A little too much cuteness? Image by Sindy Strife on Unsplash.
I know there are some of you who don’t like cats. I know that talking about cats all the time can make you sound a little weird. Maybe a lot weird.
I know there’s a stereotype of child-free cat ladies. I embrace that role, though not the stereotype.
But when I write about people growing old, I can’t find a good image…for good reason.
Let’s face it: once you get past 40, people begin to look more different than alike. As you age, you get more and more diverse. Geriatricians (I’m told) have a saying: “If you’ve seen one 80-year-old, you’ve seen one 80-year-old.”
An 80-something could be in a wheelchair in a nursing home, suffering through her last days. Or she could be like Olga Kotelko, running track and field events till her early 90s. And there’s a huge, huge range in between.
Major publications don’t seem to know this. They show gray-haired people with canes to symbolize age. Women have gray curly hair that’s not cut in a particular style.
A lot of Medium authors show pictures of gray-haired people, usually impaired, to symbolize “older.”
A lot of people dye their hair at any age. They get their hair styled.
So when I talk about age, I don’t have a picture. Usually, I’m talking about ageism, which means I’m not talking about older people at all: just their nay-sayers.
So it’s easier to pull a cat picture. No stereotypes.
Cat pictures get more attention anyway. Book publishers say, “If you want to sell more books, put a cat on the cover.”
I hope that’s true for articles, too. Meanwhile, I’ll indulge myself as a Childfree (or Crazy) Cat Lady.
