The Granny Myth

KCTS Seattle, Program the Granny Myth, Producer Lila Gortman, Audio Stereo, Track 1, Left Channel Stereo, Track 2, Right Channel Stereo, Track 3 is Drop Frame Time Code Hello there. Why do you suppose people think that we older women have to act like little old ladies? Beats me. Stick around and we'll show you some real older women. Smart, Busy, Powerful. We'll tell you the truth about getting older. Hi, I'm Peg Phillips. This shows about women in getting older but it's not about disappearing

into a rocking chair. It's about what a lot of women say is the best part of their lives and that's been true for me. I was an accountant until I was 65. It's not a bad way to make a living but I'm having a lot more fun now than I'm an actress. I'm 75 and life is good. Well, I should hope so because most of us are living much longer than we ever have before. And older women are the fastest growing bunch of people in this country. Watch our world. Let me introduce you to some people. We'll talk about getting older but it's really like. Let's blow the granny myth sky high. First, meet the raging grannies. They're older women who will go to great lengths, including to jail, to make the world a better place for their grandchildren.

It's pouring rain and the grannies are demonstrating again. Oh, give me a train. Not a car bus or plane. In this new ecological age. It's the right thing to do. To redo CO2 and the biosphere's now center stage. The raging grannies get plenty of support around here. Today, there are about 50 raging grannies gathered from miles around at Nannu's Bay on Vancouver Island. Come on, guys! They've got plans for Nannu's. Plans that don't include a new multilane highway that's already on the drawing boards. Instead, say the grannies, expand the rail service.

We're trying to raise the awareness of the stupidity of another highway, a monster highway, back there. They've gotten here early. The trains do to pass by at noon and the grannies will flag it down. More passengers and freight on it. In the meantime, they sing. Highways pass the snorke then they make us poor. We'd rather have a drone train. When the grannies first started in 1987, they finally weren't getting the press and they weren't getting attention. They decided, well, we have to do something about this. First of all, they got all these fancy clothes, the hats and that help. And then they thought, bro, you know, people are tired of just listening to speeches, so they had one person who wrote songs before. So they started singing. And they found that going to have a really well, although we are very bad singers. Now make sure you keep your hands together. This grannie is Alison Acker, author, activist. You know the horses are coming out now.

And on Wednesday mornings, volunteer with handicap kids. Sitting up nicely. And recently released X-Con. Just days earlier, the other grannies were on hand when she and some of the protesters got out of jail. It was hard at the beginning because we were handcuffed and then strip searched and put in the hole overnight. And it was a thin mattress on the floor and a little grey blanket and no water in the wash basin and the lights on the whole time. But they let us take a book in and they gave us meals through the slot in the door. Fran Thorburn runs a bed in breakfast in Victoria and she's a raging grannie. Fran says the organization empowers women and she says we need that. I was raised to be seen and not heard. I got credit for keeping my mouth shut.

I was very good in school but I was told not to brag about it when I got married and then I went back to school when the kids went into their school. I got all A's and the day I came home and told my husband I got all A's, he beat me up. And I said this to a neighbor. I said, I don't know this guy beat me up last night. And this neighbor said, don't you know you should never tell your husband you get all A's. Yeah, we need empowering. We can use it and we need encouragement from each other. But just what the grannies are about. It's really neat. Back at Nandos Bay, the frames coming. And the grannies flag it down. We love it. We love it. We love it. We love it. But we want you to know that we really would rather have railroads than highways.

We want more buddies like you. They've gotten their message to the railroad. Another success for the grannies. Hey, hey, hey, hey. We were going to just drop our banner, the men had run. It was the end. What for danger? Mission accomplished. It's caused for celebration. What? From sangria? Oh, it's a hearing. It's a hearing. This is the kind of natural beauty that the raging grannies want to protect. In British Columbia, you can live in a place like this. Resident Siegel. I don't think they'll come up when I'm standing here. I fed him this morning anyway.

The human and her family built a house in the woods here on Salt Spring Island. The trees, the birds become a bird lover, which I never was before. I never paid any attention to them. But here it was, you know, they're all over. They're right practically in our house. And then, of course, the ocean. We have a couple little boats tied down there. And sometimes you go swimming in the summer and a seal will come in and swim near you. It has the potential of just being heaven on earth. And then we'll have salad and then we have these frozen blueberries for dessert. Virginia is angry that people are destroying our natural world. Some people say angry is bad. You shouldn't have anger. But anger motivates us because it galvanizes us into going and doing something. That we might not otherwise do. Look at the size of this lettuce. Look where I bought this yesterday.

Look at it. Sometimes the night before you wonder, do I really want to do this? What if I did get locked up for a long time? I wouldn't see my children or my grandchildren. But it seems worth it to us. Who knows what will come tomorrow? Who knows? Well, it may more shine. Who knows whether the baits will call me. Whatever baits before me, I'll take it in my stride. Aging can be a very liberating time. I don't have a job anymore. I'm retired. I don't have to worry about getting fired for doing something rather outrageous. My children all and grandchildren think it's great what I'm doing. So this is a good time for me.

It's a good time. Getting home is a good time for me. The fairies in! The older people have a responsibility. After we made this mess, the world's in. It's our generation that is responsible for it. The things we haven't done, the things we have done. We have a responsibility to be in the forefront for setting it to rights. And so I'm just sitting there collecting our pensions and waiting till we get too crooked to move. We're telling the boys we're sick of our toys. We want no more war. The raging grannies insist on being seen and heard.

You know, that may be partly because a lot of older women say they feel invisible. Many people look right past them. Let's turn to our Croned Versation Group for more on that. That's five women from the Croned Organization. Miriam, Simone, Ann, Fern, and Jodie. They talked with producer Lila Gorbman about that feeling that people sometimes just don't see them. I had that experience again just recently with a retail store when I was taking something back. And there were younger women standing at the counter. And I was standing at the counter and I can't recall necessarily if they preceded me or I preceded them. But it was the attitude. I felt it very strongly from the retail clerk herself. She kind of whipped me through the process even though I had the proper receipt for my return goods and so forth. But then she turned to them and she was all smiles and much more accommodating.

There was no question about it, much more accommodating, and I sort of skimpered away. I've experienced that a lot and it just happened almost like overnight. I suddenly was invisible, especially dealing with people in stores and restaurants like Ann is saying. And my response is anger. I get angry. It shouldn't be a necessity that I need to shout louder than other people. That I need to call attention to myself. I think it's unfortunate that we have to do that. We'll join our Cronversation Group again later for more of their observations on getting older. Sociologist Pepper Schwartz says it's true that our society reject older women. I think it does two things to women to be excluded or to be seen as invisible or to not be taken into account. It either makes them depressed.

They really take it out of themselves. They feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not operational. Where they get angry and they get active and they get powerful. There's nothing like really being discounted to put on your gloves and say, nobody does that to me. And they get active. One who's gotten active is the Reverend Jean Kim. She's determined to bring another invisible group of women out of the darkness. Reverend Kim searches out women who live on the streets. And she brings them to her church of Mary Magdalene. She feeds them and she offers them hope. He led from every nation, led from all over the earth. And church of all so things. One who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one who's one. During one hour singing, we sing out all the stress, we sing out all the units, we sing out all the problems, we sing out everything and get that out of system.

And women tell me it's working. They find peace. They find in a community with each other. And also they say, I've become very closer to the spirit of God. What are the situations you like to identify with? The Reverend Jean Kim has a mission. It's to reach out to women in pain. Every Saturday she ministers to homeless women in this church basement. Dreaming a new dream is impossible in homeless life. What the heck with the new dream? I am living in shelter or I sleep under the bush. New dream, what's all about? Are you kidding? You mean I can have a new dream? Impossible to have a new dream. It won't help even if I have a dream, right? Impossible. But God says the possible. In this ministry, I try to undo what's been done and damaged by family, by friends, by themselves, by society, and by the church. So what I do, through Bible study or worship service or singing all throughout the program, the total effort is to communicate to them.

Women are good, as good as anybody else. We want to get our garbage out of our life. We are full of garbage, which is one is the anger, hatred, right? So I don't blame people who get angry. I would be angry, but that really destroys us. This is not your typical church. The pastor was ordained at age 52. No one passes a collection plate, and most of the parishioners live in shelters or on the streets. In order to have a new dream, you've got to believe God can do in possibility. During the service, everyone in the Church of Mary Magdalene writes their dreams down and tucks them next to their heart. And then on other piece of paper, put your dream, even if that's impossible, okay? Put your dream for this year, put some hope down, put some plan of vision down, and we'll pray for it. Well, they write down the bad thoughts, too. Those they burn.

Stop. Burn it. Live it here. Don't own it again. Don't take it back. Live it here. Burn it. Live it here. Oh, boy. Two pages of the burn. Oh, boy. So much gone. She's devoted. She really is devoted. She seems to understand the failing, the innermost being of the homeless person. She puts herself in the situation, and she understands them. What do you sell best? Jean-Keeham wants to bring women closer to God. She offers them a community. And she tries to empower them. That includes offering work to women that no one else will hire them. Can you make an apron? I want to make these pants. I want shorts. I want you to make an apron. I'll buy it. I'll be a good customer. Shorts?

Capers are simple. Yeah, aprons are simple. And make a brazier. Yeah, yeah. I'm a bit slow. Well, so, you know, ideal is if you make some things we will sell, you can make things like relocation. Yeah, yeah. Every single woman has some kind of a talent and gift. There's nobody who doesn't have any gifts. So we try to help them to dig out and identify and reaffirm the gifts they got. So that they will help them, oh, I am okay. You know, I have these gifts. And they'll help them to increase their self-esteem and dignity. Jean-Keeham grew up in an abusive family. She describes her first 42 years as a life of wilderness. Now that she's come out of that wilderness, she says she doesn't fit most stereotypes, especially that of a Korean-American woman. The stereotype doesn't fit me. And I feel it's up to you. You want to feed into stereotype, you want to reject that. Stereotyping won't control me.

And I want to say this to many women. Stereotyping, we need to reject. We need to determine what we want. Dance, dance, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the dance, let me lead you home. Wherever you may be, let me lead you home. Dance, let me lead you home. What is the granny myth that older women are what? In effectual, crotchety, not very useful, it's wrong. But people who buy into it can do a lot of harm to older women, especially if they're employers. Next, meet a woman with a doctoral degree and years of work experience, who says no one will hire her because of her age. This is her daily ritual. Bonnie Fritz, PhD, sits in her very small apartment and sends out resumes.

Sometimes she writes to more than a dozen employers a day. I started in January two years ago, and so it has been two years now, and I have sent out, now I keep track of them by the hundreds. I have sent out over 22 hundred applications. I have spent thousands of dollars on resumes and on postage, and phone calls following up on them. I always follow up and nothing. With that many applications in, you'd think Bonnie would have found work by now, but despite her advanced degrees, despite her years of teaching experience, no one has hired her. Bonnie thinks it's her age. Sometimes she senses it during job interviews. Sometimes it's actually like this. They lean backwards, and they don't want to talk to me anymore. I really honestly think it's because of my age, I have lots of experience in many different fields, and so as a result,

I just think that they're intimidated. I think they think that if they hire me, next time there's a promotion, I'd get it, not them. But for now, all Bonnie's getting our rejection letters. Thank you for taking the time to apply for the position of director or field placement development. That's exactly what I did at the College of Grade Falls. I had every qualification. I try to keep in mind that it's not personal, because I know that I am good, but it's real difficult when you keep getting again and again and again. No matter how they write it, no matter what they say, the bottom line is still no. Yeah, let's use this when this is the demand for a payment. Mary Ruth Mann is a lawyer who deals with job discrimination. She says there's often a bias against older workers. I see it as sort of some accepted myths about older workers that they're not as energetic or they're over the hill

or they're fixed in their ways. And I don't believe that those are true. I mean, I see people who are in workplaces that have tremendous amounts of experience and insight, but they're just not being included. Perhaps that amount of experience is threatening to new people who don't have that amount of knowledge or experience. Perhaps that's part of what's going on. Okay, bye. What we find in the workplace is that each organization has a sort of culture. Some of those cultures are focused on the traits of being young. For example, in fast food businesses. The culture of some of those fast food businesses that I've dealt with and explored is that people go out partying together and they have retreats where they'll go to a ski lodge.

That sort of thing. And that's their management culture. And what upsets me so terribly is I am such a hard worker and I've always done... It really has been horrible. I've always been such a good person who's trying to do good things for other people. And now that I need some help, I get no help whatsoever. And it's real tough except my parents, of course, who have always been there. I mean, without my parents, I would be a bag lady right now. Manny's unemployment has run out. She's trying to get any kind of work that she can. And I got a call yesterday or the day before from the gentleman who hires ushers for your theater. If Manny Fritz is right about what's going on,

if age discrimination is the problem, change could be a long time coming. The law is very slow and very expensive in dealing with these situations to litigate an age discrimination case costs tens of thousands of dollars and takes a couple of years if it has to go to trial. So that's a very difficult way to change society, you know, sort of one case at a time. I think the answer will come in more general programs of retraining, dealing with the fact that we have an age in society that people are going to be productive into their 70s and 80s. We're going to have a serious social problem and do have if those people aren't integrated into the active society and culture. Thank you.

Don't go. Some people, when they look at us, just don't appreciate all that we have to offer. No question about it. That's the bad news. But fortunately, there's good news, too. I got a first start in my 60s and I'd like you to meet a woman who's just started a brand new job when a lot of other people would be thinking retirement. I could not be in a place where I had to sit in an office for nine to five every day. I think I'd die. I really would. I think I'd shrivel up. But running around is part of the attraction of this job. I have. It's a good thing she likes it because Roseanne Cohn is doing a lot of running around these days. She's just been hired as the new regional communications director for Jack in the Box restaurants. It is an adventure. There's no question about it. And I do not know where it's going to lead which is even more fun

because I'm a risk taker and I was willing to take the risk of going into a new job and just seeing where it took me. You have to get the coupons out for the bullothon. And that's real. They brought me in because I have more experience in the field than younger people. Yes, I'm older. And that's one of the advantages I had. It looks good. They did a good job. But I also have tremendous energy. And I also have the need to work. I mean, I don't want to retire. I don't want to quit. I will work for as long as I can because I get very charged by it. My name is Roseanne Cohn. I am currently working and I am currently married. But there was a time when that wasn't all true. Roseanne lived through some tough years after she and her first husband divorced. After 22 years of marriage, the marriage ended. And I suddenly found myself living on the south end of Mercer Island in the home.

I definitely couldn't afford in a position in which there was no money coming in. And I really wasn't sure how it was going to pay the bills. In the years that followed, she went back to school. She became a public relations consultant and she wrote a book. None of it was easy. Now she shares her experience with other women. The one thing I will consistently tell my displaced homemaker classes when I talk to him is that there is nobody else responsible for you but you. You can't sit around and wait for somebody to do it for you. You have to do it for yourself. And I think that's true of anybody. If you want to do something badly enough, you can make it happen. There are some places you're not going to be welcome. And sometimes when you're looking at that age, you may have to think that you have to do it differently. You may have to start your own business. You may have to accept a job at a lower level and work your way up because you're good at it

because you're going to work harder than everybody else. I don't think it's ever been easy at any level. I do think that the people I work with may look at me a little differently. I'm not sure that it's respect, but I think they realize that there's more experience. And I need some input from you on how we want to make that work better because you're absolutely right. We would get more entries if they were located here. If we had a draw box within the restaurant, we could send them to a central location. I think we could get a lot better results. I think they may be more receptive to some of my ideas than if I was a younger person. And that isn't advantage, and I would use that as much as I could. People like Roseanne Cohn may never want to stop working. But what if you do? What does retirement mean these days when we're living so much longer? For a lot of women, it may be the richest time of all. Tell me what you think the biggest problem is now

with older dialysis patients? My name Genevay is a gerontologist and counselor. Before she retired, it scared her. To imagine what her life would be like without a regular work schedule. I was terrified that I would evaporate into the walls of my own home. I was terrified that I would be lonely. They have this fantasy about somebody knocking on my door at noon and I'd come shuffling in in an old green chanille bathrobe and there would be a grade here. My hair wouldn't be cold. And I thought nobody will call me. I mean, that's the terrible fear of most people who retire. The exciting thing has been that I've had more time to shape my life and to spend time that's really meaningful. And there's nothing that stops us from starting all kinds of wonderful new creative things that we always wanted to do. In fact, in my many years of counseling older people,

I would always say to them, tell me what you always wanted to do and never had time for yet. And they'd do this little dance and shuffle while I don't remember or nothing. And suddenly there'd be a little light in the eye and they'd say, well, I always wanted to paint. Well, you think you could take a painting class now? Oh no, I wouldn't be any good. People start wonderful things. If you start getting all over, you get paint all over your hands and that's why I start painting at the top and work down at keeps. I keep my painting clean and I don't want to rip off. And I'm a messy painter. I know you're... After I retired, I took up painting. And I went to a class once and this teacher said, can you draw? And I said, no, I can't. So she said, oh, you'll never make a painter. That teacher was wrong. Gloria Grant painted and painted some more. And now she nurtures other budding artists.

This is something for the others in the class might want to do. When Harvey's done with his pictures, he did a little card. So when we display the pictures in the lunch room about his painting, what's it about? And that would be very interesting to the people. Like they might not be able to do it right away. And the first few pictures I did were terrible. But to me, they were beautiful because I made them. But I think that's it. And they just need encouragement. When you start painting, you learn to see so many things you never saw before. And you start seeing colors that you didn't even know existed. And the more you paint, the more you see and the more beautiful the world is. You know, if you're thinking about retirement as rest time, you better think again.

A lot of women tell us to get busier than ever. If you don't have to worry about working or taking care of other people, there's a lot of life out there to be lived. And one of the biggest misconceptions about your 20 or 30 years of retirement is that you won't be healthy. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'll do one slice at a time, Jen. Okay. And this is a very wholesome dinner, of course. The good and surprising news is that you can actively improve your health at any age. Be helpful to know what kind of physical activity you get besides racing for the bus. I do race for the bus. I ride a bike. This is Dr. Gil Omen. He says that most health problems reassociate with age are preventable. Older women have been infected by this notion that there is an inevitable decline in our body functions. And how long do you normally do it?

Oh, half hour. Sweating for a good part of it? It takes 10 minutes to work out. And then you go for 20 more minutes? Yes. You must be in respect to the tech industry. For the last 15 years or so, there have been many studies of older people around the new theme. Some people call it successful aging. Others call it productive aging. Whatever. It is the message that when you pull out the preventable causes of disability and loss of capacity to take care of oneself, specific diseases, loss of vision and hearing function, you take those things away which are basically preventable. There isn't any big factor of age on function. So the word is that if more of us lived healthier lives, we get healthier. And the best thing you can do for yourself is to get moving. Whatever age a man or a woman is,

it's never too late to start being active. Physically active. You don't have to be a jogger. You just have to walk or swim or garden. Whatever activity you like, you will benefit. I've always been health conscious. I guess even before it was popular to be health conscious. Lois Jones takes good care of herself. She's had to. She's been on her own since her marriage ended almost 20 years ago. It was really hard. It was like a tragic thing. You know, married for 23 years. And for 19 of those years, you know, it had been a great marriage. And then after I'd gone through the last four, there was nothing left to do but to end it. And it was hard, but I look back on it and I look at my life now.

It was good too, because I would have never gotten to know the person that I am. A couple of years ago, Lois joined a program with other people from the area, with help they each built a new home. There were nine families and we all build on each other's house. Everybody wanted a house. All had full-time jobs and we worked on the weekends and holidays. And it was the coldest, muddest, wetdest wet I think I've seen since I've been here. And that's how we worked. And yes, I worked on every house out here and everybody else worked on everybody's house. It was a good group. Hi. Oh my, look up there. Look at them.

Hello sweetheart. Hi there. Lois says growing older shouldn't stop you from trying new things. Hi Tura, love it. No, it has nothing to do with age. Now, you might not run as fast, but what's wrong with your brain? Nothing. You can still think, you can still do. What have you got to lose? You know, older and bolder. Okay. But health. Yes, absolutely. Your royal health. Okay. What do you think? It's good. Good, Jeff. sweetheart, please. My mother is definitely a little model for me in terms of age and gracefully. She will not go gently to that good night. She is very active.

She's always trying new things. I cannot imagine her in a walking chair. And it's a great thing. Strange, isn't it? Most of us can't imagine ourselves staring out at the world from a rocking chair. But that's what younger people think old ladies do. Well, they're wrong. Like Louis Jones says, a lot of us get older and bolder. Let's go back to our conversation group. They talked about that. You know, one of the things I keep telling people is the real needs all the feisty old ladies that can get. I feel like a pioneer in a way. I feel like I've taken the first baby step in discovering the wisdom and the joy that lies ahead of me. I feel like I really do feel like a baby in a kind of a way.

I do know that I'm living right because I'm taking risks. And risks were things that were not taken by my mother or her mother or any of their mothers. Risks were for the youth. Well, every day I wake up and ask myself, how am I going to earn my living today? I have no insurance or anything like that. But the trade-off is, I'm alive. And life is exciting to me. And when I grew up as a kid reading fairy tales, my life now is when I wake up in the morning and I say, I'm going to seek my adventure today. And I'm going to try to arrange that right through to the passing through to the other place. Where every day, it's going to be a risk but the benefit is so outweighs the risk. I've decided a few years ago ago to teach drumming for a living.

I have voices that tell me I'm too low to do things. When I'm lifting drums, I'm putting 14 heavy drums in a circle and then moving 14 chairs in that circle for one of my classes, for instance. Sometimes there's a voice that makes it say, hey, you can't do this. Fortunately, my own is much louder. Now, not everyone takes up drumming, but a lot of women say that they feel a new sense of freedom when they get older. And that's after realizing they spend a good deal of their lives trying to please other people. I guess at a certain point, you don't have to do that anymore. But there's still that discomfort about how people start creating us differently as we get older.

Sure does feel strange. Let's go back to our Chrome Conversation group for more on that. I'm surprised myself a lot. In the last couple of years is the first time my life people have asked me if I should get a senior citizen discount. And what surprises me about my responses, I get very angry. And that, to me, is a kind of an embarrassment on my part. I mean, if I run off the mouth talking about the glories of getting older on the one hand, why am I so angry if someone asks me if I get a senior citizen discount? I've yelled at people. What the hell do you think I am? I want your grandmother. So something is going on. I guess you have to internalize some of the poison in society. You can't, everyone internalizes the isms, unfortunately. It's more dangerous than actually any other part of the isms is when you start disliking yourself.

When you start believing what society says, why else do I get so mad? A senior citizen puts me apart already. Why don't they just say older person, or older persons, that seems like a rather trite thing, but I object even to that senior citizen. Again, putting me in kind of a box or stereotype. I would like to ask if other people have experienced that when you first got into your fifties or whatever, and people began to address you with things like, do you get a senior citizen discount? Did it bother, did it aggravate anyone? No, I thought it was, gee, that's interesting. Isn't that curious? I might as well enjoy it. Really? I'm a very physically strong woman, and I have no hesitancy about moving chairs around. However, I have recently moved into a retirement home, and they will come up to me and say,

oh no, for a new dose, don't do that, that's our job. And I wonder, am I taking away their job? I think part of what we have to do is change that. Ever since the year that I turned 50, I was teaching schools in, and every year in my birthday I pass out candy to everybody all day, because I think it's important for those kids to know that 50 isn't dead yet, thank you. But sometimes we're too willing to let it slide and not to make a point of letting people know how old we are and what we're doing, and that we are capable and interested and interesting people. At the same time, you know, once in a while you can trade on it, just like you can trade on being female. If you don't want to change the tire, you can probably find someone to change it for you. So I'm going to make use of some of the perks occasionally too. But if we don't make a point of stressing the positive things of being an older woman,

who else is going to do it? You have to ask at any age, I think, how come this systematic denial of reality persists? If 17% of Americans are now 60 or older, what are we looking at? Are we pretending that older people do not do significant, exciting, even sexy things? Marge Looters is a radio commentator and a crusader against ageism. She says it's all around us, like in the products we buy. I've gone through, you know, supermarkets and drug stores. A lot of times the print is extremely small for the best of eyes. But for elders, sometimes that's very difficult. Or it's white on black background and it makes it very hard to read. Sometimes the packaging, it does not open well.

It's very hard, somebody may have an arthritic hand or something very hard to open a package. And Marge points out that most clothes are designed for the young, not the old. If you happen to be a different size than you were, perhaps as a young person, the styles are not all that easy to find. Most of the things I have found for either larger or quote older women are sort of, I don't know, not very fancy, sort of sack like an ordinary and tending to be some kind of a pedestrian kind of a print or something. With reminders all around us that it's better to be young, Marge has some advice. First of all, start out by not giving up power. Be assertive of who you are and be confident in it. No matter how free all a person may be,

we still have our basic dignity and style of being and there's no reason to let go of it at all. If the faces on magazine covers look more like your grandchildren than your friends, don't despair. As more of us get older, things may change. I think age will become much more comfortable and acceptable. Whether it will become chic, I don't know. I think even now there's some great older faces out there that those people earned and they're impressive. I see it already, besides being a university professor, I'm on TV occasionally as a news commentator. And I notice that the newsroom isn't as young as it used to be. The anchors aren't as young, the reporters aren't as young. That's a big difference.

TV in particular has always been a youth industry and to some extent it still is, but not as much as it used to be. And I think we will want. I want, I know other people like me want, to see faces of our generation and above. I don't want to see everybody I'm looking at. Looking like they're still dating. I want them to have some mature issues that they're familiar with and I'm familiar with. So I think we will see age get a little bit more presence and stature. In some communities older women do have stature. Meet Mama Jackson. She's a great grandmother and she's created a special place for young people. Her restaurant is located in a tough inner city neighborhood. But people know if their kids are at Mama's, they're safe. This is what we're featuring today. I have to have a hotel like every day. We have a chinlin' for fire chicken and a pork chop, we have fish.

Mama Jackson is up early every day and doesn't go home until she served the last dinner. We've made Mama's kitchen a lot of food that you're used to eating. As to get older we don't have time. You know we rush to eat this, rush to eat that, rush to eat this. Our bar food, cook food every day. That you were raised off of like beans, greens, black apes, cabbage, and all of that. A lot of people come to Mama's for her food. Not true. But you'll put me to work now. But Mama offers something else. A safe place for kids to hang out. Who won? No, no, no, no. These are nice kids come down. So if they're doing, they're doing nothing but standing here playing the game. When one said a little naughty words and I said, I would just say they won't say anything more than nothing like that.

Sometimes I'll ask them about the grades in school how they're doing in school. Some have a problem and sometimes they tell me about the rest of the problems they have with the police, you know. And things of that sort. I never know if they're going to say it. And then they tell me about the troubles and it'd be surprise the horror stories I hear, you know. This is mother and daughter. You know we look alike. And they're my children. I have been for a long, long time. And I have not been here. This is my daughter. Although I've never had a, you know. She's known for being a mother figure. Yeah, to everybody. She's always there when you need her. People off the street, they know they respect her. They look up to her as a mother. You know, there's a lot of gang violence and stuff around here. But they respect Mama. Nothing else they respect Mama. You know, you can't take somebody and lose somebody and make them do something. You know, as she talks to them, she talks to somebody real.

When a man goes into a relationship with the woman, he can change her. That's the wrong way to go into a relationship. That's what I mean now. You have to come from within. That's where I met you. That's where I met you. There's something about Mama. There's something about the way she touches people. They say it helps. By letting me know that, you know, there is a God and the things that I was called up in, I didn't have to do. You know, she's confirmed that and I don't have to do that today. I don't have to drink our youths. You know, and she ministered to me. And the reason I'm so against drugs, I do not lie to no one. I have the problem of the drugs of my kids on drugs and the family. And I have seen where I broke them down from. And much as I can talk about it or to keep someone off of it, it's to them not to experience the hurt that I did through. That's why I talked to these kids out here.

There's nothing that I'm dreaming of enough. I use my experience. This is my mother. And she's 93 years old. That healed her eyes and she doesn't read with no glasses. Read the finest print with no glasses that you hear me. Sure respect. You if you respect them. But they know who's who. You're an increase in them all. They ensure a mind at all. If they see you drinking and cutting up, how are you going to tell them what to do? We have gotten too relaxed. Mother was not relaxed on me. And she would say, no, you can't do this, you can't do that. And I thought that she was just being mean. But when I look around me and see what happened to my other friends, they had freedom. I'd be right with you sweetheart. I appreciate this lady. I wouldn't be where I am today or who I am today if it hadn't been for her. And Lord. Hi sweetheart, can I have you?

The long ones. How much longer? Right here. No, the other one. The rest of the bear right here? I'm here right here. These are seventy-five. Mama takes time with the kids that come in. In some ways she's family to them. When they come in like an evening, after how you grades, you know, how about school today? They're so fine. And then I'm beginning to talk and powering and you thank you. She has a sort of a haven for children who come in. I think she gives away a lot of free stuff to the kids. And she obviously gives away a lot of good advice. I think many kids feel like it's a place of safety. It's a place where they can go and be protected because she's not going to let any kind of violence when you can happen around the store. This is the cornbread. We really need help and skillet. We have hungry food every day. In every community across this country, you're going to find that elderly people working hard

to make sure that the institutions survive. And those communities. As long as I can get up and call my hair and put on these stuff in these, I'm going to do it. As long as I can get out of the house and close the door behind, I'm going to do it. She's always there. I mean, she's not back in some little rocking chair. She's out there. She's not retired. I don't think you ever be retired. I think she's always be on the go and always there for you. Hello, people. And that's where it comes from. First comes from the heart. Right? Come from within, sweetheart. In a lot of communities, we older women are the ones carrying on traditions. What would they do without us? Everybody needs to start valuing age. Then we can all look forward to getting older.

One of the passions of my life is to redefine the word old. Old in the United States means bad or over the hill. Not quite as good, not quite making it. Old can be a very positive word. And so it's very detrimental to somebody when you say, oh, you look so young for your age. Oh, I couldn't believe you're 45. I can't believe you're 90. You look so young. See, to me, that's not a compliment at all. I want someone to value the years of life that I've lived and to affirm that it's perfectly alright for me to be 66. But I do feel that there are some things that I'm comfortable with in aging that I never thought about until we began talking. The problem is I swear more. And I don't feel uncomfortable about it. And I ask more questions of everybody including my children.

For me, this is the most free time and the most independent time I've had in my whole life. And you can be eccentric instead of weird. Oh, yes. And you can speak up at meetings and some young personal come to you afterward and say, I am so glad you said that. I couldn't say it because I might lose my job. And we don't have to worry about losing our jobs. There's a wonderful growth of spirit and knowledge and for most older women, I think, satisfaction with themselves, which doesn't have to do with how you look on the outside. So that's the plus side. Once you face and get over that business about it is really alright to have wrinkles. I was meant to have them. It's really wonderful to have gray hair.

Gray goes with so many colors. I mean, it's wonderful. I mean, it's really okay to be heavier or thinner. That is who I am right now. Then you can live through the other facets of yourself and your personality. Good advice from Bonnie Genevay. I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. I'm Peg Phillips. See you later. Bye. Additional copies of the Granny Myth video

are available for $19.95 plus $3 postage and handling. To order the video, call 1-800-937-5387.