Daily Excerpt: Women, We're Only Old Once (Cooper) - Growing Old in a Culture of Denial
Today's book excerpt comes from the award-winning book, Women, We're Only Old Once by Bertha Cooper -- Growing Old in a Culture of Denial As I began my journey of discovery into what being an older woman might mean in America, I learned that I wasn’t the only one who had questions and fears, nor was I the only one who craved conversation about aging well but didn’t know how to begin it. Most of us are at least curious about the experience of others and how it compares to ours. Yet, inexplicably we women, even those of us who tend to overshare, don’t always engage in substantial discussions about what it means to grow old and how to do it with dignity and self-kindness. We live in a culture in the United States that celebrates youth and hopes to postpone aging as long as possible. As women, we’ve all experienced the message throughout our lives that to be socially acceptable and desirable it’s necessary to be beautiful as in slender but curvaceous, with unlined, made-up faces