Since the beginning of time women have been making efforts to look younger. The Romans used mushrooms and rosewater to achieve the desired look. During the Victorian Era, lead face powder was used to conceal wrinkles. Today, injectable Botox has become a regular solution for women who want that extra line between their eyebrows to vanish. Key words: achieve, conceal, vanish.
Since the online rage of products like hyaluronic acid, the gua sha tool and facial massagers, it has become clear to me that the recent generation of young girls are just as afraid of aging as past generations of women. Teen girls are just as easy to give into the hundreds of TikTok trends, believing these products slow the process of aging. This fear is societal, but I believe that it doesn’t have to continue.
On my Mom’s 52nd birthday I asked her if she was scared of getting older. At the time, to me getting older meant gaining wrinkles, holding weight easier and all of the old lady stereotypes. She responded, reminding me that not everyone gets to see their 52nd birthday, and that every year is something to be celebrated, not feared. Celebrated, not feared.
Every wrinkle on your cheek, every gray hair, every aching muscle should not be something that is used against women, but should be a token for enjoying life. After all, the main way to achieve the “pestering” smile lines is to express happiness. Think of it as a permanent tattoo of a happy life.
I understand, and feel myself, that many women strive to look younger because it is what is expected of them. Since popular media first started circulating over a hundred years ago, young women were thought of as the “ideal” women. Judy Garland was only 16 years old when she played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Marilyn Monroe was 22 when she was on the cover of Playboy Magazine, Brooke Shields was a young teen when she first started to become idolized by the media, the list goes on. Girls between the ages of 15-30 have been compared to older women.. While this is a societal issue, it should not be the way that women approach aging.
This past August, Yale psychologist and author Becca Levy found that simply changing your attitude towards aging can, on average, add seven and a half years to your life. By viewing getting older as something that is disease infested and death ridden, you are naturally going to slowly give up your time. This attitude is dangerous considering that the average lifespan of an American is 77 years old, meaning that if you demonize the last almost decade of your life, you have cut yourself short.
Although this is all easy for me to say, as I am 17 years old and have not yet reached a point where I need to worry how far my parking spot is from the door when I go shopping, but I want to continue the mindset that aging is a gift and should be celebrated, not cried over or met with needles in a plastic surgery office.
