To think the Covid 19 crisis has revealed a scourge of ableism and ageism in our society?

[Madhairday]

I see it on every thread about lockdown. The elderly (over 60s) and vulnerable (of whatever age) are again and again dehumanised and cast as less worthy of help than the young and the fit, who should be prioritised because they have longer and healthier life left before them. Phrases like one I saw just now about how these people will die soon anyway so why are children suffering?

I am really tired of being othered. I am really tired of being made the reason for the suffering endured by many in lockdown. Really tired of being told I should be grateful others are suffering for me. Just really tired.

Before all this I'd never have dreamed these attitudes would come to light, but in the past months I've been repeatedly punched in the gut with some of the words thrown out against the aged and the disabled and chronically ill. It seems that we truly live in a world where not all lives are equal, where in fact many are worth less than others.

Lots of people are suffering due to lockdown and the effects will continue to cause suffering. The shielded know this and are affected by it as much as everyone else. I have lost my income as well as not being able to touch another human being for nearly 3 months. Many of my shielded friends mental health is shot, too, yet on threads about mental health the shielded are yet again othered and in fact blamed for the mental health issues of those not shielding.

Many are suffering in lockdown. We know this. We know the NHS has cut off much treatment (largely because the spread of covid in hospitals is so uncontainable that they cannot risk bringing already vulnerable people onto wards as covid would exacerbate conditions and kill in greater numbers, as well as the risk for frontline staff, yet many people here seem to think the NHS has narrowed down 'because only covid deaths are important to them' )

I am deeply concerned at the level of ableism and ageism I see on here every single day at the moment. If we said someone else's life mattered less because they were black or gay we would rightly be torn to pieces, but so many are saying lives are less due to age and vulnerability, and this is going unchallenged, again and again and again.

I see it. I see it every day. I feel it deep down, a sense of worthlessness because I have long term chronic illnesses. I am likely to live many more years, however, but that doesn't fit in with the narrative so many have built around the shielded and those dying of Covid, that they must be near death anyway.

Do lives really rank one over the other due to age and illness? Is this where we are now?

I agree lockdown is hurting people. I am not one of the lockdown should last forever people. I'm just getting on with shielding quietly and carefully. But I do fear for a second wave if it's relaxed too quickly.

I would like to ask for some compassion today in the way people speak. I'd like to ask that people don't denegrate others as less worthy or state that covid is just a bad cold. Have a care for those who feel othered and dehumanised by the rhetoric that flies at us day after day.

This 95 year old is always used as an example to imply they are the only vulnerable ones.
This is not the case.

Ok well let's look at the TV licence. Everyone was up in arms that it would be means tested for the elderly...no one seemed to give a shit when child benefit became means tested.

Lots of people gave a shit about child benefit and tge total unfairness of it. There were threads after thread on it. The only people who didn't care were the jealous ones who were on low incomes.
Tv licenses I didn't even know there were changes afoot.

I have lost count of the number of times I have despaired of the blatant ageism & ableism on MN.

Use of such comments & reasoning applied to BAME & LBQT communities would bring forth raging condemnation from many quarters.

It is disappointing to see many posters capable of fine reasoned logical discourse let slip their prejudices towards fellow human beings. But then everyone has grandparents, so they cannot be ageist, can they?

Er, yes seems to be so.

So who is everyone @formerbabe

I've been shocked by it, tbh. I've been particularly shocked by the view that the over 60s are elderly, when the pension age is 66 or higher for everyone. You can't have it both ways: if we 60-somethings are old (and to some posters, apparently disposable), give us our bloody pensions!

But yes, there is a considerable degree of "othering" of older people and people with disabilities and chronic health issues.

I am not sick, I have asthma, I have had it for 40 years, I am not expecting to die particularly early, I do 9 - 10 hours of exercise a week 7-8 of which are cardio. I am vulnerable, not sick or old.

^This. My DH is vulnerable because he has asthma. He's 55 and hasn't had a day off sick for more than 5 years. So he certainly isn't only or sick, he's just vulnerable.

I'm 50. I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a result of having pneumonia last year. I unfortunately picked up the virus and I'm still ill 3 months later.

Neither of us are at death's door, and we have 2 DDs of 11 and 8. My DH has to work, and we both have to take our DDs to and from school. So to be dismissed as not mattering because of our vulnerabilities isn't on.

Yes, that mythical and convenient 95 year old seems to get rolled out on every thread, as if it's only 95 year olds who are 'done with life' we must consider in all of this, and their lives are worth less apparently and so that means all vulnerable people's lives are worth less.

It brings me to tears, actually, some of the attitudes here, even on a thread where I asked people to consider the language used about people in these categories. The lack of empathy really is shocking, with people downplaying the virus as if because they had it mildly for one evening anyone else should shut up about it, and with people making this all about children and/or lockdown when this wasn't the original question.

It is ok to be concerned about the elderly, the vulnerable, the young and everyone else without polarising one against the other so much and forcing the vulnerable to feel as if they are deliberately worsening the lives of the young and would be better out of the way.

Because that is how some of this language makes us feel.

I agree op. It's revolting. Along with previous posts I've seen where people are rubbing their hands in glee at the thought that older people might die and free up the housing stock so they can dive in and buy at a bargain price.

Everyone and no one are mythical, Northernsoulgirl

Despite what certain posters on this thread would have us believe, lockdown happened to protect the NHS, not 'disposable' elderly people. The cost of not locking society down would have been upwards of 500,000 deaths, plus many, many more people (more likely to be younger people with a higher chance of survival) left with permanent, life changing consequences. The NHS could not cope with that level of demand, nor could our economy cope with that level of illness and incapacity. Both would collapse.

Those posters who are arguing that life should go back to normal, or that lockdown should never have happened and who are using children as emotional blackmail are at best ill informed, and at worst disingenuous. The prospects for children if life went back to normal would be horrific, as they not only saw people they loved suffer and possibly die, but in terms of the consequences of living in a country with a crippled economy and no functioning healthcare system.

I do wonder why anyone who lives in the UK would suggest that is a course of action we should all be signing up for.

Yanbu OP. The undercurrent of discrimination has always been there against those less fortunate, these days it is a free for all it is eye watering to say the least.

I want to say to all the "They're going to die anyway" merchants that we are all going to die, even you.

Did anyone watch the piece on BBC1 it is on YouTube of lives lost. Many were young, 600 healthcare workers lost their life in the fight.

I've been shocked by it, tbh. I've been particularly shocked by the view that the over 60s are elderly, when the pension age is 66 or higher for everyone. Particularly when on another thread a man of 60 who is working ten hrs, finishing at 4 am with a 45 minute drive home is a lazy so and so because he wants to leave his job. His wife has been advised to make sure he can't get any of her money as obviously a 60 year old who is exhausted by his job isn't fit to be a husband. So are 60 year olds so old that their death is only to be expected or still young and should feel fine about his working hours?

They've ended free travel for kids in buses in London wtf?

That was bloody sudden and quiet..

Loads will have real problems getting to school there's loads of poverty. Then their parents will get fined for poor attendance...

The government insisted on this as part of the bail out.

That's fucking massive.

I'll go and find another thread about it.

The comments here about kids not being impacted by things they don't remember is crass by the way. There is plenty of evidence to say otherwise. A toddler locked in with abusive parents for all this time and lessened opportunity for others to notice/ report etc will of course have long term consequences.

Reading this thread it really is polarised. Horrible to see. There appears to be a lack of empathy both ways. I've not seen many posts saying vulnerable people don't matter. Plenty on here saying children (also vulnerable by the way because of their size/ age/ dependence on others) will be fine and shut up about it.

I’ve said it before on other threads. Shielding has become the new institutionalisation.

It used to be that the disabled should be put away for their own good and so that society didn’t have to engage with them.

Now it’s the shielded.

If only we keep the shielded locked away then the rest of society can go back to normal...

And elsewhere people have said that the shielded are free to make their own decisions. Except they’re not.

You only have to look at the threads from posters who are furious with elderly parents for going out when they should be at home, who think that people with disabilities/underlying health conditions should stay home because if they get ill they’re more likely to take up a bed which could be needed by a person more likely to survive.

And shielded doesn’t mean incapable. Plenty of people who have families, jobs, full lives just happen to have underlying health conditions.

Truth is we’re all going to die.

I might die of COVID or I might die of the heart condition which means I’m vulnerable if I catch COVId, or I might walk out tomorrow and be hit by a bus, or I might die at the age of 95 having come through all of that.

My death will be no less tragic whenever it happens.

I will do all I can to mitigate against the risk of COVID, but i do it because I want to, not because I feel that the rest of the world should go back to their own lives and I somehow owe it to them to make that possible.

@SaskiaRembrandt good post 👏

So, we have a thread started by someone who wants to point out, quite rightly, that Covid has led to an increase in ageism ableism......

And it's full of people proving her point.

Fucking hell.

We are locked down to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed.

And thus demonstrate how much the Tories have wrecked it in the name of austerity in the last decade.

But the death of a 95 year old who has lived a full life is not as tragic as the death of a teenager with their whole life ahead of them.

It is for the 95 year old and their family.

Is that really true?

My grandad lived to 97 and he was ready to go. He had lived a very full life, married, had kids, watched them grow, had grandkids, great-grandchildren. He slowed and slowed and had a good death, quietly in his sleep.

It wasn't a tragedy at all.

I've heard that losing a child is something you never get over. Thankfully it's not happened in my family. My grand parents are all dead though. Which feels like, that's how it goes. We step through life and then it ends.

Is that a really unusual way to see things? I don't think it is.

@ShinyFootball but there is a difference between a 95 year old who dies of natural causes having led a good life up until then, and a 95 year old who may have been living a good life and then is struck down by COVID or indeed any other serious illness without which they would still be alive waiting for that natural death.

Someone just slipping away quietly in their sleep is tragic but is sort of not unexpected at that age. But that doesn’t mean we don’t try to prevent that 95 year old contracting serious illness and that death not being a peaceful one....

@ShinyFootball I'm with you. I find this really weird. I mean, it's sad when most people die, but it is completely different for a very old person or a child. (And I'm not young, nor ageist, nor seeking the deaths of anyone)

@formerbabe

” Children in London will apparently be losing their free bus travel. The overwhelming reaction to this on social media is that its a good thing it's being removed and they never had free bus travel in the past and it will stop kids clogging up the buses etc. Meanwhile the freedom pass is just going to have the times it can be used restricted. Overwhelming attitude I've seen on social media is that the freedom pass should never be removed. Yes, I'd call that ageism.”

People with certain disabilities are eligible for the freedom pass too! The OP spoke about ableism too.