One day when I was around three years old my mother, a music teacher who had barely touched an instrument since becoming a mum, decided to sit down and play the piano.
Apparently I stumped into the room, looked crossly at her, turned to the stereo, looked back at her, and screeched: ‘Get back in the kitchen and make the dinner!’
Dearie me. Out of the mouths of babes, eh? A tirade of sexist and ageist abuse before I’d even learned to spell.
My mother enjoys trotting out this anecdote about her supposedly feminist daughter on all sorts of occasions, most recently, and mortifyingly, at my wedding.
But it serves a purpose here, I think, given the revelation this week at a Westminster probe into the rights of older people, that children as young as four display attitudes of ageism.
Once revered, age is now a sign of your irrelevance to modern life.
Caroline Abrahams, director of charity Age UK, cited a classic example of entrenched ageist attitudes.
‘People have asked young children to draw what they think an older person looks like,’ she told the committee. ‘You get little drawings of an old lady with a stick, when actually you have grandparents in their 40s. It goes to show children are picking it up.’
Stylish star seals a very Swift sellout
WELL, well, well. If it isn’t Time’s Person of the Year wearing a £58 dress from Perthshire clothing brand Little Lies, and looking absolutely fabulous in it to boot.
Taylor Swift was snapped this week in a green velvet frock, made by the boutique brand, based near Perth, causing such a stampede to its website that the dress sold out in hours. Meanwhile designers Jade and Stuart Robertson say they are ‘still in a state of shock’. I don’t blame them.
Swift famously dated Scottish DJ Calvin Harris a few years back, and the two were even rumoured to be looking for their very own Highland castle together, before they split.
She might not have a Scotsman in her life any more, but it’s good to see she has retained a sense of Scottish style.
Taylor Swift out in New York City
I may have been ahead of the curve or just particularly cheeky for a mouthy toddler, but it seems ageism has become more prevalent in society.
Once revered, age is now a sign of your irrelevance to modern life.
The word boomer – short for baby boomer, anyone who was born between 1946 and 1964 – has become an insult for older people who are out of touch.
Young people who otherwise view themselves as progressive and compassionate are guilty of ageism on a regular basis.
It has become the last acceptable prejudice.
I’ll be honest – and in saying this I’m aware I may receive some ageist insults myself in response – I don’t think it was like this when I was young.
Elders were respected. Their words carried weight and gravitas.
They were more likely to be cared for within family homes when the time came, and within society, too.
Most importantly they were listened to, rather than being swiftly dismissed as irrelevant.
Witness the abominable way so many of our elderly were treated in the early days of the pandemic.
How difficult it can be to get a job if you are over a certain age. Indeed, Age UK lists some examples of ageism as losing a job, being refused insurance or a credit card, or receiving lower quality service in a shop or restaurant
I do understand that when you are young, your generation seems like the only important thing.
I loved my grandparents, but as a child I didn’t find them particularly interesting.
By the time I did, they were all long gone. I wish I had asked more questions.
All four of them lived through both World Wars, and they had stories to tell.
Youth is wasted on the young, but the wisdom of elders is wasted on them too, and the internet has injected a harshness into that narrative.
Young people globally can connect on an unparalleled scale and since they are more technically adept than their elders could ever be, their voices seem more amplified than ever.
Is it any surprise then to learn that nearly half of over 50s have suffered age discrimination in the past year?
That, according to Abrahams of Age UK, young people ‘quite openly will say something derogatory about older people in a way that would be totally unacceptable for them to say in terms of race, gender or sexual orientation’?
Perhaps today’s young people need to put themselves in their elders’ (orthopaedic) shoes, if only for a moment, and remember that age comes to us all.
Riding the polar express is too much to bear
My sympathies to the passengers of the early morning train service from Oban to Glasgow, where temperatures are so low at this time of the year that those travelling on it have been forced to wear thermals and extreme weather clothing, and carry hot water bottles just to avoid hypothermia.
One frustrated passenger, who uses the line three days a week for work, complained: ‘It’s not comfortable – unless you are a bear.’
ScotRail said its engineers were ‘fully investigating the claims’ and will respond when they have an update.
If I were one of these long-suffering commuters, I’d be holding on to the thermal underwear for a while yet.
Researchers say parents should smile while eating greens in front of their children as pulling a face could put them off their vegetables. Surely seeing spinach stuck in Mummy’s teeth will put them off even more?
Too great a burden for struggling NHS
It is shocking, if not surprising, to learn that Scotland now has some of the world’s worst survival rates for deadly cancers due to delays in diagnosis and treatment.
In contrast, South Korea, Belgium, the US, and China have the highest five-year survival rates for less survivable cancers.
I have seen, within my own family, the devastation that can be wreaked by a delayed cancer diagnosis. A number of Scots will also know first-hand just how many frustrating delays are encountered when seeking treatment.
It is more than a decade now since waiting time targets have been met, a period in which the SNP has frittered money away, piled more and more weight onto the NHS and failed to get a grip of the most basic services.
This is the result. When patients – those suffering the worst cancers out there, including pancreatic, liver, brain, lung, stomach and oesophageal cancers – really need help, they find themselves stymied at every turn, often until it is too late.
It’s simply not good enough.
Amal Clooney in London for the screening for the The Boys In The Boat
Eyebrows are being raised at George Clooney describing his wife Amal as ‘homely’.
Personally, I don’t see the problem, given it’s a word defined as a woman ‘who would enjoy being at home’.
Amal, pictured, is a top human rights lawyer who spends much of her life jetting round the world dealing with complex legal cases. I would imagine that spending some time at home – particularly, let’s face it, with Mr Clooney – might be exactly what she craves.
Proof this week, if proof were needed, that Princess Anne is the most down to earth Royal among them, as she disembarked from a plane in Sri Lanka carrying her own bags. Wonder if she stopped off for some duty free, too?