Hot on the heels of great aging-in-community conversations, sessions and connections at last
month’s National Cohousing Conference in Denver, I recently had the opportunity to participate
in “Summer School,” an in-person summit in Montreal. It was called together by This Chair
Rocks author Ashton Applewhite and her co-creators of the Old School [https://oldschool.info/]
anti-ageism resource center. I found it an eye-opening experience, with lessons that we in
cohousing, both in intergenerational and senior cohousing communities, can take to heart.
I’ve been part of the cohousing movement for over a quarter century, living in two
communities, advising and helping form many, and visiting over 130 established U.S. cohousing
neighborhoods. I’ve worked to understand and make visible the ideas, attitudes and systems
that help us thrive, as well as those that make life harder or success less likely.
If you’re into generational labels, I’m a just-barely-post-Boomer who grew up before the Gen X
label was invented. I’ve often found my role in groups as a translator between generations.
When I first became involved in cohousing, I was younger than most of my neighbors and
collaborators in the movement. As we like to say in Sage-ing International, based on the book From Age-ing to Sage-ing, I had fewer years of life experience than most of my neighbors and colleagues. That affected both the quality of my participation and how my fellow cohousers perceived me and what I had to contribute to the community.
Now I’m more likely to be perceived by newer members as the guy who insists on maintaining
old systems and digging out agreements, even if I’m doing so in the service of even-older
members and maintaining the integrity of our group decision-making process. Thus, I’ve experienced ageism both in terms of (relative) youth and (aspiring) elderhood. This recent summit brought home to me how much even members of senior cohousing communities (who are paying attention to and studying the issue) end up internalizing assumptions related to age, such as:
- Aging is a one-way journey of reduced capacity and mobility over time.
- Based on someone’s age, you can predict what they feel, look like, do and how they
think. - We figured out everything exactly right when we founded this community, and anyone
who has joined us since then “doesn’t get it,” and we don’t have to listen to what they
have to say. - Everyone has the same needs and goals as they age.
- Someone significantly younger than you can’t make a meaningful contribution without your level of experience and life wisdom.
- Communities need to use age as a selection factor to maintain the energy of the group.
I invite you to take a moment, on your own and perhaps together with some of your neighbors or community co-founders, to see where you recognize some of these same divisive assumptions and energies. What others show up for you?
Part of our superpowers as residents and co-creators of intentional neighborhoods where we are forging new culture, is to educate and empower each other to recognize these “old” (there I go again) habits and attitudes. Then we can help each other find new ways of approaching the challenges of living, on our own and collectively, that open up more possibilities and fresh ways of seeing one another.
Some of the different ways can include:
- Creating community processes that allow consideration of input separate from our perceptions of the person creating them. Like writing down unsigned responses/ideas, putting them in a box, and reading them out loud without knowing who they are from.
- Building in sunset clauses, options to reconsider, and other processes of revisiting decisions so someone newer to the community can have meaningful input into things decided long ago. And so people can learn and change and the community can evolve over time.
- Recognizing and reaching across natural clusters that form by age cohort. Getting seniors involved in talking about kids and recruitment; getting younger members aware of and showing up in groups focused on health and other issues stereotypically related to aging. Build a shared consciousness and relationships rather than segregated groups that only talk within themselves.
- Supporting all members in recognizing their own internal biases and projections across age. Make room for and take time to surface issues and help one another recognize what’s going on and see past those.
- Engaging members with what they see as important for the community and valuable for them to contribute. Make sure you aren’t making it hard to change or too much work to engage new ideas. Support folks in finding ways they can help and enjoy, not just more work or long-established traditional roles.
Do any of these feel like they have potential in your community? What other ways can enliven us and create room for shared growth and appreciation, at any age?
If you’ve got ideas or relevant experience you’d like to share, join us at the next Seniors in Cohousing Q&A gathering, the 20th of every month (10 a.m. MT), from your home via Zoom (link to register below). I look forward to seeing you there.
Cohousing coach Raines Cohen, a member of the CohoUS Seniors in Cohousing committee, lives
with his wife Betsy Morris at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing. He’s a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Sage-ing Leader (CSL) and has trained communities in the Successful Aging (Study Group 1) senior cohousing curriculum. You can reach him via his Aging in Community website.
The post Preventing and undoing internalized ageism in cohousing appeared first on Cohousing.