To wonder why so many people are ageist towards those a few years older than them

[CurdinHenry]

As though the older person is some different species, rather than their own future in the blink of a wrinkly eye down the track

I've never felt older women are different from me (different experiences and perspectives and needs sometimes sure but not somehow inferior or embarrassing because they're older and I have always valued having older friends) but now in my forties I find people in their mid thirties can be weirdly rude and superior about their marginal chronological difference.

I know it's only going to get worse and I just need to roll with it but it's so depressing

I'm afraid you are right about it only going to get worse OP.

I honestly think a lot of younger people think it will never happen to them. They think that us older women have committed a crime by allowing ourselves to age.

I think that society has now focused so much attention on praising and celebrating youth that those of us at the other end of the time scale are generally to be despised.

Victoria Smith goes into this in her book “Hags”. A recommended read

I think older people being condescending to younger people is a more common problem.

I know you say you didn't have this attitude yourself when you were younger, OP, but I think that's quite rare. A lot of people were happy with all the benefits of being the hot young thing when it was them, but rail against ageism when they themselves age - the Joan Bakewell effect.

I see it more towards 30s from people in their 20s!

I sense younger people feeling slightly sorry for me at times. I think menopause is hard to imagine when you’re younger - kind of ‘it will never happen to me’, although not in a malicious way. I don’t care though, and enjoy getting on with people of all ages, if they are nice and have a sense of humour. Once you get to know people, age is less of an issue.

I workmwith someone who is half my age and he is the most polite lad - always asks how l am and if l am having a good day. So not always true. Plus got told today someone thought l was late 30's - l turn 50 soon so l'll take that thank you very much!

I'm not sure, I do remember when I started my masters I was 27 and a woman on my course who was 25 said she was shocked to find out I was so much older than her! I was less than 2 years older than her! My SIL who is 2.5 years younger than me recently suggested that music from the early 80's Duran Duran and so on was "my era" when my era was more like Take That pretty much the same as her! It's weird I think that when you are older looking back 2 years seems like nothing but when it's the other way around it seems loads perhaps? I really like a woman I work with who is 30, we have a lot in common and have a laugh at work but I suspect she'd feel like I was so much older then her to socialise with outside while I don't feel that so much being the one looking back and to be fair I'd not be into going clubbing with her.

I do remember thinking when I was 18 that being 30 was as good as dead! Honestly I think that under a certain age I do think it's hard to grasp what being older is like and that you'll still be fully yourself.

I suppose by mid 30's people should be more aware that they aren't that far behind and should have more empathy.

Whatever I'm probably more comfortable with myself and my life now than I was in my younger years so I just try to enjoy the here and now and who cares what others think!

I don't know what age you are but as a woman in my 70s I am regularly treated as though I have the intelligence and abilities of a child.

In fact in many many threads on MN it is very apparent that a lot of pp regard their mothers and other older women relatives as incalcitrant children.

What gets me is some younger people thinking anyone over 50 or so was brought up in the dark ages and is completely tech phobic. Excuse me but what generation do they think invented the stuff? And show someone today a pic of what their grandmother looked like in the 1970s (not to mention what they got up to) and they’d be shocked.
But I fear it was ever thus.

Edited because my attention was distracted by the shenanigans in the Belgium/ Senegal game and I double posted.

I suppose it doesn't help that I genuinely am tech phobic 😳

But I was that way when I was young, too!

Well I was never hot which probably helped my perspective 😂

I am dreading this. The way healthcare workers in particular talk to older people like they're mentally incapacitated is awful.

I've not noticed this at all. I'm in my early forties.

Im sorry you feel that way but I can't say I've noticed this, and I'm in my 60s. I did a degree in my 40s and got on really well with the young'uns, infact I'm still good friends with a couple of them (attended their weddings) who are both turning 40 this year and feeling very old 😄. Where I work we have a few young undergraduate volunteers and they're lovely. They seek me out for advice and seem to enjoy my company. I also have friends in their 70s and 80s and I value their friendship just as much.

I do fear being elderly in a care home, and being spoken to in that awful condescending way I observed staff talk to residents in my mother's care home. I think I'd have to have a word in that case.