Ageism — the millennials’ latest crime

ISEE ageism is the latest crime of the millennials. I have honestly come to think that if we talked about any other sector of society the way we talk about the millennials, it would possibly be regarded as hate crime. It would certainly be some kind of ‘ism’, perhaps even ageism.

We ridicule them, we treat them like idiots, we dismiss them with easy stereotypes — lazy, entitled, hypersensitive, gap-yearing, wanting-to-be-the-managing-director-their-first-week-in-the-job, avocado-munching tos-spots.

You’d swear any of us had never been young. You’d swear we had never been idealistic. You’d swear we had never tried to forge our own new way of eating, casting aside the food our parents made us eat, only to return to it later. You’d swear none of us ever thought we knew it all and that old people had conservative, outdated opinions about everything. You’d swear none of us had ever wished the older generation would get out of the way and give us our chance. Because let’s face it, we were all millennials once. They didn’t have a name for it back then, but it was more or less the same thing.

And, like millennials now we thought getting old was, like, the Worst. Thing. Ever. I’m sure that as with the millennials in a recent study, at least a quarter of us thought that old people were unhappy and depressed.

Indeed, I’d imagine the figure could have been as much as a half of us, if not all of us. Because when you look at it through the eyes of a young person, who is, of course, never going to get old, ageing looks like it sucks. So of course you assume they are all depressed. What’s not to be depressed about?

So now, of course, the millennials have been branded ageist. To give us old people another stick to beat them with.

Better surely that we should try and explain a few things to them. So, guess what, millennials? We were all young once and we knew it all and we thought old age was awful. But guess what as well? Getting older actually isn’t that bad. Mainly, admittedly because you have no choice, so you just make the best of it.

But there are certain consolations to age. For one thing, you get less mad as you get on, less up and down all the time. If you’re lucky you will also have a few quid to buy avocados and other things whenever you want. Things happen naturally to make it easier too. For example, you start to find older women more attractive. Not women older than you, just women your own age, who are older, because you are older. The having the children, which might happen too, will take the pressure off you thinking about yourself all the time.

You’ll obviously give less f***s as you get older as well, which makes life much less exhausting. You stop trying to live in other people’s heads, so you’re much less distracted. You know more stuff too. Despite yourself, you find that you’ve picked up a lot of various info on stuff along the way and you’ve made a lot of mistakes and gained life experience, and all of that comes together to give you a bit of wisdom, which allows you to pontificate on to young people.

For men, your face becomes less chubby and slightly more gaunt as you get on, which can be a good thing, if you had a chubby face. You’ll probably have a car as well, which is good.

And the other thing is that the world is becoming a better place for older people. I’m heading up to 50 and the world still allows me not to feel like an old fogey. All the old people now are superfit. Some of us aren’t quite super fit but we are fitter than we were when we were young.

So I promise you, it’s not that bad.

Now, if you were to say to me I could be, say, 30 again tomorrow, would I do it? Well, of course. “Oh yeah, give me some of that sweet, sweet youthiness,” I’d say, drooling like Homer Simpson (before your time, old politically incorrect character in comedy made by Neanderthals).

But it’s not happening, so I’m making the best of where I’m at. And if you’re lucky you’ll get here too, and you’ll find that every age has its consolations.

But equally, yes, I would kill you and suck the blood out of you to be young.