Now or Never: Long-Term Care Strategy is a podcast for all those seeking answers and solutions in the long-term care space. Too often we don’t fully understand the necessity of care until it’s too late. This podcast is designed to create solutions, start conversations and bring awareness to the industry that will inevitably impact all Americans.
Ashton Applewhite: What is the
real problem here is not growing
older is not a change in
capacity. It is the stigma
around those changes around the
deviation in a society that puts
youth and speed and productivity
air quotes around that very
loaded word on a pedestal and
says if you are not looking,
moving, acting, earning like a
younger person, you are failing
in some way.
Caroline Moore: Welcome to Now
or Never Long-Term Care Strategy
with Kosta Yepifantsev a podcast
for all those seeking answers
and solutions in the long term
care space. This podcast is
designed to create resources,
start conversations and bring
awareness to the industry that
will inevitably impact all
Americans. Here's your host
Kosta Yepifantsev..
Kosta Yepifantsev: Hey, y'all,
this is Kosta and today, I'm
here with my guest Ashton
Applewhite, author and activist
serving as the leading
spokesperson for the emerging
movement to raise awareness of
ageism, and how to dismantle it.
Ashton is the author of this
chair rocks a manifesto against
ageism, the CO creator of the
old school anti ageism clearing
house, and the voice of Yo, is
this ageist? today? We're
talking about ageism, in an
aging society, Ashton, let's
start off. Why are we so afraid
of getting old?
Ashton Applewhite: I think a
little bit of the apprehension
is, of course, about how our
minds and bodies might change.
There are only two only two
inevitable bad things about
getting older people you've
known all your life are going to
die in some part of your body is
going to fall apart. And those
two things are unwelcome. And we
have very limited control over
the second one and no control
over the first. So those are
real things to be apprehensive
about. And you will not catch me
saying oh just you know, eat
enough kale or have a positive
attitude. And it's all going to
be great. What I my work is one,
I want to point out that a lot
that our fears are not real, but
they are way out of proportion
to reality. And the fear is bad
for us. This this apprehension
about our physical and cognitive
capacity. That's not actually
ageism. Okay, it just is any
stereotype or prejudice we have
about someone or a group of
people based on how old we think
they are. You can have a young
person who is cognitively
impaired, you could have a
person in the middle age who is
temporarily incapacitated
because they broke their foot or
they got in a car accident,
right. So what is the real
problem here is not growing
older is not a change in
capacity. It is the stigma
around those changes around the
deviation in a society that puts
youth and speed and productivity
air quotes around that very
loaded words on a pedestal and
says if you are not looking,
moving, acting, earning like a
younger person, you are failing
in some way. So that is the huge
reason why we are so
apprehensive about aging. It's
about the society in which we
age and the social and economic
forces that that pathologize you
know, natural and inevitable
changes that want us to be
afraid that want us to buy
expensive things that don't
work, and engage in inexpensive
activities that don't help.
Instead of acknowledging the
things we can change the things
we can push back against and
also accepting like everyone
wakes up a day older, it's not a
failure. Right and up in the
morning, you are aging
successfully. Congratulations.
Kosta Yepifantsev: And there's a
lot to unpack there. First off,
exactly what and first off, I
think there's there's a
psychological component to the
fact that you mentioned death
being an inevitability, of
course, no one has yet been able
to find a way to reverse aging
or to cheat death for that
matter. And so we live our lives
with a sense of urgency, and I
think it complements that that
psychological theory complements
our economic system of
capitalism. And so in a lot of
your fire Yeah, yeah. And so
like, I think you said it
perfectly. When you're saying
like, we value speed, we value
you know, youth, because we've
geared an entire society around
how are we going to get the
highest level of productivity
and obviously people are most
productive during their you
know, during their younger
years. Well, I wouldn't say that
middle aged years,
Ashton Applewhite: the idea of
productivity to conventional
earning power, right. I mean,
that's what's so problematic.
People are productive when we
look after each other when we
write books, right? And we
listen to music when we walk a
dog, right? And those are all,
you know, I know, we're in
agreement here that the Western
under and in a hyper capitalist
society, we are held to this
impossible standard that
disadvantages almost everyone,
except people who are, you know,
frankly, male, typically white,
non disabled, and so on and so
on puts everyone else at an
increasing level of
disadvantage, you know, if they
are less educated, if they speak
with an accident accent, if they
are not Finn, you name it,
right. So that system privileges
you know, the people with
privilege and works to
disadvantage everyone else, and
everyone gets old. Yeah, lucky.
Kosta Yepifantsev: But if you
think about, like, for example,
the fundamentals, the foundation
that's created modern society,
right, you go back all the way
we're gonna go, like, all the
way back to Plato, Aristotle,
philosopher kings, right? The
people I know, and I'm not gonna
go too far in the weeds, I
promise. But those people were
older individuals, like they
valued the experience and in
society today, right? You look
at somebody that's a CEO, or
even a president for that
matter. And you value their
experience, they typically are
over the age of 65. It's an
anomaly if they're if they're
under that. So how, like, you
know, why is it that certain
facets of our society, we say,
okay, it's a good thing when
somebody is older and has a lot
of experience because they're
going to be more effective at
their job, Biden, the
circumstances surrounding Biden
may be an exception in terms of
how people are perceiving his
job, his role and his efficacy.
But what do you believe is the
greatest greatest contributing
factor to ageism today, on the
other end, the part of the
population that is affected by
ageism? Do you could speak to
that?
Ashton Applewhite: Well, I want
to speak first to the the want
to make something clear about
changes that it is any judgment
on the basis of age and that
young people experience a fair
amount of it also, assumption
that simply because you are
older, you are a better leader,
or a more effective executive is
ageist because it is based on
age rather than capacity. It is
completely nuts, that the
American workforce, especially
in the face of a global labor
shortage counts experience as a
disadvantage. That is that is
just it. That is an example. I
hate to say it of how entrenched
ageism is even in our
productivity oriented capitalist
society. Yeah. But you know, age
does convey experience. And that
is, generally speaking, why
older people more more people
who successful entrepreneurs are
older, because we've had more
experienced, we've had more time
to build up networks. But there
are also brilliant young
entrepreneurs. And it's really
important not never to frame it
as older people are better at or
worse or at XYZ, because that is
the mother of all ages,
stereotypes. And we don't want a
world that we're older people
are on a pedestal or have more
value. So we want a world that
is age mixed. Right. Right. And
where we look at capacity. Not
age, right. I mean, with with
Biden, I mean, just this morning
on my yo, is this a just blog
got the million question about
is it ages to think that Biden
is might be too old to run for
another term? And the bottom?
There are legitimate questions
about capacity. I think he
should have a physical and we
should all know what it says
which he has done, which is to
refuse to do that, you know,
older people are closer to
death. Yes, but guess what
wealthy white men have really
who are in the Senate have a
really good health care and tend
to live way longer than, you
know, people without those
advantages, blah, blah. The
overarching point being that it
is no more acceptable to make
any assumption about anyone,
whether they're 18 or 80, on the
basis of age anymore, then it
would be acceptable to make an
assumption about them on the
basis of the color of their
skin, or their sexual
orientation or their gender or
blah, blah, blah. It's not okay.
Kosta Yepifantsev: So since I
subconsciously just fell into
that trap, and I apologize.
Ashton Applewhite: Not only
don't apply apologize. We are
all agents. We all have agents
thoughts in our head all the
time, including you and me. And
the, you know, it's fantastic
that you can acknowledge that
and see, oh, gee, that's
something I need to think about
differently, because that's
where all change begins.
Kosta Yepifantsev: Well, and but
how did we get here though?
Like, is this a generational
thing? Is it cultural? Is it
media? I mean, just like, I
mean,
Ashton Applewhite: you aging is
the one universal human
experience. Right? How could
any, it How could how could we
possibly say it's x, or it's why
we're talking about all the
people in the world. In all our
beautiful complicated,
maddening, diversity is aging is
different for me, as a, you
know, older white cisgender
woman with considerable
privileges than it is for a
person of color who otherwise
shares all my characteristics,
and really different for both of
us than it would be for someone
who doesn't have an education or
can't afford health care, and
really different for that
person, if they lived in Uganda,
or Singapore, right. So we
always need to drill back down
to the individual experience.
You know, and there is I am not
going to greenwash the fact that
there is a biological basis,
babies can't run away. If if
the, you know, getting gets
conics at the gates, or other
people were not fast anymore.
Well, and so brutal Darwinian
terms, there is a disadvantage
to being very young and very
old. However, we live in a
modern society that has like
gizmos to put babies in and old
people into, you know, get us
away from getting gets caught.
People with disabilities now,
who would have died in infancy
or childhood now live, you know,
rich, rewarding lives. So yes,
those sorts of archaic factors
are still in play, let's be
honest about that. We also have
the technical and social
capacity to mitigate them if we
want to.
Kosta Yepifantsev: And so I'm
gonna get a little technical
here. And I want to go to both
ends of the spectrum. So there
is a program like, for example,
in Tennessee for the Department
of children's services. And
there's also on the other end of
the spectrum, a program called
TennCare, which supports
individuals with disabilities
and people that are over the age
of 65. So both of those programs
are supposed to give the
individuals choice, but they're
governed by outside forces,
always right. And so you're
losing a sense of autonomy.
There's, I've heard this over
and over again, where if you're
under the age of 18, you don't
have control of your own
destiny. And I see a lot of that
happening after an individual an
individual turns 65. So do you
feel like we don't have a good
grasp on the kind of
representations but and
specifically the advocacy
necessary as you as you would
receive and other types of
discrimination, say, for
example, like racism, or most
recently sexism?
Ashton Applewhite: You know, I
think there is growing awareness
among, you know, people
interested in a more equitable
world, that we need to join
forces against all these forms
of discrimination. You know, the
fantastic advocate and poet
Audre Lorde said, There's no
such thing as a single issue
struggle, because we don't lead
single issue a lot. You know,
and that's a huge question with
a million answers. One of and
the short answer is policy is a
blunt instrument. There are
arguments for having a
Department of Aging and
Disability. And there are
arguments for having them be
separate, for reasons I already
touched on just because you grow
older, there are 80 year old who
run marathons. And men who
cannot see blinking, you know,
in in, in an ideal world, here's
a here's an analogy. The United
Nations has a convention on the
rights of children, and a
convention on the rights of
older people, a sorry, and a
convention on the rights of
people with disabilities. And
there is a lot of momentum from
people whose politics I hugely
admire, for a Convention for the
Rights of older people. So sort
of draw an analogy there between
these you know, bureaucratic
blobs, and your you know, the
organizations in Tennessee, if
we enforced the Convention on
the Rights of People with
Disabilities, right. If the
Tennessee Department of
Disability I know I don't have
the name right, and accessible
society and made those that
whatever assistance people with
various disabilities need,
whether they need it when
they're 17 or 70. Whether Are
they needed for six weeks, six
years or the rest of their
lives? We could take age
completely out of the equation.
The minute you have a program
that kicks in at age, whatever,
like you said, you notice a loss
of autonomy when the individual
turns 65. Yes, not like, you
know, I'm 70. And I didn't wake
up on my 60, you know, the day I
turned 65 without being able to
like, sign a check, right?
Kosta Yepifantsev: Like someone
was knocking on your door and
saying, hey, it's time. You
know,
Ashton Applewhite: it's about
capacity. It's about privilege,
you know, and it's, but, you
know, I am not equipped to speak
about the policy solutions,
because they are so complicated.
But what we what we want to do,
I think, is to understand more
about what's ageist what's
ableist and ableism. Is, is the
is an analogy sort of ability is
to is to ableism as age is to
ageism, it's stereotyping and
stigma and prejudice around
cognitive or physical capacity.
And I just want to mention a
really useful tool that we all
school just created. It's a
workshop, called still kicking,
because confronting ageism and
ableism, because the still is a
just, oh, you're still working.
And the thing is ableist, why
should it matter whether or not
we can kick and it's available,
you can you can hire the people
at old school to give it they do
a great job, it is available as
a DIY download and give it
yourself at Old School dot info.
It's free, really good. You
know, to learn more about where
how ageism. Ableism are
different. And, and respect
that, you know, it's really
different to age to with a
disability as it is to be a
young person with one who grows
older, rather than to age into
disability. But a motto of the
disability justice movement is
to celebrate inter dependence.
And that gets around to this
autonomy idea. We have
capitalism, which is not our
friend. And especially in the
US, we have this ethos of
independence. And you shouldn't
ask for help and it's shameful.
And if you need a helping hand,
you have failed. This is
erroneous, it's corrosive, its
destructive. One of my favorite
quotes is a very short quote by
a Dutch gerontologist named Yan
bars. Autonomy requires
collaborators. Right? We all at
any stage of life, you need
someone to fix your car, if you
can't go pick up your kids, no
matter if you're a triathlete,
right? If you collaborate with
car mechanic, I mean, I'm being
a little heavy handed. But the
fact is, as we get older and
lose physical strength, at a
minimum, you need to I need
someone to lift my bag up into
the rack in the airplane. Now,
you know, we all need help life
long. And this SS F ethos really
of independence is a real
terrible problem. It's probably
the most important chapter in my
book is called the independence
trap. No one is independent
ever.
Kosta Yepifantsev: Right? And
every single system,
specifically in the long term
care space that I've encountered
is focused around and
independence, any type of
solution of aging.
Ashton Applewhite: And it's a
toxic label, because it sets us
up to fail.
Kosta Yepifantsev: Well, and
also, you know, I think in a lot
of ways, it it propagates that
capitalistic mindset, because,
you know, one of the things that
I noticed about I'm going to go
with with regards to children
is, you know, they have a whole
system built around supporting
kids in the foster care program,
as opposed to providing the
resources to the family, so the
kids don't have to go to foster
care. And the same thing happens
on the other end with
individuals who are over the age
of 65 and receive Medicaid
services or Medicare services.
Like if a person needs
assistance with care, they are
going they could very well
receive it from their family
members of their family members
received the funding directly.
However, it goes to a care. It
goes to a care provider. Yeah,
and a third party comes in and
so it like you're talking about
with regards to the ethos, yeah.
Ashton Applewhite: And you know
what, what caregiving is a
beautiful, incredibly important
part of being human right. And a
really ugly manifestation of
ageism in our society, because
it affects very young people and
very old people to is that the
work of Caring for Our Children,
and people of any age with
disabilities and for very old
or, you know, older people, not
very old is farmed out for lousy
wages to mostly women who don't
earn a decent wage and who don't
often who have to leave their
own families in order to you
know, do this is ill paid work
hear us? If and what makes it a
burden is going alone without
supports, as you say, it's these
larger systems. We have no
caregiving system in the US, if
we did, there would be a lot
less fear and apprehension and
stigma, and much less of the
burden would fall on biological
family, specifically, typically
on on women who are unpaid. And,
you know, we're not we women,
our social security benefits,
which is a huge percentage of
older Americans, Older Women's
entire income and right not to
live well or barely live at all
right, it's based on your wage
earning women earn less
lifelong, and we are penalized
for any time spent out of the
paid workforce, which is back to
productivity, that work has
measurable, massive economic
value.
Kosta Yepifantsev: And we can
Well, we can see it, I think
it's I think the tide is turning
to a degree because the lot, a
lot of the labor issues that
we're experiencing right now is
tied directly to child care. And
for individual or for people
staying home and caring for
loved ones. That should be
right. But that's the problem is
we're not seeing the like it's
it's not compensated, it's it's
literally like free labor,
indentured servitude, without
any level of compensation in a
system that's designed for
compensation from productivity
in the greater economy. So we've
got to change the system
otherwise, like families are
going to suffer, because they're
spending time at home. Right?
Ashton Applewhite: We're
suffering. Yes, yes,
disabilities are suffering.
Kosta Yepifantsev: Can I ask
about you mentioned social
security. And you may be able to
speak on this. I know, this is
kind of little, maybe a little
bit outside of your specialty?
How do individuals who age over
the over the age of 65 that
receive Social Security
benefits, you know, 60% of
Americans over the age of 65,
don't have, you know, an
additional retirement or
pension, they just literally
collect social security. And
it's the minimum collection is
like 773. And there's a lot of
Americans that only collect that
much every month? How do you
expect them to age with dignity?
If they can't afford to, to feed
themselves?
Ashton Applewhite: Do I have an
answer to that? Well, I'm
Kosta Yepifantsev: curious, if
you have an opinion on it? I
would, I would.
Ashton Applewhite: First of all,
I mean, no, first of all, all
the things we need all the
things all the time. Yeah. But
you know, let's, let's close the
gender wage gap. So that women,
you know, would be would have
pensions. Let's, let's let's
activate unions so that working
people can have a working wage.
Let's stop being so racist about
all the immigrants who do this
work. This really important work
so beautifully and so well that
other Americans do not want to
do, and how about a minimum wage
that allows workers no matter
whether they're doing, you know,
home care, or delivering your
food, can support themselves and
educate their kids and so on,
and save for retirement? And
that support all the way along
from all these systems?
Kosta Yepifantsev: Last
question, and then we're going
to get back to the to the, to
the context of the conversation.
I'd like your opinion, because
ageism and this concern, around
ageism really entered my
purview, during the pandemic,
specifically, when nursing homes
essentially barred any visitors.
They were on lockdown, the
pandemic spread significantly
through long term care
facilities, what's your opinion
on locking down and isolating
all of those individuals that
are elderly and disabled? Who's
clinging on to that connection
to their family? Was that the
right thing to do? And do you
think that that's what's finally
brought this conversation of
ageism to the forefront? You
know,
Ashton Applewhite: there's never
a right or wrong to these really
complex ethical issues. Clearly,
it was horrible. That, you know,
age does make us more physically
vulnerable to the virus and I
understand why long term care
facilities try to isolate their
residents in order to keep them
alive. There was an example of a
facility I think, in upstate New
York where the owner it was
small enough and I believe,
privately owned a nonprofit but
where he brought in his the
workers, and he paid them a
decent wage and they weren't
didn't have to work. You know,
the reason one huge reason
contagion rates in long term
care were so high is because
they are staffed by ill paid
women who have to work multiple
jobs in order to pay their own
rent. Yeah, if you paid them a
decent wage, we wouldn't have we
would have had much less of that
back to, you know, the fact that
that later being older, your
immune system doesn't work as
well, and the virus is more
dangerous period. So, that does
explain why the, you know, most
of the victims of COVID most of
the deceased are older, but it
does not explain our death in
those numbers. That is because
of bias that is because of
abandoning older people. And,
you know, I do think there is
enormous interest now, in the
reform of long term care. Yeah.
What is right for one
individual, you know, it depends
on what, what they want, what
their family wants. And also I
understand if you're running a
facility, you know, like policy
is a blunt instrument, you do
have to take the welfare of the
community. You know, if we, I
mean, big, zoom back rainbow,
you know, magic unicorn
universe, we live in age diverse
communities. People are not
segregated according to age and
ability to start with and think
how much more humane and
manageable that problem would
be.
Kosta Yepifantsev: But how can
we take steps to start creating
communities that are more
inclusive and supportive of
people for all ages,
Ashton Applewhite: the ideal
would be to live in age diverse
communities, you know, an awful
lot of the people who work in
aging services were raised by or
around older people, typically,
their grandparents, if you just
like, if you have a lot of queer
and gay friends, it's pretty
hard to have stereotypes about
gay people persist. If you're
around people of all ages, it's
pretty hard to believe that old
people can't take care of
themselves and young people are
selfish and incompetent to
people who aren't like us, or,
you know, different from us in
some significant way, makes it
harder to hold on to
stereotypes, which are the heart
of bias. So, you know, people
often ask me, like, Where's
where's it less ages? It's less
ages, not so much in China,
which has urbanized and become,
you know, very much a capitalist
society in rapid year in, you
know, in recent years. And, but
we're older people and younger
people live in community,
there's less ageism. So there is
a lot of interest now, in
intergenerational housing, which
I really, you know, really like.
Another example would be instead
of senior centers, how about
community centers? Where, you
know, question, I get all the
types of activities, you know,
yoga for old people or knitting
for young people or whatever.
There, it's appropriate to have
activities for children, because
being nine is really different
from being six. But being 29 is
not so different from being 26
or whatever, three year gap, and
I want to make another point
about that. But instead of that
having activities for old people
and fun stuff for young people
have, have an activity you know,
a bird watching for beginners,
bird watching for middle people,
bird watching for experienced
people, or have it be if it's a
yoga class, have it be, you
know, a fitness class for people
with balance issues, which could
be a young person recuperating
from a, you know, a fall, and it
could be a lot of older people
might balance is not what it
should be, but make it about
capacity, and interest and level
rather than age. And I just want
to make a point about
homogeneity, right, the thesis,
all stereotypes assume that a
population is the same. Every
newborn is unique. But 17 year
olds have a lot more in common
cognitively, socially,
developmentally, than 37 year
olds and so on out, the longer
we live, the more different from
one another we become you work
in long term care I'm sure you
see all the time everyday
examples of what a geriatrician
say, if you've seen 180 year
old, you've seen 180 year old,
so any assumption about what
people like is inevitably false.
But the older the person, the
less basis there is for it, the
less our age says about us.
Kosta Yepifantsev: Well, it's
because we're always trying to
create a standard of practice.
That's, that's what that's
unfortunate part of
Ashton Applewhite: reasoning
standards, I get it. It's
complicated, but it's people
Kosta Yepifantsev: though. It's
that's the problem. We're not
We're not selling the product
we're not provide we're not
cutting hair, we're taking care
of people and how do you you
can't put people in a box like
we've learned over the course of
of our entire history as human
beings that you can't put people
in a box and so I love the fact
that you're speaking to changing
the long term care industry. We
do this show because we want
people to understand the
industry so that if they want
They get involved. They want to
activate whatever it might be
that they actually have some
guidelines of what the industry
can provide the tools that are
available in the long term care
space. But I do want to ask you
kind of a more poignant
question. You were talking about
kids, that are people I'm sorry,
people under the age of 18. We
don't have we don't have
anything in our toolbox that
points to kids being independent
and self sufficient. Because
like, say, for example, as you
were talking, I was thinking
about the book, where the kids
get stranded on the island, and
they form it. Lord of the Flies,
that's it? Yes. And you look at
that, and you're like, wow, you
know, that's pretty advanced. I
mean, they're, they're
essentially building a hierarchy
hierarchy, hidden out there that
are fundamentally building a
civilization in this book,
right? And we don't value that,
as something that is tangible,
that is positive. We look at
that book when we read it. And
we say like, this is all
terrible, like this can never
happen. Right? And so we, we
unvalidated, our, you know,
discount the significance that
that children can bring to
society.
Ashton Applewhite: Yeah, I mean,
I want to mention the old school
Clearing House, which is a
repository of free and carefully
vetted resources, podcasts,
webinars, you know, speakers,
animations, videos, all kinds of
fun stuff in all different
formats, reports, blah, blah,
blah, to educate people about
what ageism is and what we can
do about it. And we have quite a
few. And we are always looking
for more resources that address
tokenizing young people,
marginalizing young people not
valuing what a young person has
to say simply because they're
not not an adult yet. And that's
not okay. Either. And young
adults, I mean, ageism is also
responsible for a lot of the
difficulties that young people
have getting established in the
work world. And we should look
at what they're capable of. And
they have less experience, you
know, there's, I'm not, I'm not
denying that. But we shouldn't
look at a young person and
assume that they're incompetent
or self involved or know how to
fix a computer just because
they're young.
Kosta Yepifantsev: And the
overarching question before we
wrap up, and Pardon my
ignorance, but is ageism, the
newest of the isms? And in your
opinion, do you ever feel like
it's difficult to be taken
seriously? Because when you look
at people, when you say ageism,
most people immediately
gravitate to people that are
people that are elderly. But at
the same time, they look at
older white men who are in
positions of power and
influence. And they say, Well,
I'm sorry. And they say, ha, why
is there really a problem when
society is built around these
components?
Ashton Applewhite: Why why is
the US Congress filled with old
white guys? Because we live in a
racist capitalist patriarchy?
Yeah. You know, and I frankly,
have a political system where
wealth buys buys office. Yeah,
right. Yeah, if so, those those
are the reasons not because, you
know, not not not because old
people run things, older people
run Congress because of
political systems that are anti
democratic, and anti equity. But
how
Kosta Yepifantsev: do you
separate the, your fight for
your advocacy for ageism, the
for people to understand the
problem for people to offer
solutions, between the, the
notion that you know, there's a
lot of, well, there's a lot of
people that are really well off
predominantly that are old, in
over,
Ashton Applewhite: we tend to we
tend to accumulate you know,
we're born into the world with
nothing. Obviously, the
inherited wealth is a huge and
toxic mechanism for perpetuating
class and privilege. But the but
the important thing always is to
zoom out, yes, older people have
more assets than younger people,
we accumulate stuff as we go
through life. But there, you
know, the 1% is made up of rich
and poor people, just like the
99%. Sorry, the 1% is made up of
younger and older people, just
like the 99%. Right, bias does
not, you know, this, you know,
these factors don't inherently
discriminate by age. So it's
always important. I mean, there
are big Because of persistent
ageism in the workplace,
hundreds of 1000s of Americans
are aging into poverty, as you
already touched on, yeah, we
don't need to caregiving, you
know, system in place, because
we don't have decent health
care, because we don't have
single payer health care up
until people are 65. So people
can't take care of themselves,
much of what we think of as old
age, ailments, a horrible phrase
that I can't believe, just
because it's never, there are
very few actual conditions of
life, most of them are
conditions that, you know, that
we've had lifelong, but haven't
been able to take care of, or
haven't taken care of, or, you
know, can't afford to take care
of, and they become symptomatic,
right, and they turn into
chronic conditions in later
life, you know, zoom out of the
systems that enable these, you
know, inequities to pile up and
add up in late life, there are
lots of, you know, I mean, older
women in particular, in
Australia, the fastest growing
group of of poor, you know,
people who are really
economically disadvantaged, are
older women. You know, wow, it's
not, you know, sure, there's
loads of rich old people, but
the reason is there loads of
ritual people is again, there's
always, you know, you can eat to
be, if you're going to be honest
about this stuff, you, you have
to acknowledge, there's always
two sides of the story. Older
people are always going to earn
more stuff, because we've had
more time to accumulate stuff.
But also, you know, we have
massive systems in place that
are keeping the rich, rich,
whether they're, you know, young
people who inherit, you know,
their parents millions, or, you
know, sort of all these
interests.
Kosta Yepifantsev: I mean,
Ashton, this work, as we
progress through this
conversation, I'm just like, I
mean, we could talk for four or
five hours about this, and I
continue to think of how
difficult it is for you to be
able to sort of thread the
needle and bring awareness to
this issue. And so
Ashton Applewhite: it's, it's
incredibly interesting. And it
really is, I think of, and I
think this less than less,
because the window is getting
less dirty, I think of what I'm
doing is cleaning a really dirty
window. These are new ideas to
most people. Absolutely. That's
kind of fun, right? Because when
you clean it, like really the
back window of your car, you can
see where you've been, you know,
when people are reading a book,
or listen to what I have to say,
you know, I say, you know, what
do you think of his criteria for
diversity? And if they don't
mention age, I say, What about
age? And no one says, that's a
dumb idea. They'd like to smack
their heads and go, Why didn't I
think about that. So provoking
those head smacking moments,
which you are doing in this
podcast is invigorating, and
challenging and fun, you are
hoping to change the culture,
which is really interesting, and
all and really important. And
all the work that equity minded
people have been doing in recent
decades. I mean, forever,
really. But I guess I would look
back to the, you know, the 60s
and the 70s. With the birth of
the Civil War. I mean, it's not
the birth of the civil rights
movement, people of color had
been working, struggling to get
equal rights forever, and so
have have working class women
forever. But that would be the
heyday of what we think of as
the capital see civil rights
movement. The heyday of second
wave mainstream feminism, we
have made enormous progress on
rights for people of color on
trans rights on gay rights on
women's rights. We've gotten a
lot of pushback to but that's a
sign we're getting some Yeah.
Right. We made enough progress
on everything we've learned
about addressing these other
forms of bias in dressing age
bias. We are not starting from
zero. Yes, it is the latest ism
to bleep into, you know, onto
the public radar. But we're not
starting from scratch. You're
right, we're building on all the
energy and knowledge and
understanding of the way all
these struggles are connected,
you know, in the part of you and
your listeners.
Kosta Yepifantsev: So we always
like to end the show with a call
to action. Personally, how do we
improve our own attitudes
towards getting older and
enjoying life at every age?
Ashton Applewhite: Um, well, you
know, it's, sometimes I enjoy
being older and sometimes it's
hard, right? No one enjoys any
stage of life, you know, all the
time. Sure. To point out that
being young is really hard to
write no one actually wants to
be any younger. So I think we do
need we we it's not that we want
to think more positively about
aging. Inherently, we want to
think more accurately about
aging. And that is necessarily
more positive because most of us
are brainwashed into thinking no
judge Make no judgment that we
live in a culture that bombards
us with these messages, right?
That, that aging is equivalent
to decline, even though no one
wants to go back to their youth,
right? Even though we know from
this you curve of happiness, and
contentment increases in later
life, et cetera, et cetera, I
could, you know, run statistics
at you for half an hour, but I
won't. So the most helpful thing
each of us can do, because all
change starts within as the
saying goes, is to look at our
own attitudes towards age. And
Ha, amazing how you use the
words Old and young. Read the
introduction to my book, which
is available as a free download.
Look at my I go to great lengths
to make my ideas. And I don't
mean, I'm not the only source of
ideas, go to the old school
clearinghouse and find out what
hundreds of other people who
think a lot about ages have have
to say about this old school dot
info. But on my blog, my blog,
my website is this chair, this
chair rocks.com/blog. I have
been thinking out loud about
this for 15 years. It's
searchable by topic, noodle
around educate yourself, because
what you will inevitably fine is
you know, is the lovely thing
you said 15 minutes ago like oh
crap, I said something ages, I
asked him think he just and
ableist things all the damn
time, it's really hard to
unlearn ideas that we grew up
with, you know, it's why older
people can be the most agents of
all, sort of counter intuitively
because we've had a lifetime of
internalizing these messages.
And most of us have never
stopped to question them. And
that first moment of like, oh,
Ik, this is in my head. And I'm
part of the problem, that we
can't challenge bias unless
we're aware of it. Right. So the
first step is to acknowledge
sorry, to see the ways in which
you are biased, instead of for
evidence that we're not, which
is, you know, which is where we
all go, Oh, I didn't I'm not
racist. I didn't mean you know,
the I didn't mean, yeah, yeah,
you are. We all are. And it is
in that reckoning, that we start
to see the problem more clearly.
And the good news is that right
around the corner, like
instantly, not consciously, the
minute you see it in yourself,
you start to see it in the world
around you. And things people
say in advertising, and that is
liberating, right? That's what
consciousness raising does.
You're like, oh, it's not that
I'm a bad person. It's not that
I'm more ignorant than any
anyone else out there. It's that
it's that it is embedded in the
culture. It is a shared problem.
And we can come together and do
something about it.
Caroline Moore: Thank you for
joining us on this episode of
Now or Never Long-Term Care
Strategy with Kosta Yepifantsev.
If you enjoyed listening and you
wanna hear more make sure you
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Long-Term Care Strategy is a
Kosta Yepifantsev production.
Today’s episode was written and
produced by Morgan Franklin.
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Kosta? Visit us at
kostayepifantsev.com