Badge of Honor

Listening to the news on the radio the other day, I was flabbergasted to hear the newscaster saying that a 64-year-old elderly woman had been the target of an attack. Elderly at 64?? My first thought was what should a 90-year-old person be called? Too old to live??

            My complaint to the radio station was one of many as it turns out, and the station felt obligated to apologize. Too little too late in my view. Why should people be labeled as they age? Why should the age of the woman who was attacked need to be qualified in the first place? If a 30-year-old man had been attacked there would not have been any other adjective attached to the story even if he was, let’s say, overweight or had a scar on his face. Let’s treat everyone on the same scale.

It seems to me that “young” people, those under 40, don’t see themselves as aging. They somehow feel they’ll never get as old as 60, or God forbid, 70. Yet I suppose baby boomers felt the same way at some point in their younger days. I know I did, yet there is no way of avoiding aging is there? However, what society should avoid is denigrating age when in fact it should be seen as a badge of honor. After all, every year of life brings new wisdom which is the reason older people are overall so interesting. They have lived, have cried, have fought, and have survived to love another day. Why should they be seen as less than they are?

The 64-year-old woman who was the subject of the newscast fought her assailant with all her strength which resulted in his arrest. Courageous should have been the adjective used to describe her. Let’s spread the word.