In this column I want to address a topic most of us avoid.

Growing old. Or more specifically, the people living around us who are senior citizens — aging professionals, if you will.

I want to talk about this greatest demographic of all time.

We expect a lot of them. 

After all they’ve given us. 

Think about it. People in their 70s, 80s and so on gave us the best years of their lives. They parented and nurtured us. They endured the hippy era, Viet Nam, avocado colored kitchen appliances (sans microwave ovens, because they weren’t mainstream yet), shag carpet, shag haircuts and black and white TV programming that ended at midnight with the playing of the national anthem. 

They shared bathrooms and bedrooms with multiple siblings, dialed rotary phones, learned to drive with a stick shift, and know firsthand how an eight track tape system works. They remember when the Beatles premiered on the Ed Sullivan show, the Rolling Stones were a new band and Patsy Cline sang “Crazy.”

They have lived.

After all they’ve experienced, we continue to ask more of them. 

Isn’t that just like us?

I, for one, think it might be too much.

Last year, I heard a news story about a 82-year-old woman in Washington state who was in the locker room of the local YMCA. While there, a transgender woman entered with two girls. The octogenarian saw the scene and did not understand what was happening in the context of 2024. The transgender woman had a male voice and this young 82-year-old heard it and failed to see the person with the male voice as the woman she clearly saw herself to be.

The 82-year-old called for help, thinking the two girls were in danger. In response to her inability to correctly assess the situation, the YMCA banned her for life.

This morning, I was making coffee and a 90-something neighbor literally called out to me through my front window. She’d inadvertently called 911 on her watch during the early morning hour of 2:00 am and couldn’t stop the notifications going to her emergency contacts every 20 minutes. She was mortified and embarrassed and was desperate to find someone who could reprogram her watch.

These are two examples, but I think they might stand for a larger crowd.

Aging is a privilege and a gift and I believe we should treat it as such. 

We are living in an age where technology will very soon surpass most of us, but it may have already surpassed some of the people we should value the most. 

Yet we keep pushing it, and pushing them. 

I am not saying this is inherently wrong. Technology is a good thing. But enough is enough.

Let’s give those we call seniors a break and understand the journeys they’ve lived through and all the changes they’ve witnessed throughout their lives.

We think we are helping them when we gift them a smart watch or smart phone or smart car, but I think maybe, just maybe, they might be smart enough — in their own way. They have lived. They have navigated life.

If they want to embrace technology, I say hurrah! But if they are kicking and screaming, or maybe just confused, give them a break. Realize what they’ve experienced in life and value that very experience.

I think it’s safe to say that we all hope to grow into the golden years. And, I think it’s safe to say that we hope to do it surrounded by kindness, compassion and understanding — but not necessarily things we don’t really need and can’t really understand.

For some, that includes the latest, greatest technology. 

For others, not so much.

I say we let both groups age with grace, without any unintended demands from us. However smart that sounds at the time.

— Jill Pertler’s column Slices of Life appears regularly in the Times. She can be reached at slicescolumn@gmail.com.