Western culture, in general, just doesn't respect old people.
Most of us dread reaching old age, are obsessed with keeping up a youthful appearance and are dismissive of older people. Why is that?
In most Eastern cultures, old people are revered and old age isn't something dreaded. Old people are looked at as wise and experienced beings, from which we can learn innumerable lessons.
Meanwhile, in our society, we seem to have no problem sending our grandpas off to a nursing home to live out his days; at family functions we mingle with the fun, young cousins, rather than with the old uncle sitting alone in his armchair; and we dismiss our old aunts and grandmas as "crazy old people," and don't even give their words of advice a second thought.
But, maybe we should.
After all, they have lived a lifetime of experiences and most are willing to share them with us. So why not listen for a change?
Our culture seems obsessed with usefulness, and we seem to have made old age synonymous with uselessness - but older individuals are a lot more useful than we'd like to give them credit for.
Old people may not be able to work as much as the young, but they have their own special place and unique jobs within society.
Plus, they have already worked their entire lives - this is their time to sit back and relax. They may even have the most important job: giving firsthand history lessons.
They at least deserve a lot more credit than we've been giving them.
Some of us look at them as if they were a different species that we'd like to avoid, but they're just people who have been afforded the luxury of having a long life. There is nothing scary about that.
They have lived through things we have only read about. And if we wait too long, reading about it will be the only way we'll ever know how the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust or other hardships, tragedies and early eras were to live through.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I got to spend a lot of time with my older, wiser relatives.
Their stories, spanning over the past century, gave me a glimpse into the lives of my great-grandparents, my parents and even myself.
My 81-year-old uncle likes to tell stories, so with a cup of tea and a cookie I sat in awe and listened.
I never knew that my grandpa had a dog named Spot who rode around the backyard in a makeshift Sputnik replica built by my clever great-grandfather (who apparently had a lot of free time on his hands).
I didn't know that during the "Great Flood" of Pittsburgh in 1936, my grandpa's family had the only house in the city with electricity because his father, ever the ahead-of-his-time inventor, had built his very own generator.
I didn't know my Uncle George was an alcoholic who eventually hanged himself. I didn't know that my grandma, as a child, stood in an outdoor line with her mother to receive butter rations during World War II.
I didn't know that I'm a direct descendant of George Washington on my dad's side. I didn't know that I'm part German. I didn't know what a "bootlegger" did, or that my great-uncle was one at some point. And I didn't know that I even had an Aunt Rachel.
I left my uncle's house feeling like I had traveled in time. And in a way, I had. So next time your grandma calls and she starts with the infamous, "When I was a little girl ..." line, don't roll your eyes and change the subject.
You could learn something from her.
Megan Wadding is a film studies major. Share your favorite family stories with her at: megan.wadding@asu.edu.
