Photo by Ivan Babydov on Pexels.
AARP has an online newsletter for women. It’s called The Ethel.
This week’s topic was “Why Women Are Bucking Tradition of Being Called Grandma.”
Oh good, I thought. I will have to eat my words. I thought AARP and all its products were irrelevant. They’re the chirpy-cheery version of getting older, mostly related to healthy, wealthy people in their sixties. They ignore stereotypes.
AARP has lost its focus on people who are of “retirement age.” Today people of all ages can join AARP to get whopping discounts, especially on travel and rental cars. So holding an AARP card is no longer a marker of turning 50.
But AARP remains faithful to traditional roles.
I thought the article was going to be about the nasty practice of calling all older women “grandma.” Or referring to older people as “grannies.” I wrote about this in my book.
“Once you notice this trend, you see it everywhere.
“Instead of writing, ‘When older people need more care,’ a journalist will write, ‘When Grandma needs more care …’ or (as one ad for a tech product actually wrote), “So simple even Grandma could do it.”
“A group that rescues elderly dogs and cats: “The Grannies.”
“A website sharing discounts to people over 65: “Gift Card Granny” (The discounts aren’t even that great.)
“A home care agency near Philadelphia: “Granny’s Helping Hand” (Don’t let them near me.)
“And the mother of them all, that awful song: ‘Grandma got run over by a reindeer.’
Try changing the subject of that song…like, “Little Chinese boy got run over by a reindeer.” Or, “Gorgeous gay dude got run over by a reindeer.”
I did that in a standup comedy routine. People got it.
But the article in the Ethel newsletter wasn’t about stereotypically calling older women “grandma.”
They wrote about real grandmas and what they wanted to be called. “Grandma” seemed old-fashioned to some, calling attention to their age. They came up with all kinds of clever nicknames for the kids.
So, says the Ethel, if you’re past 50, you’re probably a grandma. And these are the kinds of problems you’ll have.
What about us childfree cat ladies?
We aren’t crazy about an epithet based entirely on age and imaginary status. We don’t want to be called grandma either.
I guess that’s not stereotypical enough for AARP. So you get this article from me instead.
