Your Wisdom is Showing
By Linda Carpenter
December 2007
Frail or wise? What is your first reaction to this stock photo?
I’ve noticed as I get older that there are few women of any age with grey hair. A brunette in her 70s isn’t really fooling anyone, but since a substantial number of graying women dye their hair, one who doesn’t really stands out. I fully understand why grey is rare. In this country, older means invisible. The image that many people have of an older woman is of someone frail and senile, not experienced and wise. It’s nothing short of magic that a little hair color can change that image. I keep telling myself that I won’t worry about what people think. When I reach a certain age, I’m going natural. That “certain age” wasn’t forty-something and it isn’t fifty-something. Somehow, it manages to remain in the future.
I worked for many years at an agency that provided housing to Native Americans. I would never argue that the cultures on the various reservations are superior to the dominant culture in the U.S. But one attitude that I admired throughout the tribes that I visited in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Nevada was respect for elders. Even the word “elder” connotes a more valued person than the word “elderly.” Several of my coworkers were Native American. One of them was standing in a potluck line in front of an Anglo coworker, who happened to notice a grey hair on the back of the Navajo woman’s head and asked if she wanted her to get rid of it. The response was immediate and short: “No, that’s my wisdom.”
