Princesses and hags: How we train ourselves to look at aging

Images from Rich Gentleman Hide PhotoShop tutorial.Isn't the older woman beautiful before being transformed into America's Next Top Model?

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh asked, “Does our looks-obsessed culture want to stare at an aging woman?” The woman in question was Hillary Clinton, of course.

“It's like almost an addiction that some people have to what I call the perfection that Hollywood presents of successful, beautiful, fun-loving people. So the question is this: Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?”

He illustrated his point with an exceptionally unflattering photo of the Democratic party presidential candidate next to an exceptionally presidential photo of Mitt Romney, courtesy the Drudge Report. The conclusion? The Republican is much prettier and therefore more electable. In other words, a better presidential candidate.

The same day, 24-year-old Amanda Hinsperger asked: “What is it about anti-aging?. . .Women in particular carry the anti-aging burden, since most anti-aging ads are marketed to women. Are we afraid of aging? Does the natural course of life disturb us? Nobody likes to admit their body is failing. With all the stress this worrying brings on, and with the aging impacts of stress, maybe we'd be doing ourselves a favour by embracing age.”

Offensive as Limbaugh’s screed is, his observations about our culture’s fear, even hatred, of aging, are sound.

I don’t know how to change that, but Gene D. Cohen, MD, PhD, Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at The George Washington University, believes the negative attitudes about aging get their start in childhood. Think of the fairy tales we read to our impressionable toddlers: they’re full of wicked witches, stepmothers who are ugly inside and out, old women who live in shoes and abuse their too-large broods.

The Center has compiled a list of stories for children of all ages that show older adults as kind, active, humorous, wise, creative, brave—all the rest of the admirable qualities we aspire to at any age.

That is, if we aren't aspiring only to looking good.

Seems we need to start at the beginning. Give a child you know a good book—and some real-life experiences with women--and men--who are older, but not worse for it.