Let’s Use this Time to Strengthen, Not Weaken, Bonds Between Generations

by Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United

A scroll through your Twitter feed or scan of the news headlines reveals a disturbing trend: ageism during the coronavirus quarantine.

Take Italy, for instance, where older adults with COVID-19 are among those the country is deciding not to save. That’s according to a New York Times Op-Ed by Rabbi Elliot Kukla, who self-described as “a chronically-ill rabbi,” who offers spiritual care to elders coming to the end of life.

“Almost no one in my personal or professional world,” Kukla explains, “would ‘earn’ care if the United States were to come to a scenario like Italy.”

The ageism around the coronavirus in the U.S. is just as disturbing, when a state official calls on grandparents “to die for the economy” and a tweet calls older Americans “generally expensive to maintain and not productive.”

The backlash rightly demonstrates what most Americans know: we are in the fight against COVID-19 together.

Our country thrives because we value our bookend generations — our young and old — that hold our civil society together.

We thrive because of the 2.6 million grandparents raising their grandchildren. They save our country more than $4 billion a year by keeping children out of the child welfare system.

We succeed because older relatives provide full- or part-time childcare to help middle generations, including many first responders, show up for work.

We are stronger because of committed older adults like the 200,000 Senior Corps members who volunteer 50 million hours a year tutoring children, supporting families or serving their communities in other ways.

The sentiment that “we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem” is true. We should use this tough time to strengthen the bonds between generations, not weaken them. Together we win.