Aged Appropriate

In the Intro to Studies in Humanities, module six scholarly analysis essay intro video, Dr. Haddad mentioned that we may have read a piece during the semester that really spoke to us and that we, perhaps, wished that we could say a little bit more about. At first, I was lost. I couldn’t think of something that I wanted to expand on as I usually include most of my thoughts into the weekly Read and Response assignment. Then, like a literal light bulb going on, I remembered my Read and Response choice from last week. It was the short story by Jhumpa Lahiri entitled, “The Third and Final Continent.” I loved this story, however, the week was crazy, and I wasn’t able to give it the attention it deserved. This story was part of the Space/Time and Posts, chapters of our Theory Toolbox textbook. Lahiri’s story tracks the life of a young man as he travels from his home country of India (Bangladesh) to England and then finally to the US, his third continent. The narrator becomes a boarder of an elderly woman, Mrs. Croft, in Boston which is where the story ultimately grabbed my attention, specifically our narrator’s perception of Mrs. Croft and her age. I would like to focus on the way we perceive aging and how the way we perceive it affects our own experience of life and aging.

I found two articles on the subject of aging and perspectives that I will be drawing upon during the course of this essay. The first article is from Kaiser Health News’ Navigating Aging column “It’s Your Choice: You Can Change Your Views of Aging and Improve Your Life,” written by columnist Judith Graham. Graham graduated from Harvard College and has a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in addition to years of professional journalistic experience contributing to both the New York Times as well as the Chicago Tribune. In the article, Graham interviews author Becca Levy of Yale University regarding her book, “Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live.” The second article is Chapter 9 of the Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 2015. It is titled “Images of Aging - Inside and Outside Perspectives,” written by Ursula M. Staudinger. Staudinger is a Lifespan Psychologist and researcher of aging. She is currently the rector of The Technical University of Dresden. Prior to that she was professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University.

Mrs. Croft as a character in this story is described through direct physical description as well as indirectly described through characterization of her actions. She wears a long black skirt and a stiffly starched white shirt that has ruffles at the wrist and at the neck. Her physical description literally states “age battered.” (Lahiri, 4) There is a sense of time-gone-by in the way that she dresses as opposed to the current fashion. When it is clear through the pattern of repetition with which she speaks to our narrator about the man landing on the moon, night after night, we are given the idea that Mrs. Croft may even have some form of dementia or possibly even Alzheimer's disease. Later in the story, Mrs. Croft falls and breaks her hip and later still, she dies.

The author throws all of the age-related stereotypes at us to create the ultimate “old lady” character. The societal issue with this stereotype is that not all people who reach an age we consider to be “old” fit this stereotype, actually most do not. Staudinger says that “the conviction that old (chronological) age is in general characterized by a highly constrained cognitive capacity because it forms the core of the negative old age stereotype… which is an incorrect generalization.” (Staudinger, p4) Staudinger states that part of the problem with the stereotype of old age is that “we learn about old age from watching previous generations growing old. Thus, based on this source, our images of aging are doomed to lag behind one or even two generations.” (Staudinger, p13) The narrator’s idea of old age is confronted when he discovers that Mrs. Croft is 103 years old when he originally thought that she was in her 80’s.

Henry Ford was quoted to say, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right,” and an issue with the incorrect stereotype of old age is the potential for an old age-related self-fulfilling prophesy. (Goodreads) According to SimplePsychology.org, there are two types of self-fulfilling prophecies. One is self-imposed and the other is other-imposed.

The self-imposed is created from our own experience or expectation and then a fear or insecurity based on failure from the experience or perceived expectation of that expectation. (Schaedig) The other-imposed self-fulfilling prophecy comes into play when the expectation of others influences the expectations we have of ourselves. If as we go through life, we see only images of old age portrayed as frail and dependent people dealing with cognitive decline, then it wouldn’t be hard to expect this outcome for ourselves. For those who have already reached a mature age, according to Levy, “exposing people to positive descriptions of aging can improve their memory, gait, balance, and will to live.” (Graham)

Graham asked Levy during the course of the interview, how age beliefs might be changed. Levy said that in order to address the issue of stereotyping age, we first have to know what we, individually, believe about age. She goes on to say that we should ask ourselves which are “the first five words or phrases” that come to mind when thinking about Graham) It is also important to dispel age related beliefs such as the lack of contribution to society and to create positive associations with age. In the story by Lahiri, the tone was more of a patronizing tone towards Mrs. Croft with regard to her ability to live alone and care for herself in the way that she desired to do so. A more positive way to view Mrs. Croft would be to applaud and show respect for her determination to live a life on her terms at 103-years-old.

This subject took a personal turn during the process of writing when my grandmother was placed in hospice on Tuesday of last week. This was her choice and she made it because she did not want family to have to take care of her in a way that might wither her dignity. During the course of this past weeks, we have all had to learn to respect her choices and remember not to coddle her; she is still the same strong-willed woman that she always has been. This woman zip-lined through Costa Rica at 80. What I have seen first-hand, through this experience with her and with previous family members, is that age doesn’t change who we are when we reach a mature age. Age really is what we make of it. It is a collection of experiences, and it is different for everyone. Whether we make our way to that time of our lives with fear or with a sense of adventure is completely up to us to decide by the way we create and internalize the idea of age.

Kara Nassoiy

Works Cited:

Graham, Judith. “It's Your Choice: You Can Change Your Views of Aging and Improve Your Life.” Kaiser Health News, 18 May 2022, https://khn.org/news/article/change-views-beliefs-aging-improve-life/.

Images of Aging - Cu Global Thought. http://cgt.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Images-of-Aging-Outside-and-Inside-Perspectives.pdf.

Schaedig, Derek. “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and the Pygmalion Effect.” Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and The Pygmalion Effect | Simply Psychology, 24 Aug. 2020, https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html#types.

“A Quote by Henry Ford.” Goodreads, Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/978-whether-you-think-you-can-or-you-think-you-can-t--you-re.

Levy, Becca. Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs about Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live. William Morrow & Company, 2022.