The ageism that bedevils
Mary Brown urges older Friends to live actively and adventurously
Is it just me or do other busy, older, Friends feel ‘got at’ by advices & queries 28? Having heard it read three times in Meetings for Worship in less than a year, I began to wonder why it seems often interpreted as older people ‘ought’ to think about being less busy. Perhaps they ‘should’ leave activities such as campaigning to younger Friends.
Why the final phrase of the advice? Love may not require great busyness, but on the other hand it may. The last few words add nothing to the meaning, but suggest that there may be something suspect about ‘busyness’, something to be avoided, perhaps particularly by the old.
I suggest that at this time of cuts and threats to our welfare state, love requires perhaps greater busyness than ever before, by people at all stages of their lives.
When I meet Friends from other Meetings I often hear the words, ‘ours is an elderly Meeting,’ spoken with regret. Why do not Meetings consisting largely of old Friends rejoice at their resources of experience and wisdom? ‘Young Friends’ often seem to be considered more valuable.
An attender in his thirties told me that, when moving to a new area, he was more than once welcomed so effusively by Meetings of mostly older Friends, that he was embarrassed to return: they obviously expected so much from him.
I hear that dreadful expression ‘senior moment’ used among Friends as elsewhere, when someone forgets something. People of all ages forget. A ‘senior moment’ must surely be a flash of inspiration that could only come to someone who has lived long and experienced much.
The Women’s Institute, by law, now has to accept men: would ‘Young Friends’ welcome someone in their seventies? Sadly our age discrimination legislation only relates to discrimination at work, and still only up to the age of sixty-five (although we are told this is to go). And, of course, our equality legislation does not apply to religious organisations. Young Friends are likely to be free to celebrate their immaturity for some time to come, and old Friends can continue to be marginalised.
