The Young Learn About the Old: Aging and Children's Literature

I, the ocean,So hugeSo powerfulSo richI have everythingEverything my heart desires.

William Ross

These lines are part of a longer poem written by a fifty-nine year old man who had all but given up on life. Confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home for five years, William Ross was able to renew his feeling for life by experiencing and writing poetry, through the encouragement of the poet Kenneth Koch. Unwilling to accept the stereotype that old age is a time when inspiration and individuality disappear along with strong muscles and tight skin, Koch encouraged a group of people, relative strangers to literature, to write poetry, proving that old age does not have to be a time without imagination and hope.

The poems which emerged are collected in I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry in a Nursing Home (New York: Random House, 1977) a dramatic and aesthetic testimony to the vitality of the aged. As poems, may stand on their artistic merits alone. At the same time, they are instructive for those concerned with the potential of literature to increase awareness of the feelings of others. In this case, we experience the pleasure and pain of those for whom old age is most real.

In children's literature, unfortunately, few books about the experience of aging are written by the elderly. Part of the reason may be that our older population has bought the stereotype that to age is to decay. Aging, the very word, has an ominous tone suggesting a time of weakness, depression, blankness: a coda, an end to inspiration, vitality and creativity. As a result, for many people old age is approached with fear and reluctance and much of our literature both for children and adults reflects this attitude.

Aging and ageism, the stereotyping of the elderly, has in recent years become a significant contemporary issue. It is being recognized that older people in American society do not enjoy the respect accorded the elderly in many other cultures. The Peter Pan Principle predominates: "I won't grow up." To judge from the media, the fashion industry and the best seller list, aging is something to be dreaded, masked —denied if possible. But realities don't go away and the only alternative to aging is death. The contradictions are apparent. We live in an era when the elderly are experiencing increased longevity and many refuse to retreat into idle helplessness. Some unfortunately do succumb to a culturally defined destiny and, long before it may be necessary, become victims of the "rocking chair syndrome." It is America's love affair with youth and prejudice against aging which encourages people of all ages to accept the obsolescent myths about growing old.

Myths are resistant to change and the myths about aging are no different; they persist long after they have outlived their usefulness. Yet, there are some signs of change. As the aged population increases —estimates for the year 2000 suggest that almost twenty percent of the American population will be over 65 —large numbers of the elderly are beginning to recognize their political power as a unified constituency and are preparing to participate in ways that re-awaken and encourage their abilities to solve significant life problems.

While aging has many faces from the ravages of senility to the pain of segregation and loneliness to continued dynamism and acute intelligence, most of these faces are absent from children's books. The literature has, for the most part, provided youngsters with a narrow view of growing old that may be in sharp and confusing contrast to their personal experiences. Children recognize at some level the contradictions between their lives and what they read in books. Many young people participate in the pain of the elderly, experiencing with and through them segregation and loneliness. Since children as well are often treated as a fringe group, they are in a unique position to appreciate the plight of the elderly and frequently develop close alliances with much older people. At the very least, many children must develop...