I think what I saw was this 18-year-old’s inability to imagine herself aging into someone who looked like us. And I get that. It’s hard to imagine when you’re 18 and your body’s perfect, blooming, unblemished, perky, that you’ll ever look like someone decades older.
“Dress Like a 100-Year-Old” Day: A Call to Action
It’s become a trend in schools around the US to celebrate the 100th day of school by holding a “Dress Like a 100-Year-Old Day.” Pinterest and some websites provide instructions for parents to help their kids look and act the part of an old person. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s leaders. We have a great opportunity to inoculate them against the damaging effects of ageism.
Activism
To some extent I have identified as a social and environmental activist myself. One part has come out of my time as a park ranger, and another out of my passion for community. Both of them have grown with me, ripening as the years have passed. So that, the activism that now speaks to me is not the activism I grew-up with.
Fostering Our Collective Capacity to Work through Complex Issues
There is a common tendency to address these challenges with simple or complicated solutions more befitting of the inanimate. We believe the best solutions, while ever-changing, will come from the community itself, and each community is different.
Thank You, But I Don’t Need Any Help
This internship was not starting as I expected. My intuition told me more depth was possible. Trying not to do anything felt very strange. My whole life had been spent doing. I was good at doing.
Buried (Not) Forever
Long-term care residents living with dementia labeled as “aggressive” when they engage in distressing and harmful “resident-to-resident incidents” are in reality expressing real human needs and frustrations that are not being met by understaffed, undertrained, and inadequately supervised direct care staff members.
Who’s Going to Create a Better Narrative of Old Age in America?
Changing the culture is hard, and it involves struggle. That struggle doesn’t start in a shopping cart, whether online or at Walmart. It starts between our ears, with the uncomfortable task of confronting our own, largely unconscious, age bias.
No Control Freaks Allowed: Embracing the Complexity of Dementia Support
No matter how much we wish for simple answers, life does not work that way. In order to navigate life, we must embrace its complexity. Dementia support is no different.
