When You are Old and Grey and Full of Sleep..

This was going to start out as a natty wee post about the naff 'ageism' campaign that the Scottish Government is running just now (see above). It was going to be about how dementia funding has halved, nursing homes are shutting and health visitors and district nurses are going to be merged into one, to the detriment of the very young and very old. That is, until I heard the radio equivalent of this advert, where a young man is in the post office and an 'old biddy' is holding up the queue.He is muttering about what a pest she is, until he realises that the old biddy, is in fact his gran. My stomach did a flip at this advert. Why? Because it took me back two years ago, to when my aunt was in hospital. I had been going up to visit her, and one day when I went up, she had been moved to another room in the ward. I had walked past the room without recognition; she was just another old lady. When I was re-directed,I realised with a shock that that was exactly what my aunt was; an old lady, but it was the first time that I had seen her like that. She had just always been my aunt.

There's always been a separation between the young and the old. And the old and the very young have always been discriminated against. We pride ourselves on having progressed in this area, and certainly a lot of the casual ageist comments have gone. But what is underneath? Are we progressing, or has the separation, in fact become greater?

Let's take a look at the two professions that look after the young and old; parents and carers. Now imagine that you are one of these; that is all that you do. You are in company and someone asks what your job is. How comfortable would you feel in replying? And how much would you bet that someone would say, 'So you don't work then?'

Parenthood and being a carer, are two jobs that are admired in public and despised in private. Everyone acknowledges that they do an essential job, but noone wants to be the one to do it. Those who do, are regarded as losers who did it because they had no other choice in life. Who wants to look after screaming kids or old biddies, after all?

Why is it that we think this way? Why do we have nothing to offer them and feel that they have nothing to offer us? Without children we don't have a future, do we? And we all grow old, don't we? Are any of us looking forward to sitting in chairs in a home, being bawled at by nurses who think we're all deaf (and stupid?) Why do we think that's good enough for the elderly at present?

I still think this advert is naff. I do not want it to become a substitute for proper funding of care. But I do think there is a grain of truth in it. We need to look at our collective soul and ask if our society is losing its humanity, or if we can still see that life is more than food and the body more than clothing.