21
  There is much more diversity within any group than age group.
• 12:26
  And it's also true in racial categories and ethnic categories.
• 12:29
  There's more variation within any circle in that diagram than there is between that circle.
• 12:33
  And that's all right.
• 12:35
  There's so much variation.
• 12:36
  So that's why assumptions are just never, you know, I mean, there's a great, a, a colleague of mine, gerontologist, Tracy Gendron, did this super helpful ageism flowchart has a box at the top that says is age a factor?
• 12:52
  And what I'm about to say or do with a yes and a no?
• 12:56
  And if the answer is no, hooray! It is an ageless.
• 12:59
  And then if it's yes, it is a factor.
• 13:02
  And what I'm about to say, I do say or do the only other boxes.
• 13:06
  Am I making an assumption or judge?
• 13:08
  Yes, based on you.
• 13:10
  And if it's no, then it's not just right.
• 13:13
  Right. The assumptions. Right?
• 13:14
  I mean, before, before you started the recording, I asked about the age of a, an eminent social scientist in this field, and I wondered what age she was.
• 13:24
  I don't think that was a gist of me, although God knows I'm not perfect because I was just curious.
• 13:30
  I wanted a sense.
• 13:31
  So I came on her research early on.
• 13:33
  We're talking about Doctor Ellen Langer.
• 13:35
  She's been on the show.
• 13:35
  I am on a research. Yeah.
• 13:37
  Thank you.
• 13:38
  And I was just curious whether she, you know, had because I started this later in life and I was curious as to whether she was older and younger than I am to sort of locate her in time.
• 13:49
  Right.
• 13:49
  I but I don't think I made an assumption about whether she was competent or incompetent on the basis of what I learned. Correct.
• 13:56
  And I asked you that because I think then you said your age and I asked you, is it.
• 14:01
  A great. Question?
• 14:02
  Is it ages to ask somebody age and and how old are you?
• 14:07
  You said, I mean, I think you said 73 I.
• 14:10
  Will be I will be 73 in 2 weeks.
• 14:12
  Happy birthday.
• 14:13
  I you know, it's not it's a just in job interview. Yes.
• 14:19
  Of course.
• 14:20
  Because I should be judged in a job interview for whether I have the skills for the job, not how old I happen to be.
• 14:27
  You know, these are complicated questions in a dating profile or on a date.
• 14:31
  You know, honestly, if you want to start a family, even then, even then, I could make a case.
• 14:38
  You know, women are now able to prolong our reproductive capacity into our 50s.
• 14:44
  There are, but if you want to, you know, start a family and settle down, you're more likely to do that in the first half of life.
• 14:50
  But even then, it's like with the minute we have an age, though.
• 14:54
  Me too. I'm not exempting myself here.
• 14:57
  A whole set of assumptions do click into place, and if we can keep those assumptions at bay, and it's the same with assumptions about ethnicity or sexual orientations.
• 15:09
  Just try.
• 15:09
  Which is really hard to look at the person and just look at who they are, what's coming out of their mouth, what's on the bookshelves. Yes.
• 15:16
  Or whether they have bookshelves, you know, and try and figure out whether you have something in common with them or something you'd like to do together or not, instead of what we look like, and instead of things about ourselves that we cannot change.
• 15:29
  You actually have something on your website that I.
• 15:32
  I've copied some of them, to ask yourself if you're being just.
• 15:37
  And it's like a little quiz you could take and some of the things are and you guys who are listening can see if you've ever done any of this.
• 15:45
  I called an older adult youngster once, thinking it was a compliment that I, you know, ages.
• 15:52
  I told someone you look great for your age.
• 15:54
  Thinking it was a compliment.
• 15:55
  I joked with a friend about a senior moment when they forgot something.
• 15:59
  I dismissed an older relatives opinion about a current event by saying, that's just because you're from a different time.
• 16:06
  I was, let's say I felt surprised when an older adult use social media fluently thinking it wasn't their thing.
• 16:12
  There's there's a bunch of them, but I I've probably made that age just.
• 16:18
  All have an. Idea.
• 16:19
  That.
• 16:19
  I love, that we're learning this now.
• 16:22
  Well, I been. Thinking about.
• 16:23
  I my favorite comment to get for my book, which usually is something that comes along pretty early, is Holy crap.
• 16:28
  I had no idea from the reader how ages I was and how I participated.
• 16:34
  But let me say two things.
• 16:36
  First of all, we're we live in a culture that barrages us with negative messages.
• 16:41
  Of course, we absorb it.
• 16:42
  It's like the thing that girls are good at math.
• 16:44
  You know, countries where there isn't that myth.
• 16:47
  Girls do better on math test because there isn't a cultural expectation that you're going to be dumber than boys on math.
• 16:53
  We are all shaped by the cultures in which we live.
• 16:55
  So no, no judgment at all.
• 16:58
  And I will say that, like you, I hate that none of us wants to admit to being biased.
• 17:04
  But that first step, which you have already taken, and thank you for being so open and vulnerable about it on your show, and tell me if this is not the case.
• 17:13
  It's like letting a genie out of the bottle the minute you are brave enough to see it in yourself, which is not fun.
• 17:21
  It like or lifts a veil.
• 17:22
  Maybe that's a better metaphor and suddenly you start seeing it in the culture.
• 17:26
  You start seeing it in billboards, you start hearing it on TV and you're like, oh, it's not that I am this terribly flawed human being.
• 17:33
  It's that it is embedded.
• 17:35
  Yes, in the culture.
• 17:36
  It is a social and economic problem.
• 17:38
  And that means we can come together and do something about it. Yes.
• 17:42
  That's what consciousness raising does.
• 17:44
  Yes, exactly.
• 17:45
  And that's why I love having these conversations, because I, I think we are all are all trying to do better.
• 17:53
  Well, hopefully we are. Really.
• 17:54
  Yeah.
• 17:55
  And it's liberating because you're if you're genuinely curious, I mean to me it's like, oh, I mean and I really mean that it gets more interesting all the time because I keep realizing I could have I don't say certain things like that.
• 18:06
  I used to say, I mean, one, this gets said a lot.
• 18:08
  Still, ageism is the only acceptable prejudice.
• 18:10
  They're all still too damn acceptable.
• 18:12
  Yeah, and I don't see that anymore.
• 18:14
  But I don't jump on the throat of people who do say that.
• 18:17
  You know, we are constantly revising how we think about things on the basis of new things we've come across.
• 18:23
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  And, you know, it's interesting.
• 18:28
  So many things I feel like, well, you talked about in the book that two things like that, Americans over 50 control 70% of the disposable income, but that marketers ignore us.
• 18:39
  So I want to know why about that.
• 18:41
  And also the beauty industry, what it's like $300 billion.
• 18:45
  And, you know, you say you can't make money off satisfaction.
• 18:48
  And so, I mean, those I. Would that would be, yeah.
• 18:54
  I guess that's I answered my own question.
• 18:57
  Well, I mean, part of the trick about, you know, selling things, I'll talk about, like, the older, older women in particular.
• 19:05
  We buy more clothes, we buy more household goods, we control more household shopping decisions typically than, our, our mates.
• 19:12
  If we are in heterosexual relationships.
• 19:14
  And yet, because of internalized bias and internalized bias and we all have internalized bias, that's what you're talking about.
• 19:24
  Means that we are reluctant to identify as old or older.
• 19:29
  And you can see a huge tell.
• 19:31
  And I see it all the time, even in people who work in aging services, who do work with older people morning, noon and night.
• 19:37
  And they are north of definitely north of midlife, and they are still talking about these older people as them for not us, you know, they be us.
• 19:47
  Let me tell you. Yeah.
• 19:49
  But women in if you're if you can't get over that hump and it's not easy because we live in a culture that is constantly saying younger is better.
• 19:57
  That's why we're supposed to be complimented by being called a young lady.
• 20:01
  And that is a dead, dead giveaway that it's an if it's a stereotype or if it's a judgment.
• 20:06
  And anything that says younger is better either expressed by or by calling itself anti-aging is, yes, you know, the essence of ageism. So if women are reluctant to identify as older, it's very hard for marketers to sell us stuff for older women because we're like, no, that's not me.
• 20:26
  I'll go. I'll go see what's it forever 21 or whatever.
• 20:29
  Speaking of names of stores, so part of the work is ours to do. Yes.
• 20:36
  And it's a big ask.
• 20:38
  I mean, we we the beauty industry.
• 20:41
  I mean, it's very depressing to see these really young girls, on TikTok doing wrinkle prevention stuff.
• 20:49
  I saw.
• 20:50
  I recommend a blogger on beauty culture named Jessica Delfino.
• 20:54
  And she talks about, about culture.
• 20:58
  And she had a picture of, some kind of skincare products modeled to made to look like crayons for elementary.
• 21:06
  What girl?
• 21:08
  What's her name?
• 21:09
  I want to write it down.
• 21:10
  Jessica got DFI and oh.
• 21:13
  De okay to paint.
• 21:15
  And she's just so sharp on how these norms norms.
• 21:19
  Haha no such thing, You know, our reinforced and created and now and and about how women, and all the paradoxes of, I mean, trends in which you're supposed to look natural by putting in enormous effort, right, to have made to look like you have not made any effort, which is all part of women's labor, which is part of capitalism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:41
  She's fascinating.
• 21:41
  Yeah, I'll be interested.
• 21:43
  Maybe I have her on the podcast.
• 21:45
  You, in your book, you kind of.
• 21:48
  I thought this was fascinating.
• 21:49
  I'm just reading from the book now.
• 21:52
  Barbara McDonald pointed out that young women's alienation from older women's and dread it becoming like them, was the result of social forces.
• 22:00
  Your power as a young woman is measured by the distance you can keep between you and older women, she wrote with brutal frankness.
• 22:07
  So sad. Yes. That was, Yeah. Wow.
• 22:10
  And when you like, if I, you know, if I go hang out with you by younger friends, does it make me, quote unquote, look old?
• 22:15
  You know that. I mean, we just I can't even I can't even, you know, it's so important to have friends of all. Yes.
• 22:27
  And it's so important, especially for older and younger women, to hang out because otherwise, I mean, for, for intuitively obvious reasons.
• 22:37
  But, I think we live in a very age segregated society.
• 22:42
  It's I think this I think the U.S is the most age segregated.
• 22:45
  It is.
• 22:45
  And we forget we olders forget how hard it is to be young.
• 22:49
  Yes. You know.
• 22:51
  Right. I wouldn't want to be young again.
• 22:53
  No way, no way.
• 22:54
  I don't know anyone who actually wants to go back to.
• 22:56
  They want to look young because we're conditioned for that.
• 22:59
  But anyway, I ask that question and people go, oh hell no.
• 23:02
  You know, they're police lights up, and then they're like, oh, wait, I, I'm like, yeah, you do not get to take your present day smarts and experience back.
• 23:08
  No one wants to go back to their youth because it's really, really hard.
• 23:14
  And I think younger women are live in fear of aging and losing their value.
• 23:19
  And if they hang out with older women, they would see the ways in which aging is liberating.
• 23:25
  How we come to know ourselves better, how we come to be able to say more what we want and need, whether it's in bed or in the office, and that if you know.
• 23:34
  So, the more we can support each other through this.
• 23:38
  Yeah.
• 23:38
  The more you know that it's women who are leading the movement, and we always will because we have more at stake.
• 23:44
  Absolutely.
• 23:45
  And, you know, I, I should have asked you this when you brought it up, but we got sidetracked.
• 23:49
  But you talked about you interviewed a lot of 80 year old.
• 23:52
  I have as well.
• 23:53
  But what did you learn from them that they loved about how.
• 23:57
  Different they were from each other? Yeah.
• 23:59
  They were just completely different.
• 24:01
  I mean, I will admit, to start, I started out inspired by my mother in law who said who was in her 90s.
• 24:08
  She and her husband were booksellers.
• 24:09
  And they said, why don't you write about something people ask us all the time, when are you going to retire?
• 24:13
  Oh, that's ages because it's making an assumption.
• 24:16
  They're really old.
• 24:17
  They should be retiring.
• 24:18
  Okay. That's what makes that question ages.
• 24:21
  And so I, as the project began as a blog called so when are you going to retire.com and I interviewed people over 80 who work.
• 24:32
  In hindsight, this was because it was less scary.
• 24:36
  It was a safe way to speak.
• 24:38
  It dipped by foot into a river that was frightening for real reasons.
• 24:42
  You know, are there's only two inevitable bad things about getting older, but they are real people.
• 24:48
  You've known all your life are going to die, and some part of your body is going to fall apart.
• 24:52
  And you do move, of course, closer to death.
• 24:55
  So talking to older people who were still, that's usually an age just, tell also still in the world in the way they had been.
• 25:02
  And being conventionally, economically productive and visible was a way for me to get my feet wet.
• 25:07
  But from the very beginning, I will say I had a queasy feeling that I wasn't really dealing with the full picture, which now, 15 years later, I would say it was very, ableist.
• 25:19
  Meaning these are people that were able ism is discrimination and stereotyping around physical or cognitive capacity.
• 25:26
  And all these people were, you know, had not lost that.
• 25:30
  And it also is very conventional in that they were, you know, under capitalism, if you don't make money, you are considered a burden, right?
• 25:40
  If you're not, if you're and if you're a woman and you are not busy keeping busy, I mean that that has been active in culture since the dawn of patriarchy. Yes.
• 25:50
  You're not allowed to just sit on your ass, right?
• 25:52
  If you assume you can afford to.
• 25:54
  So there's all these deeply embedded cultural values.
• 25:57
  And I did realize pretty soon that I could not just focus on sort of the sort of, successful agers as one one of my least favorite terms.
• 26:08
  And as I came to understand and wrote in the book, if you wake up in the morning, you are aging, successful.
• 26:15
  That is a good.
• 26:16
  You. You do not need to, you know, you need to make money in a heartless system where there's no social supports.
• 26:22
  If you don't have a pension or a mate to support you or any money in the bank, but for just for example, you know, most elder care is done by older people looking in on other people, other older people for free.
• 26:33
  You telling me that doesn't have value?
• 26:35
  It has billions of dollars in economic value.
• 26:38
  And think of the human value.
• 26:40
  But we live in a society that is, you know, very, very capitalist and profit driven and unkind to people who are older or who are disabled.
• 26:52
  Yeah, ungenerous for sure.
• 26:54
  Ungenerous for sure.
• 26:55
  And so you I guess you started out that way, and then you drifted just more and towards ageism discovered.
• 27:04
  Okay. Yeah. I had I had a blog, remember. Blog.
• 27:07
  Yes. It had a word cloud.
• 27:08
  Remember word cloud. Yes. And my has.
• 27:11
  Got about.
• 27:14
  And ageism was there and I am politically inclined.
• 27:17
  I mean, my first serious book was called Cutting Loose Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So well. Yes, I saw.
• 27:24
  The catalyst for that was learning very early on that two thirds of divorces were initiated by women.
• 27:29
  Usually after menopause, right.
• 27:32
  Well, I don't know.
• 27:33
  Because I've been finding that.
• 27:35
  But just I guess I was startled.
• 27:36
  I thought that was I thought it was 98% guys dumping their, you know, sad trophy sad, you know, old wives like me.
• 27:43
  And I was 40 at the time, you know, for fertile trophy versions.
• 27:47
  And I thought it was the same.
• 27:48
  I realized in hindsight, I realize everything in hindsight, of course, that I wanted to investigate why I was so afraid of getting divorced.
• 27:58
  Just as 20 years later, I wanted to investigate why I was so apprehensive about getting older.
• 28:04
  And the reason for the first one is because we live in a sexist, patriarchal, capitalist culture.
• 28:11
  And the reason an ad aging to that an A-list, sexist, patriarchal culture.
• 28:17
  And it is these forces we if we look, if we zoom out and think, where are the negative messages come from?
• 28:24
  They're coming from the beauty industry.
• 28:26
  Because if you look at your face and you say, oh, I see I have some proceeds profit and don't run out and buy a $350 magic trophy.
• 28:34
  Be gone. Cream.
• 28:35
  They would go out of business.
• 28:38
  You're you're. Absolutely right.
• 28:40
  I just had this conversation with my friend.
• 28:41
  She came on the podcast, because she got some cosmetic procedures done, and I was just shocked.
• 28:49
  I was so. Shocked.
• 28:50
  I was shocked that she did that because she knew I've been friends with her for over 20 years, and I never thought anything bothered her.
• 28:56
  And she's like, oh yeah, next week I'm getting this done.
• 28:59
  And I was like, you are.
• 29:01
  And I was like, okay.
• 29:03
  And so I wanted to talk to her about why.
• 29:06
  And also, you know, I feel that pressure to it's not it's.
• 29:09
  Of course, I. Mean, of course, of course I. Do.
• 29:11
  A human in the world, you're a woman in the world.
• 29:14
  And she would like, not watch TV or ever read the magazine or ever, like, look, I mean, I weep now at, I mean, and I want to be really clear, I weep.
• 29:25
  I was going to finish.
• 29:25
  You know what I mean?
• 29:27
  Nicole Kidman, you know, her face is now frozen.
• 29:30
  Even Cate Blanchett my like, I just love her.
• 29:33
  And it's I really now avoid movies with her in it because that beautiful mouth is now sort of mask like the I cannot you feel pressure I feel pressure, your friends feels pressure.
• 29:45
  Imagine the pressures on female movie stars.
• 29:48
  I don't judge them and I don't judge your friend.
• 29:51
  Yes, I mean, I've had women say to me, you know, I need Botox to feel confident about myself.
• 29:56
  More power to you.
• 29:58
  But until we in power, slowly, slowly, slowly challenge the messages and the structures, that, you know, tell us to cut up our faces.
• 30:08
  And of course, the problem with that is, you know, one of these days, you just you cannot stay young, right?
• 30:16
  Yes, that is true.
• 30:18
  You cannot stay young.
• 30:20
  That is, unless you're dead.
• 30:21
  So, No, you can stay fit, you know, even or maybe not.
• 30:25
  You know, you couldn't break your leg and not.
• 30:27
  I mean, if you.
• 30:28
  And we know that the more attached we know from social media and studies about blah, blah, blah, that the more it literally are studies that show that the more often you look at your phone and the more often you look at yourself, the less happy you are. Yes.
• 30:43
  Exactly.
• 30:43
  And then we were talking about when we were talking about all this stuff, I said, my phone is just on silent.
• 30:48
  It's not off.
• 30:49
  So tomorrow I'm going to be getting all these things on Instagram about now, I'll be getting crow's feet, be gone in my Instagram feed and.
• 30:55
  All these things.
• 30:55
  So I'm going to trademark that.
• 30:57
  By the way, don't even think about exactly.
• 31:00
  Well, I want to ask you, I'm sure everybody asks you about this.
• 31:05
  I apologize, but you came into, my consciousness.
• 31:09
  I found out about you when I saw you on the CBS Sunday Morning show with Jane Fonda.
• 31:14
  And this is an ages thing because my husband always calls it my old lady show.
• 31:19
  Because I love to get up on Sunday and watch it.
• 31:21
  And I guess I only started doing this like five, ten years ago.
• 31:24
  And he's like, are you watching?
• 31:26
  You better cut that out.
• 31:28
  But I love that show.
• 31:30
  And so you were on with, CBS Sunday Morning, and you guys can watch.
• 31:35
  You probably already have seen this, but if you haven't.
• 31:38
  Watched my. Website.
• 31:38
  Yeah, on your website.
• 31:40
  My website is this Cheer rocks.com, and it's there under video.
• 31:44
  And it's you and Jane Fonda talking about, and this is kind of the same thing we talked about with Doctor Ellen Langer was that you can add seven years.
• 31:54
  What you tell you tell me I'm going to screw it. Yeah.
• 31:56
  I mean, it was a PSA about the value of community, in particular of art classes, because it's a great way to have community and find creative expression.
• 32:08
  And it said, add seven and a half years to your life.
• 32:11
  I would never put it that way because there are no guarantees in life.
• 32:15
  You could live off nothing but kale from now and die of a heart attack tomorrow.
• 32:19
  You can't. No one can promise that.
• 32:21
  But there's a wonderful scientist named Becca Levy, who's on whose research this is based.
• 32:27
  That that she's done almost all the.
• 32:30
  Not all.
• 32:31
  I mean, there's more and more research showing that attitudes towards aging affect how our minds and bodies function and people with what she calls a more positive attitude towards aging.
• 32:42
  Live an average of seven and a half years longer in this study that she did.
• 32:46
  And they walk faster, the heal quicker, they recover more likely to recover from a severe, you know, disease or accident or some sort, I like to say, people with a more accurate understanding of aging or a fact, rather than fear based, because I don't want it to sound like happy talk.
• 33:04
  You know, a lot of people sort of go, oh, getting old isn't so bad.
• 33:08
  You just have to, you know, exercise every day.
• 33:10
  And that's the successful aging thing.
• 33:12
  Keep working really hard and spending lots of money to try to keep looking and moving like a younger version of yourself.
• 33:20
  And that's a trap, too, because shit is going to change.
• 33:23
  Yeah, right. Sorry.
• 33:25
  You could say, fuck, I don't care.
• 33:27
  You can say whatever you want.
• 33:30
  But so, you know, and and so it was a what it was a hilarious PSA and it did it, it did, I think a really good job, which it was all in the editing.
• 33:39
  Of, of saying, you know, your attitude towards aging people with a more positive, accurate, because certainly most people are scared shitless.
• 33:49
  So more positive will take it attitude are less likely to get Alzheimer's.
• 33:54
  Yes. Even if they have the gene. Yes.
• 33:57
  That that links to the disease because in the idea that, you know, the scientists thinking is that that more positive attitude operates as a buffer against stress.
• 34:08
  And we know stress kills us. Right?
• 34:09
  If you can't find your car keys and you you have that and no judgment but that.
• 34:15
  What is that?
• 34:16
  What if this is the first sign of of dementia, of serious cognitive loss, that gasp, that spike in your is it cortisol? Or.
• 34:25
  You know. Spike in anxiety.
• 34:26
  Spike is bad for you if you go I mean, I, I took my apple phone in because I wanted to know how to change which credit card came up.
• 34:36
  When I did the pay and and the woman at the greeted me at the door, there was a store that saw was empty and she said, well, have you tried?
• 34:42
  I said, no, I walked in the Apple store and asked the first person I came to, which she was in her 20s.
• 34:46
  Definitely.
• 34:47
  She fell in with her and for a minute she said, oh, I just did this the other day.
• 34:51
  I wish I could remember how right?
• 34:53
  That's not a senior moment.
• 34:55
  That's not a senior moment.
• 34:56
  That's not a junior moment.
• 34:56
  We forget things, right?
• 34:59
  And you know the odds that it is another fact.
• 35:03
  Rate of dementia are dropping.
• 35:06
  That's fast.
• 35:07
  Look it up. Google dementia rates dropping.
• 35:09
  Why is it.
• 35:10
  You know, we never hear, well, they, I just had a scientist here for a lunch with a scientist from Australia.
• 35:17
  I said, I said, we don't know why. She said, yeah, we do.
• 35:20
  They're dropping in the West because of lower smoking rates and better care.
• 35:25
  A cure of, for heart disease and, better, treatment for diabetes.
• 35:31
  And all those things improve circulation.
• 35:34
  And, lack of circulation is they think, the main contributor to those plaques and tangles. Okay.
• 35:39
  So we do know, and people are being diagnosed at later ages.
• 35:44
  It's a horrible disease if you're terrified of it.
• 35:46
  I don't blame you.
• 35:48
  But if you can't find it, as the saying goes, if you can find your car keys, you just left them somewhere.
• 35:53
  I mean, I lose my phone at least six times a day and feel like an idiot.
• 35:56
  All right.
• 35:57
  But if you forget what your car keys are for.
• 36:00
  Yes, that's that's a sign of a real problem.
• 36:03
  But the reason you're looking for your car keys is so you can get in your damn car and drive away. I'm just guessing. Yes.
• 36:08
  Yeah. And you.
• 36:09
  You said this kind of the same thing in your TedTalk that, I guess you had a knee replacement or a bad knee and, you know, you were inclined to say, oh, it's because I'm old.
• 36:19
  But then you were like, but I have another perfectly good knee.
• 36:21
  And that one, you know, I'm not saying it's perfect because I'm young or inept.
• 36:26
  Any time a doctor says, you know, at your age, which is sort of what the doctor was doing with you with the clipboard, it is time to find a new doctor.
• 36:34
  And if you it is and if you And another good question, if you're it's a new doctor or are you getting a second opinion or wondering wondering if you should say, is this a treatment you would recommend for someone younger?
• 36:47
  Oh that's smart, I like that.
• 36:49
  Yeah, that's very good.
• 36:50
  And age is a real thing.
• 36:52
  You know, there are reasons that that younger bodies may need different treatment than older bodies.
• 36:57
  But broadly. And your your level up.
• 36:59
  But it is your level of overall health that is the best factor in figuring out whether you should have CPR or an organ transplant.
• 37:07
  Right.
• 37:07
  But that's not there are there are 18 year olds who are not good candidates, and there are 80 year olds who are there more 18 year olds who are a good candidate.
• 37:16
  But no 80 year old should be ruled out simply because of their age.
• 37:19
  Yes, that's such a good point.
• 37:20
  But I want to get back to the PSA for a second because we kind of glossed over it.
• 37:24
  So you were saying like our art classes were an example just because it's a community.
• 37:29
  But is that is that like just such a big factor, just having community and so.
• 37:34
  Much to.
• 37:34
  You about people?
• 37:36
  If you had asked me again, 20 I mean, I came into this knowing nothing, no degrees, no professional affiliations, nothing.
• 37:43
  And what was the best, most important component of a good old age?
• 37:48
  I would have said, health, that's not it.
• 37:51
  And then I would have said, well, wealth because you could buy health or, you know, whatever the most important component of a good old age is having a strong social network.
• 38:01
  Relationships are what give life meaning.
• 38:04
  And that is one reason.
• 38:06
  Another reason I should say to have younger friends, friends of all ages.
• 38:10
  Because it is devastating to outlive your friends, your family.
• 38:15
  It's for men.
• 38:16
  I think this is changing as gender roles get get more mixed up.
• 38:20
  But, you know, certainly, the office was the major source of friendship for a lot of men.
• 38:26
  And if you leave the office, you don't have women tend to be the maintainer of of the family social network and have more friends and talk to each other more.
• 38:35
  And it is those networks that give life meaning and that support us through life.
• 38:41
  And it is, of course, also in supporting others that we find enormous meaning.
• 38:44
  And so these are two way transactions.
• 38:46
  Oh, that's that's good.
• 38:49
  And so if people just don't generally I guess that's why you recommended the art class.
• 38:53
  If you don't generally have, you know, you look around and you're older and you don't have that support or that community to, to do something like an art class.
• 39:02
  My advice is you can't just grab a young person, say hi, let's be friends.
• 39:06
  But, think of something you like to do and find a mixed age group to do it with.
• 39:11
  And if you are organizing a, meeting a group, party.
• 39:18
  Invite some people who are different from you and age.
• 39:21
  Just like, ideally, invite some people who don't share your sexual orientation.
• 39:24
  Enjoy some.
• 39:25
  Invite some people who don't have the same skin color.
• 39:28
  It's awkward.
• 39:29
  It is slow.
• 39:30
  You need to be deliberate about it.
• 39:32
  And I used to be one of that.
• 39:33
  I mean, I used to be a lot, a lot of things.
• 39:35
  I used to think, oh, it's it's no problem.
• 39:36
  It's easy because my friend cohort is very diverse, but I've been working on it for a long time.
• 39:43
  And I'm lucky I'm close with my daughter, who just turned 40, and all her friends are freaking out about turning 40.
• 39:47
  So that's. They're all saying, Ashton, what do we do?
• 39:50
  But but it's still pretty goddamn white.
• 39:54
  It's less white than it used to be because I am working on that.
• 39:59
  But, you know, we can, you know.
• 40:02
  And another thing, if you're at a party or a meeting, break a habit.
• 40:06
  It's a habit.
• 40:06
  We all have it.
• 40:08
  Making a beeline for people our own age.
• 40:11
  Break that habit.
• 40:12
  You know, you you may I mean, I think because, I'm assuming, you know, if it's an older person, they think, oh, those young people won't want to talk to me or I won't have anything in common with them.
• 40:23
  It's conceivable that those younger people are jerks who really don't want an old person to come and talk to them, but that's because they're jerks, not because they're young.
• 40:31
  Right?
• 40:32
  You're and you're much more likely to find a connection with one of them.
• 40:36
  Yeah, that's such good advice.
• 40:38
  I, I recently found myself with all these new friends.
• 40:42
  Just, a lot of them I met through the podcast.
• 40:45
  I live in Austin, Texas, and I interviewed these musicians, and then they introduced me to these other people.
• 40:52
  And so I just had all these new friends.
• 40:55
  All of a sudden I was like, you know what I'm going to do?
• 40:57
  I'm going to do a good old fashioned potluck at my house so that all these new friends could come.
• 41:02
  And it was all people of different ages, and it was so everybody was like, this was the best.
• 41:09
  Like, what are you doing it again?
• 41:10
  People are hungry for it.
• 41:12
  It was that's what they said.
• 41:13
  They were hungry for this.
• 41:15
  They it's true.
• 41:16
  And there's a ton of initiatives now around intergenerational, connection, which I prefer calling like age mix.
• 41:22
  But I'll take it, because when we, you know, mix, when we mix it up in any way, it's very hard to hold on to your stereotypes.
• 41:30
  And also, there's just all sorts of intuitive ways that coming together across age gaps is fulfilling.
• 41:37
  And it's not necessarily it's not, you know, the stereotype that old people have all this wisdom to pass down to ignorant young people is a total stereotype, can be benevolent as well.
• 41:46
  Yeah, and some older people are wise, but lots of older people are idiots, right?
• 41:50
  And we have a lot to learn from young people too.
• 41:53
  It really depends on who you are and what you're interested in and what your values are, not age.
• 41:59
  It's ironic.
• 42:00
  We we we're so scared of this age thing.
• 42:03
  And I want a world where we're less scared of it and more willing to name it and claim it, but we're we demoted where we take it off its pedestal and acknowledge that it really is not anywhere near, as important a characteristic as an ages culture would have us believe.
• 42:21
  I I've loved our conversation.
• 42:23
  You are so smart.
• 42:26
  So, you know, opened my eyes to a lot.
• 42:29
  And I loved this book that this chair rocks a manifesto against ageism.
• 42:34
  It's it really did open my eyes.
• 42:36
  I was like, shit, is this whole podcast ages.
• 42:39
  But now just, you know, I'm just.
• 42:42
  It's bad the minute you.
• 42:44
  You can't start too small, slow on this.
• 42:47
  And I love that because the minute you ask yourself that question, you are doing the hardest thing of all.
• 42:53
  And your uncertainty or curiosity or self interrogation.
• 42:58
  You are bringing that into every room you go into and that is how we change the culture.
• 43:03
  Thank you're very gentle and generous and gracious.
• 43:06
  That's true. I appreciate it, really.
• 43:07
  It's not like some watered down thing I come up with to make you feel good.
• 43:11
  It's true.
• 43:12
  Thank. You know, culture change is slow and incremental.
• 43:16
  Okay everybody think about what you're saying and your language and, and check out Ashton Applewhite if you have not already.
• 43:24
  Thank you Ashton, for being with us.
• 43:26
  My pleasure.
• 43:26
  All right. Take care. Bye bye.
• 43:29
  Thanks for listening, friend.
• 43:31
  From my heart to yours.
• 43:33
  Be well. Until we meet again.