Ageism–discrimination based upon age–is the only form of discrimination that everyone faces.  Everyone has and will be discriminated against based upon age.  First, folks will discriminate against you for being too young, then for being too old, if you are lucky enough to grow old.

Both forms are deeply rooted in American culture and society and have been for a long time.  But neither are inevitable, if we decide to treat people right across the entirety of their adult lifespans.  Ageism extends well beyond the borders of our country and the two centuries that I have lived in, but my experience is largely limited to the US and I really want to explore what is happening nor and what we can do in the here and now to discriminate less and treat our fellow Americans with the respect that they deserve over the course of their entire adult lifetimes.

We ought not be afraid of our ages or the aging process.  We ought not impose our biases, prejudices, and stereotypes about age and aging upon ourselves or others.  We ought to know already, but we can learn to be better.

We generally tend to think (hey, that’s a stereotype) that we get better as we grow older as we take our lived experience and incorporate into our decision-making process, making better decisions resulting in better outcomes, improving ourselves and society.  We benefit and the world benefits.  We spend less time and other resources on things that do not matter and correcting for poor decisions.  We learn and repeat our mistakes less.

This improvement depends upon depends on us being mentally shar, a skill in which we improve over life, although some of us do experience decline, slightly to severely, in our mental facilities at some point in the aging process.

We do experience declines in physical abilities and appearance starting in our late teens/early twenties.  We use our mental skills to to compensate for the decline in physical abilities and can stave off competition and continue to cooperate at the highest level until our forties at the latest.  The declines are most pronounced in professional and competitive sports and labor-intensive tasks, but not in regular life–the everyday tasks of living–or the professional life of almost all.

So, mentally and physically, humans have a wide age range (20 to ?) where we are able to contribute at the highest levels, with the quality of our contributions ever increasing for almost all.  We should expect to be able to do all of our regular, everyday tasks in the same general fashion as for the whole of our adult lives.

We are much more likely to need help in tasks before we become adults than in our “old” age, however we define that.  While old age is  pejorative, the life we live is not negative nor disparaging.  We might be slowed (or taking things slower), but it is “rare” to unlikely that we will be stopped.

One thing we do not do a good job of as we age is anticipating that impact age will have on us or ours.  This happens consistently despite our having experienced the aging of our grandparents and parents and age peers.  We are surprised to experience the impact age has on us and ours.  We tend to overestimate difficulties.

On the young end, we are also not good at recognizing that we have not (yet) developed the necessary skills to be an adult.  We consistently and confidently overestimate our skills when we are young, well past the point that we ought to know that we are not ready or prepared to “adult.”  We almost always reflect years later on our ignorance of our youthful ignorance.

But some do project ignorance upon younger adults well past the time those folks have developed the skills of a fully functioning adult.  That is ageism and that form is as bad as assuming that an older person has lost those skills and is no longer a fully functioning adult.

Although the sweet spot of adulthood is wide, we often truncate the range to match our age or our ideal age.  Again, this is ageism and wrong.

Almost all of the biases and prejudices you have developed about aging are wrong.  And by acting on these falsehoods, you compound the problems and make the biases and prejudices real and harmful to those in your aim.  Your beliefs have become hatred, as bad as any other unfounded beliefs, hatred, and -ism that you can think of. Ironically, that hatred has been and will be directed at you when you were young and as you get older, respectively.

The vicious cycle of ageism rinses and repeats.  Fortunately, this cycle need not be repeated, if you recognize your tendency towards bias and prejudice and consciously recognize and commit to being better in thought and action.  Better in your treatment of others and yourself.

Society tends to be center-centric skipping over the young and old.  Some of the reasons are reasonable and some are tied to real biases that are coincidental to aging.

We ought to aim our efforts at expanding the adult age from the early 20s to the late ages.  Currently the federal government only protects most people 40 years and older, with notable carveouts for mandatory retirement policies for airplane pilots, corporate executives, emergency services (e.g., fire and police) professionals, and military service members.  Some states and other lower jurisdictions do cover younger adults in some fashion.  It is legally acceptable (but not right) to group folks into made-up generations and exalt or denigrate group members in generational wars that hurt all and help no one.

The fight against ageism must focus on attacks to both the youth and the aged.  We must fight all wrongs, even those well-intentioned, such as universal design and other patronizing actions.  We must promote adapting items, processes, and systems to individual users’ needs and wants.  Individualize life.

There are legitimate concerns that backstop some ageism displays–for example, is this person making and capable of making good decisions? and is the knowledge this person learned years ago still being honed so that skills are still valid?  Those questions can be asked and answered for the particular person in question without using age as a crux or the pat answer of no, that person is too young or too old.

We are seeing ageism with the 2024 presidential election with the two oldest major-party candidates who also have been two of the three oldest presidents.  We always have ageism in federal elections with the Constitution setting minimum ages for the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency.  All three are over the age of majority (typically 18) or adulthood (21).  These restrictions prohibit younger adults from running for those governing bodies/positions.

We are also seeing outstanding questions on the mental fitness of the Presidential candidates (not all of which is related to aging and none of it confirmed with a medical diagnosis of a mental decline).  However, the questions are popping up in the media and in a special counsel’s report. 

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Pitting young versus old, or cannibalizing young versus young and old versus old serves no one.  The world generally is not a zero-sum game.  With cooperation, the pie can be made bigger and the slice of the pie afforded to individuals is bigger, potentially much bigger, not to mention the larger pie for society.

The argument against ageism is both philosophical and practical.  We need more workers and especially more talented workers, such as older adults and younger adults, both.

What can we do?

Eliminate all mandatory retirement or minimum/maximum age requirements for adults.

Codify legal protection for all adults.

Incorporate the truism that ageism hurts people and society into our beliefs and interactions personally, professionally, and organizationally, by looking beyond age to the wisdom and experience of the individual, with no consideration of age beyond being an adult.