International Day of Older Persons 2024, one day is not enough.

We will all grow old, if we are lucky, but few of us are aware of this fact when we are in the earlier stages of life, when we are deceived by the dynamics of hyperactivity and the endless routines that numb our sensitivity. Then, essential issues go unnoticed.

Popular wisdom says that we only remember “Santa Bárbara when it thunders” and it is true.

On a personal level, there may be exceptions, but in general terms, even a society like the Spanish one, which prides itself on having special care for the family, abandons the elderly to their fate. We cannot forget that, in the hardest moments of the last economic crisis, some families had the “grandmother’s” pension as the only guaranteed monthly income.

Only when we live closely with elderly people, and not always, do we get an idea of what it means to grow old and, this, often means automatically starting a process of exclusion that inevitably leads to loneliness and sometimes to oblivion. It is frightening to think that 1 in 5 elderly people live subjected to unwanted loneliness, according to the Barometer of Unwanted Loneliness by Fundación ONCE.

Let’s do a very simple exercise and observe how many elderly people we see walking down the street or on the bus (over 75 years old, for example, who according to 2022 data from the INE represent 7.3% of the population in the Balearic Islands). There are not many and it is probably because they are afraid to go alone, perhaps they cannot be accompanied or perhaps the streets are full of potholes and obstacles that do not make it easy for those with mobility problems. And getting on the bus, let no one be scandalized, with the driving of some drivers or the rush to get on or off the bus is, to say the least, a risky adventure.

Our society, on paper, recognizes our elders, but from our own institution we issued a report “Ageism and Public Administration” (p. 22), published in the UIB Aging Yearbook, which highlighted the difficulties of the elderly when facing the Public Administration. Ask the grandparents when they are forced to do exclusively digital procedures, they who when they were born did not even know what computers were.

I could talk about many more things, examples and very interesting cases, but, ultimately, I think it is not too much to dedicate a day to remember that they, our elders, those who have accompanied us to where we are, have rights and deserve recognition and perhaps need our real and effective attention.

If this day serves as a catalyst to awaken our sensitivity, welcome, but a day of celebration is NOT ENOUGH.