Today, big studios and streaming services alike are relying heavily on veteran actors like Jean Smart (70 in September and starring in two hits—HBO’s Mare of Easttown and HBO Max’s Hacks), Jane Fonda (83), Ellen Burstyn (88), Liam Neeson (69), Helen Mirren (75), Morgan Freeman (84), Harrison Ford (78) and others to woo audiences of all ages. Shockingly to all, social media went wild with disappointment when fan favorite 87-year old Alan Arkin decided to focus on new projects instead of returning to his co-starring role opposite Michael Douglas (77 in September) on Netflix’s The Kominsky Method.
Because “old” has become the new “new,” the average person needs to embrace aging too. Specifically, older people have to—and really can!—change the way all of us think about age, while also revamping the way we talk, walk, and kvetch on and on about our aches and pains. This kind of behavior telegraphs “old and decrepit.”
For solutions to these self-sabotaging scripts that your readers feed themselves, enter aging expert Steven Petrow!
In his empowering new book, Stupid Things I Won’t Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong, Washington Post, columnist
Steven Petrow reveals a game plan to help all of us age a whole lot smarter than our elders did, while also teaching us how to fight back against ageism—the last acceptable “ism.”
Despite the book’s light-hearted title, there is nothing funny about the biases of ageism, which undermine people over 50 in the workplace, increase the likelihood of physical and mental health problems, even, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), cut short lifespans.
These biases have been inescapable—until now, says the author. Age-based discrimination just might be one of the few “universals” in today’s world, because, according to a Yale study, ageism impacts older adults regardless of their actual age, sex, and racial/ethnic identity. And what is possibly the least reported side effect of the Covid pandemic? Refueled ageism.
How to speak truth to the power of parents—and to any other elders in one’s orbit. Seeded by his firsthand observations of the troubling, often debilitating choices that his parents made during their sunset years (such as refusing to stop driving, blaming their incontinence on the dog, eschewing needed protections like walkers and security bars in the tub), at 50, Petrow vowed that he would do things differently, and started making a list of “Do Nots” and “Must Dos.” That list was the wellspring of this book.
Among Steven Petrow’s eye-opening nuggets of solid-gold advice:
- Don’t limit your friends to your same aging circle. Develop relationships with people younger than yourself; research says inter-generational friendships improve health and psychological well-being—comparable to quitting smoking.
- Do not color your hair if the overly dark results telegraph “I’m desperate!”(This holds true especially for men.) On the other hand, if your colorist is as good as Diane Sawyer’s, why not?
- Do not join the “organ recital,” the all-too-prevalent chorus about our aches and pains. Limit talk about health problems to just a single cocktail.
A study by the WHO and Yale concluded that feeling bad about aging selves can actually cut our lives short!
In addition, here’s a mere sampling of other older celebrities and experts who are in demand and making news. I call this “Who’s hot right now?”
Dolly Parton, 75
Patti Smith, 75,
Bruce Springsteen, 72 this September
Mark Harmon, 70, Sept. 2
Jill Biden, 70
Martha Stewart, 80 in August
Dr. Anthony Fauci, 80
Mitt Romney, 74
Chuck Grassley 87
Mitch McConnell, 79
Nancy Pelosi, 81
