Caleigh's Reflections on Ageist Behavior

Whereas I don't discriminate against older people, I have come to learn that I have held some ageist stereotypes. For one thing, when an older customer was rude at my retail job, I often told myself that it was just because the customer was a cranky old person. I realized that anytime an older person was rude to me, I wanted to stereotype that person in order to make the encounter seem less personal. Also, I have often viewed some older people as "cute" without realizing how infantilizing and ageist that was. By viewing older people as cute, I was contributing to the trend of treating older people like children, which implies that they are more helpless and less competent than they truly are.