Approximately 100 people attended an educational and very enjoyable lecture by gerontologist Dr Tracey Gendron, whose book had served as the basis for a series of “Timeless Newtown” programs since the beginning of the year. The September 18 event at Edmond Town Hall also featured Maxim Kapytka, a Brookfield High School student and businessman whose experiences with ageism proved that the discrimination happens to all ages.

Many attendees approached Gendron ahead of her presentation, asking her to sign copies of her book, Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It. A table had been set up in front of the stage for Gendron, who smiled at each person as they approached and answered questions while offering her autograph.

Friends of Newtown Seniors Founder and President John Boccuzzi opened the evening by telling attendees Gendron had been contacted over a year ago while “Timeless Newtown” was in its formative stages.

“We are really excited to be bringing you this program,” he said to the audience on behalf of the series organizers. FONS, C.H. Booth Library, Newtown Senior Center and Newtown Commission on Aging have collaborated on the series. Boccuzzi offered his thanks to Newtown resident Andrea Zimmermann “for the original idea for all this, and for making the contact with Dr Gendron last year.”

Kapytka spoke first. Boccuzzi asked him if he felt judged because of his age, to which Kapytka smiled and nodded.

“I’ve definitely had a couple of moments when I was first starting out at age 14 when people wouldn’t take me seriously on the phone,” he replied. Kapytka, now 16 and a junior at Brookfield High School with a 4.2 GPA, is the proprietor of Munchin Hedgehog Ice Cream and Sweets in Brookfield. The Federal Road business opened in August 2024.

Kapytka told those in the audience a few weeks ago that people thought he was playing a prank when he tried to talk business on the phone.

“I had to do a lot of things in person so they could see I was serious,” he said. The businessman shared one story about trying to hire a plumber for his ice cream shop. Kapytka arrived early for the appointment, he said, and then watched as the plumber arrived, looked around, then “right at me, and then around me,” before texting Kapytka “I’m here. Where RU?”

Kapytka said he waved at the plumber and said “Hi. It’s me.”

The plumber looked around again, Kapytka said, “and then left. I didn’t hear from him again.”

Undeterred, the businessman and high school student contacted another local plumber, “who couldn’t be nicer.

“My age definitely made things difficult for me,” he said.

In response to a question from Boccuzzi about fellow young entrepreneurs he knows, Kapytka said others may be in different fields, “but I can say they’ve experienced some of the same things I have with age discrimination.”

Boccuzzi nodded and, turning to address the audience, said when ageism is talked about, “we have to talk about all ages. Max and his friends show us that. It isn’t just older people who are discriminated against because of their age.”

Aging Is Universal

Gendron opened her 55-minute presentation by showing a photo of the Great Sphinx of Giza. She showed the familiar view, taken from the front of the monumental statue. When she then offered a rear view of the Egyptian location, murmurings were heard in the room, which she picked up on.

“Most people have no idea this exists, because most people have not had that presented to them,” she explained. “When it comes to aging, we have to open our eyes and see a whole new way of seeing it.

“When we think about aging,” she continued, “we tend to think about our bodies. Our bodies are going to wear out. When looking only at that, we miss more than half of what’s changing.”

The chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University offered dozens of excellent points that evening.

“Embrace your age,” she encouraged her guests at one point, adding, “That’s when we shift the narrative.”

Aging, she said at one point, “is actually the one universal thing that connects all people.” Older people have simply lived longer, she said. Younger people have not yet lived long lives.

“It’s when we ascribe other meanings” to old and young “that words become dangerous,” she said.

Gendron outlined the general lifespan of people: infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

“Then what?” she challenged. Gendron introduced the idea of “elderhood” as the next stage of a person’s life.

“I see elderhood as a really needed space,” she said. “Elderhood further defines later life.”

A Few Truths

Gendron also addressed generational labels — The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, et al — calling them “another proxy for ageism.” It makes no sense, she posited, to put people within a category based only on their date of birth. Continuing her point, Gendron shared photos of King Charles, Samuel L. Jackson, and her mother.

“These three people were born within a year of each other,” she said. “Do you think they’re all the same just because of that?”

Chuckles from the audience affirmed her challenge.

The anti-aging market, she said, “is a multi-billion dollar market that is growing exponentially.”

The problem, she said, is that the market is not about prolonging one’s life. The healthy way of living, she added, is not what consumers are being sold with beauty products pushed “in all forms of media.

“We have to understand that anti-aging is not real. That’s like anti-breathing. It doesn’t happen,” Gendron said.

Earlier, Gendron had invited the audience to call out words they thought of when she said “old.” Responses included wise, wrinkled, and in final chapters. When she went in the opposite direction, synonyms for “young” included energy, vital, future, and impatience.

Referring back to those adjectives, Gendron said most anti-aging marketing perpetuates common ageism stereotypes.

“The consequences of ageism — or any time we stereotype, label, etc, both externally and inward — are dangerous,” she said. “We end up manifesting the very things we fear the most.”

Gendron also addressed death head on.

“Decline and death are part of life,” she said. “The more we talk about it, the more likely we are to have a good death.

“We all have the opportunity to define successfully the way we want to die, and you get to do that now, and redefine later if you wish to. There’s just so much power in that.”

Ageism is not new, Gendron also said. Using the February 1959 Ladies Home Journal magazine, she showed one headline on the cover teasing how to look younger, and an article inside said women have internal and external “defects.”

While it will not be easy to change ageism, she acquiesced, Gendron said there is hope to change the narrative. One place to start is with compliments. However well meaning they are, before offering one, ask yourself: am I about to include a reference to age?

Many people will say “You look good for your age,” but the second half of that sentence perpetuates ageism, she said. Tell someone they look good, period, she encouraged.

“Remember, how you think about it does make a difference,” she said. The wisdom of age is a superpower, she offered.

Before opening the floor to questions, Gendron left her audience with a few truths about aging: people are individuals, age alone does not predict ability, ability does not predict success, everyone is aging, generations are not homogeneous, and elderhood is not a bad thing.

Gendron said she was going to count to three, and asked everyone in the room to then say their age out loud. Most seemed to respond to the request, which drew a smile.

“This,” she said, “is the first step of embracing our age together.”

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Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.