NYU: Why Do So Many Adults Treat Their Aging Parents Like Children?

NYU: Why Do So Many Adults Treat Their Aging Parents Like Children? | November 2025: As the American population grows collectively older, a good deal of attention has been focused on age-related bias in employment, the media, health care, and popular culture. But while the problem of ageism may be well documented in those areas, there appears to be much less awareness among scholars, journalists, and policy makers of its impact on the family.

So notes Stacey Gordon, senior fellow at the Center for Health and Aging Innovation (CHAI) at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. Gordon’s career-long interest in bringing the problem to the fore of scholarship and public awareness led her to research and write the recent paper "Ageism in the Family," coauthored by Ernest Gonzales, an NYU Silver professor and CHAI’s director.

The study describes ageism directed at older adults as a phenomenon akin to racism and sexism. Rather than just another form of familial tension or disagreement, the sources of ageist attitudes and behaviors run deep in American society, powered by norms and traditions about the roles that older family members play, negative stereotypes, and false beliefs. Siblings and friends communicate age bias, consciously or unconsciously. So do older adults and parents, who often internalize them. And the impact on families is insidious, even toxic, says Gordon.

“Common stereotypes by young and old alike can include a belief that older family members are dependent, physically and cognitively impaired, lonely, deaf, lacking vitality or interest, asexual and helpless,” she and Gonzales write in their paper in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work. But whether kept under wraps or blurted out jokingly (“No one over 75 should have an I-phone!” is one such micro-aggression, she explains), ageism dishonors an older person’s lifetime of skills, experiences, and knowledge. It chips away at their autonomy, power, and self-esteem.

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