As Our Parents Age So Do We

Huge congratulations to my friend Carol over at Inside Aging Parent Care!

Visit the Inside Aging Parent Care blog.

Today the Denver Post published her commentary — sharing some of her thoughts and ideas about ageism. Carol explains that even those of us who are currently growing older and into retirement years need to adjust our understanding about what it means to reach our later years. Even we have a tendency to make inaccurate assumptions about the late-in-life years.

So head on over to the blog or directly to the piece, Perceptions of the Elderly are Clouded by Ageism.

Best Quote                         

Our perceptions of the elderly are clouded by ageism, and thus we fear growing older. We tend to view the elders we know who are “still” sharp and active to be lucky exceptions to the rule.

Carol refers to Dr. Robert Butler in her piece. Butler, a Pulitzer Prize winning geriatrician coined the word ageism in 1969. He won his Pulitzer for the 1976 book, Why Survive: Being Old in America. He was also the founding director of the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Read Dr. Butler’s terrific obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.