Ageism and being Bubbly

2/7/11

Now that I have sufficiently procrastinated posting a journal entry from last week here it is. One of the hardest aspects or research for me is the filtering of thoughts and information then funneling that into coherent thoughts on paper or in this case, an online post. This process is something that has not become any easier for me to accomplish. Over the last week and a half I have been looking at articles related to qualitative and quantitative methods, India, aging, ageism, perceptions of age, and the Tamil family just to name a few. With all of this information it is surprising that I struggle so much with writing one simple post.

Two Sundays ago I was referred to as ‘bubbly’ not the worst thing in the world just not a term that I would ever use to describe myself. I have always viewed ‘bubbly’ as a negative or perhaps even weaker characteristic. This negative perception greatly affected the way that I viewed myself, the individual that described me as such, and our relationship. The next day I attended the prep course for the nursing study abroad programs. During this class we discussed the ways that we describe ourselves more specifically the things that make up our identity. What are the values and paradigms that work as my cultural ‘baggage’ that I will be carrying all across India with me?

I have been thinking about this topic in relation to my perceptions of aging and ageism. How do I view aging? What is my perspective of the elderly? I view aging as inevitable, but not as being negative overall. Of course as I age my bodies mobility will likely start to deteriorate and my brain might not function as well, but these things are not requirements of growing old. Not every elderly person I know has to use a walker or can’t remember my name. These are negative stereotypes that Americans tend to associate with growing older. It amazes me how many negative attributes I associate with age, “I’m tired,” “my body hurts,” “I can’t remember,” “I’m boring,” “cranky,” “ slow.” These are all phrases and words that I have said, probably in the last week, to associate myself within the aging process. These are all forms of Ageism the negative stereotyping of aging and the aged. How many times have I given a birthday card that joked about the age the receiver was turning? Does this mean that I view aging as negative? I would like to think that I don’t view aging as negative, however, my language would often argue otherwise.

I am very excited to use domain analysis methods to see how individuals in India define and perceive of aging. What are the cultural perceptions of aging? How does society perceive of an individual in their 40’s, 60’s, 80’s? These are questions that I will be trying to answer throughout my field study. Is there a disconnect between what our perceptions are and how we act towards a certain group? Are the perceptions changing? What can be done to influence the use of negative stereotypes? Answers to these questions will probably not come overnight. The answers may not even come throughout the course of my research, but I think they are important to try and answer.