All Of The Selves We Have Ever Been
Menu

all of the selves we Have ever been

Better Than Advertised

12/14/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
 
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,
as cases surged, 
government and health officials continued to believe they could harness the energy of youth and youthful feelings of invulnerability by pleading with young people to stay home and save old people from the coronavirus. 

Seriously? 

Let’s get real.  Young people don’t go to crowded
bars to drink to the health of senior citizens.

The public has been confronted with horror stories about droves of older adults dying in nursing homes.  Many young people, and some not so young, don’t know anyone living in a skilled nursing facility.  Some folks believe that older adults go to nursing homes to die, so what’s the big deal?  With all of the focus on frailty and “underlying conditions,” the picture painted is one of aging citizens about to tip over the edge at any moment.  Why shut down the economy for such a hopeless cause?   Never mind that 42 is the median age of COVID-19 cases in my state of Ohio.

Advertising adds to the misperceptions of older adulthood.  If most of your education about aging comes from television, what is a person to believe about the quality of life and the value of seniors?

Let’s take a look.  Turn on your televisions sets.  Stop with the Pilates and pay attention. 

Senior citizens watch a lot of television and are big consumers of cable TV services.  Cable?  Yes, cable.  How quaint.  Didn’t cable go out of style along with typewriters and rabbit ears?  How can you take someone seriously who doesn’t stream?

“Active” seniors are depicted out in the park walking their dogs.  The really hip grandparents are busy snapping smartphone photographs of their pets and sending three of those pictures each day to their grandchildren.  What a full life!  Really groovy grandparents  might work part-time and still manage to walk a couple of miles twice a week, but the fact that they can still concentrate and remember their names is due to brain-preserving over-the-counter medications.

And speaking of medications…how many erectile dysfunction advertisements do you think a child sees in the years from preschool through college?  Is it any wonder young people can’t imagine adults with intimate relationships and full lives?  Based on advertising, a viewer might believe the number one problem facing older adults is sexual dysfunction. 

And why would senior citizens care about sex when they are the subject of so much advertising for arthritis pain relievers, heart disease remedies, and diabetes medications?  How about those sexy ads for bladder and bowel leakage products?  If you were a teen, wouldn’t you rather die from COVID-19 than humiliation?

Body and mind problems aside, older adults fall and they can’t get up.  When the ads come on, they take notes about term life insurance, reverse mortgages, and pre-paid funeral services.  None of those products implies a future.

Add to the regular diet of product advertising, more recent election campaign ads zeroed in on helpless seniors.  How about the one in which an older woman, one with a landline, is trying to call 9-1-1 while an intruder with a crow bar breaks through her front door?  Of course, the police have been defunded and the woman’s call goes unanswered.  The intruder enters her home and the phone falls to the floor.

The media paint a pathetic portrait of growing older in America. Most of the sad images are of women.  Now I don’t expect to overturn the developmental processes of youth and the accompanying lack of insight about aging and responsibility to elders, but I would like to see more images of the men and women that I know. Show me the seniors who stream, run marathons, and direct corporations.  Let me see some sexy women on Mediterranean diets with robust health and a string of boyfriends.   Give me a gal who comes to her own defense, tripping the intruder with her running shoes, clobbering him with her hand weights, and tying him up with her shoe laces.  Show me the lives of the older people that I know, lives with a quality that even a teen can deem worth saving.  Then we can all meet at a bar and drink to that!



1 Comment
rearick cappy
12/14/2020 08:17:18 pm

Amen, sister! I'll meet you in the bar any time you say and we'll drink to today's senior woman ... a force, not a bland, unseen person waiting for God.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lilli-ann Buffin
    ​

      Get Notified of New Posts

    Subscribe

    Archives

    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All
    Acne
    Adulting
    Advertising
    Aging
    Arms
    Barbie
    Baths
    Beauty
    Beloved Community
    BINGO
    Birds
    Books
    Branding
    Bravery
    Cars
    Catching Up
    Children
    Church
    Cliches
    Clothing
    Comfy Couches
    Coping With Stress
    Coronavirus
    Death & Dying
    Diets
    Dignity
    Discernment
    Drive Ins
    Drive-ins
    Driving
    Essential Workers
    Exercise
    Faith
    Falling
    Father's Day
    Food
    Friendship
    Fruit
    Games
    Good Intentions
    Goodness
    Good Old Days
    Grace
    Graduation
    Grandparents
    Gratitude
    Hair
    Handwriting
    Health
    Heroes
    History
    Holidays
    Hope
    Houses
    Humor
    Illness
    Imagination
    Influencers
    Ironing
    John Lewis
    Knowledge
    Laughter
    Laundry
    Leadership
    Libraries
    Listening
    Lists
    MacGyver
    Madge
    Magazines
    Mail
    Masks
    Memorial Day
    Memories
    Mental Illness
    Miracles
    Moral Lessons
    Mothers
    Music
    Names
    Nancy Drew
    Nature
    Neighbors
    Oreos
    Other-Mothers
    Our Stuff
    Outdoors
    Parenting
    Pets
    Phones
    Poignancy
    Prayer
    Purses
    Reading
    Recipes
    Reinvention
    Revelations
    Rewards
    Rotisserie Chicken
    Saturdays
    Saving The World
    Schools
    Shelf Life
    Showers
    Siblings
    Small Things
    Sorrow
    Speed
    Sports
    Stores
    Substance Abuse
    Success
    Sunshine
    Technology
    Toilet Paper
    Tools
    Truth
    Uncles
    Veterans
    Voting
    Walking
    War
    Water
    Weather
    Wilderness
    Wishing
    Women
    Wonder
    Work

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Other Works
  • What Readers Say
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
  • Other Works
  • What Readers Say