At 64, I’m Challenging Ageism by Fighting for Our Right to Belong
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Aging is beautiful—and that’s what our new Better Now series explores. Here, we highlight aging and the unique ways that the passage of time has made the lives of women everywhere more beautiful, vibrant, and meaningful.
At 64, I’m not hiding from my age—but what I am trying to do is change society’s perception of it. I am very proud to be the age that I am, it’s just not the most interesting thing about me.
Ageism is alive and well in our society. I became aware of this fact when my father was injured at 65, which is very close to the age I am now. Nobody is entirely sure what happened, but some sort of brain injury led to him being in a coma for three months, and we were unsure if he would wake up. Miraculously, he did wake up—but he had a lot of disabilities as a result.
When he was physically ready to go to a rehabilitation hospital, his insurance company told me that they would not cover the cost of his rehabilitation, but would cover putting him into a nursing home where he would live out his days without hope of ever recovering his independence. While the insurance company would not fund his rehabilitation, I was extremely grateful that my family and I were fortunate enough to be able to pay for it ourselves.
Two years after my father’s passing as a result of his injuries, I was lucky enough to be introduced to Nelson Mandela at an event in New York City honoring him and his wife Graça Machel, who I had met a few times prior. Graça had asked me about how I was doing following my father’s passing, and I told her all about what we went through—the marginalization and ensuing isolation that my father faced—and how I was inspired to destigmatize and overcome social isolation for aging adults.
During this conversation, I looked at Mandela and I said, “Well, you would know all about isolation.” And he told me, “No, I’ve never been isolated.” Even in Robben Island where he was imprisoned for 18 years, he said, “We were all brothers working together with a common purpose. I was never alone.” And to me, that was such a paradox. How could you be in solitary confinement and be never alone?
This moment, and the insurance company’s treatment of my father, were catalysts for me to realize my passion for advocating for social belonging—regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, or otherwise.
My work for the last 20 years has been about combating social isolation and building social connectedness. I recently wrote a book called On Belonging, and advocate for belonging to be considered a birthright. We all have an inherent right to belong. And at the Samuel Center for Social Connectedness, which I founded in memory of my late father, we support a global movement for belonging by building safe spaces for all people and working to transform our social systems.
All of the resilience in the world cannot prepare us if we’re living in a society that fundamentally tells us we’re not appreciated and not wanted as we age. To me, that is worth fighting for. There’s no reason for people to not have friends and or to be so lonely that they wish that they weren’t around anymore. When you see that, I think it’s because we’ve all failed them, and we’ve all failed ourselves in a way. We’re getting older, and society is getting older. And it’s just something that I think about a great deal.
The Samuel Center for Social Connectedness launched the Belonging Forum, which embarked on a major research project: the Belonging Barometer, which surveyed over 10,000 people in the United Kingdom. Older people came out as one most lonely groups, with the survey finding that 1 in 10 older people reported having no close friends and that 1 in 3 older people reported they don’t feel they belong strongly to their neighborhood. We plan to use this research to help with the Charter for Belonging—a plan that will outline initiatives for communities to address social isolation.
In terms of my own experience, I’m really happy that I’ve had these six decades on the planet. I love that I’m here, I love that I get to learn so much, and I love that I found meaningful work—I want everybody to have that. There are so many upsides to getting older.
I call the age I am now the age of wisdom. Not only am I more confident now in terms of my ideas and my sense of purpose, but I am more resilient. I call it “recovery time.” The recovery time, as I’ve gotten older, has gotten so much better. You know when you’ve been gut-punched, or something knocks the wind out of you? And how it takes some time to get your breath back, and stand up, and move on? The emotional resilience it takes to do that is a lot faster now. It’s like the adage about that which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. I don’t think about do-overs anymore.
But I also have to acknowledge that I am privileged to feel this way. I am only at this point because I know that I have support. I know that I have access to health care, I don’t have to worry about where I’m living, or about poverty. I don’t have to worry about all kinds of things.
Support is so important, and that’s part of what I’m fighting for everyone to have—because there is support in belonging. We have to know what each other is going through and decide to come together and lend a hand
I would never have felt this empowered when I was younger, because I had so much learning left to do—so it feels really good to be at this point.
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