The Power of Intergenerational Relationships in Tackling Ageism with Sky Bergman

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to all of our listeners joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our successful aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. On each program, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. You can learn more about my club at our website. Be sure to take a look at my new training and activities manual, Better, Longer, and Happier: A Guide to Aging with Purpose and Positivity. It's a series of 12 modules in a card deck format developed for activities directors at senior living communities. Visit my website at livingto100.club /BLH. Now on to our podcast. This is an encore appearance by our guest, Skye Bergman. Skye was on this podcast in August of 2019, just after the release of her film documentary Lives Well Lived. This film tells the stories of adults 75 to 100 years old thriving and enjoying their senior years. In today's program, Skye shares her continued role as a film producer to combat ageism through intergenerational connections. Her latest book is Lives Well Lived: Generations. We explore the topics of resilience, positivity, and insights from older adults with 3,000 years of collective experience. How do intergenerational connections combat ageism? How can we learn from one another? And what are some examples of intergenerational programs around the country? First, a little background. Skye Bergman, Professor Emeritus of Photography and Video at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, is in her third act after a 30-year teaching career. Her artwork is in prestigious museum collections and her commercial work has appeared in renowned magazines like the Smithsonian. Skye's passion is creating films and projects that inspire intergenerational connections, emphasizing the power of shared stories. Following her successful PBS documentary Lives Well Lived. Her book Lives Well Lived Generations distills wisdom from the film celebrating life's essence across generations. Skye, welcome to our program.

Hey, thank you for having me back. I can't believe it's been so many years.

Wow. Been a few years. Yeah. Well, good to have you back with us because you created some new works and we're going to hear all about it. Tell me about the film though, Lives Well Lived. How's it being distributed today? I know it's available on several PBS stations. Tell our audience about that.

Yeah. So Lives Well Lived is on air, still airing on PBS. It's on PBS Passport, Amazon, iTunes, and Kanopy. So pretty much if you have a library card, I think you can probably access Lives Well Lived at this point. It's amazing. And PBS just renewed our contract for another 4 years. So we're not going away anytime soon.

Oh, that's great. Is it PBS National or just in select communities?

It's PBS across the country. So it airs, you know, each of the different stations picks it up on different dates. Like, I'm sure coming up on Grandparents Day and the holidays and things like that, they definitely air it quite a bit. But yeah, it's been quite a ride.

I bet. I bet. Well, gold stars to you. That's quite an accomplishment for that kind of distribution. So tell us, how did the, how did the film evolve into the new book and your new focus?

Yeah, well, the, the film really, for those people that haven't seen the film, the film started because, uh, I was looking at approaching 50, which I think for women, that half-century mark is a particularly big mark in our lives, and looking for positive role models of aging and just not finding them out there in the media. This was about 14 years ago, and I'm, I'm 58 now, and I have this amazing role model of my grandmother who is about to turn 100, who who didn't start working out at the gym until she was 80. So, it's never too late to start something new. And she really— I started filming her and she was really the impetus to do this exploration where I ended up interviewing 40 people, as you mentioned, with a collective life experience of 3,000 years over a 4-year period. And after the film was released, it was— it really resonated with people. And I had so many people that had watched the film that emailed me and said, "We would love if you wrote a book about what you learned." from making the film? What did you learn from all those 40 people that you interviewed? How can we take this into our own lives? And, um, I'm dyslexic, so for me to write is a little bit of a challenge, but I had so many passionate people emailing me with requests that I finally just decided to figure out a way to make it happen. And, um, it took me a couple years, and it's finally been released on Amazon, so I'm super excited about that.

Yeah. Yeah. So really a natural evolution from the film to an expanded story. And I, I, I didn't read the whole book. I, I read several sections of it. There's a lot of connection to your family and, and other guests in the movie. So what's the message you like to— I mean, what's the message that you really want readers to get out of the book?

Well, I think it's— there's a number of different messages. I think the tagline kind of says it all, which is resilience, positivity, and purpose at every age.. And I think no matter what age you are, those are the key elements of having a life well-lived and feeling in a, in a good space. I think, um, that was certainly what I found from everyone that I interviewed in the film was the most important thing was having a sense of purpose, feeling like you're valued, feeling like there's a reason that we get up every day. Uh, it could be as simple as making mozzarellas for your daughter's deli as Lucky Louie did in the film, or, you know, everybody's sense of purpose is different. And the fact that it can change over time, I think, is really important to recognize. I I think the other thing was having a good support system, a good community. And of course, there's all these studies that are coming out now about loneliness and the fact that isolation and loneliness are actually as detrimental to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, which is pretty phenomenal when you think about it. And so, you know, knowing that we need to form those bonds and we need to work at our friendships and have that community, feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves. And I think the third thing that really kind of goes hand in hand, positivity and resilience, I think those, like looking at the glass as half full rather than half empty. And that's a cliché, but there's a reason that it's a cliché because it really, the people in the film really had that. They went through some very traumatic experiences with World War II being kind of a through line for all the people in the film, but yet still somehow they remained positive resilient. They were able to look back on their lives with positivity. And I'm often reminded of Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, where, you know, for anyone that hasn't read it, he was a Holocaust survivor who could not tell who was gonna survive based on their physical strength. It was much more about their emotional strength and their attitude. And I had a conversation with Evie Justason, who is in the film. She talked about, when I interviewed her, about her takeaway from that was something that I, instilled in me at this point, which is that there are so many times in our lives where we can't control what's happening around us. But what we can control is the attitude of how we deal with it. And I think that's also, you know, a really important thing that people that were in the film and then subsequently in the book really talk about.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a theme that resonates with me as well. And the notion of what we can control You know, I don't talk about it much, but I had Viktor Frankl for a professor when I was in graduate school.

Wow.

I believe it or not, I did a paper using what had been developed called the Purpose in Life Scale. It was, it was based on Frankl's theory, and I did a little experiment, and he was so impressed he called me up on stage and kind of asked me to describe the, the study and, to the whole group. Um, it was fast and he wrote me a nice note on the paper. So I still have that.

I was going to say, I hope you still have that paper.

I do. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of one of a kind experience.

Yeah.

Half full or half empty. You know, I, I use that same expression, uh, glass with 8 ounces of water and 4 ounces, an 8 ounce glass with 4 ounces is both half full and half empty. Exactly right. You decide. We can look at the positives, or we can look at the negatives, whatever we want to focus. That's up to us. So that's, that's important. So you're trumpeting this really important message about resilience and positivity and purpose in the book. How is the focus on intergenerational solutions? Um, tell us about that. How is that related to combating ageism?

What's your Yeah, I, you know, one of the things that I realized when I was doing the film and then subsequently as I was releasing it was that I was very lucky to have grown up in a four-generational household. Not only was my grandmother still alive, but my great-grandmother was alive. And what that did for me was that I had the wisdom and the knowledge and the caring of all these amazing individuals who are of all different ages. And so, you know, I grew up with an attitude about aging that was maybe different than my counterparts who didn't have that in their lives. And I remember so, so well when I went to interview Lucky Louie, I brought a student with me, and Lucky Louie could talk. He was amazing. One of my favorites in the film. He was Italian American. And after we left his house, I took the student out to lunch and he said to me, "Wow, I never knew that older people could talk so much." And it struck me because he did not have an older adult in his life. And I think, you know, I, because we only know about our experiences, so we think everybody else has our experiences. I really, it just struck me at that moment that there was something more that I could do with the film and that I could help connect generations by using the film as a catalyst. And so what we did with the film, I have a professor here at the university who teaches a class called the Psychology of Aging. And we developed kind of a learning module that other universities and high schools have now implemented where they, you know, students and older adults watch the film together and then take the questions that I used to interview the people that were in the film, because everybody needs a framework to start the conversation, otherwise it doesn't really go anywhere. And so they use that as a framework to have a bilateral conversation and they get to know each other. And then at the end of the quarter or semester, depending on the university, they do a big presentation about what they've learned. And of course, the major takeaway is that they have far more in common than their differences. And really, the biggest difference is their age. And so I feel like with this project, we're combating ageism one story and one connection at a time. And I think it's like any other ism. When you don't know someone from that other group, it's really hard to have a stereotype or really easy to have a stereotype or an ism about them. But once you have a friend in that other group, then those isms, those stereotypes, they disappear. And we live in such an age-segregated world at this point. I mean, there are ageist beliefs in 4-year-olds because of what we are fed by the media and because we are so segregated by age. And so to bring generations together for a common goal, whether it's compiling some presentation at the end of a quarter or all these different things that I interviewed people about in the book, it really does, it really washes away those stereotypes about ageism. And we need to do more of that. I feel like the world's really suffering because we are so segregated in that way.

Yeah. Yeah. Without the facts, the stereotypes exist and almost in a vacuum. If we don't have the counter-information, people just believe what they hear without knowing the reality. So intergenerational, I mean, we get to be exposed to obviously other age groups, people who are much younger, people who are much older. So we let go of some of those myths, some of those stereotypes that we've been taught, or kind of filled in the gaps without factual information. Are there other ways that these connections can come about other than learning about other age groups?

Well, I think that in the second half of the book, because I was a fellow through an organization called CoGenerate for some of the work that I did, and they are all about bringing generations together. And so I was able to meet all these other wonderful people that are doing really interesting work connecting generations in very unique and, and interesting ways. And so I interviewed 40 people around the world who are doing, um, this kind of work, from climate change to an intergenerational symphony to cogenerational housing to a way that people ride on a bicycle together that are older and younger. The people that are older can sit in the front and the person that's pedaling is in the back and they share stories. And there's so many really interesting ways that we can connect generations. And I hope my, my big idea with the book is that hopefully people will pick it up and be inspired to maybe do something of their own or to join one of these organizations and to be part of that movement.

Yeah. So these are 40 organizations you interacted with and you learned how they are working to decrease ageism and kind of improve those intergenerational connections. That's fascinating about the bicycle. I like that.

Yeah. It's called the, the organization's called Cycling Without Age. And it actually was started in Denmark by this man, Ole Kassow. And he, you know, he had this idea that especially in Denmark, everybody rides their bikes. And he saw an older gentleman sitting outside of an assisted living facility and he thought, wow, this person probably can't ride their bike anymore. They can't feel the wind in their hair anymore. I wanna do something that allows that person to still have that experience. And that was how that organization was born. And now it's around the globe. I mean, there's chapters everywhere. So, you know, it takes just that persistence and that person that has that passion that follows that thread of some kind of crazy hairy idea and sees it to fruition. And he is one of them. And all the people in the book really were those kind of visionary people who, a lot of people have ideas, not everybody follows through on them. So they are the people that, that followed through.

Well, we plant the seeds and see what grows.

Exactly.

That's a great example. Uh, that age, I love that. Can you think of another one or two to, to share? What?

Well, I mean, I think that one of the ones that I love, probably because I was a band geek, is this Intergenerational Symphony that was started down in, um, LA through, um, Hearts of Los Angeles. And Tony Brown runs that. They, um, you know, music is Music is a universal language and you bring people together of every age and what a gift that is to bring young and old musicians together and through music, through that common language, they end up having conversations and meeting each other and, you know, just magic happens when you make music together. So for me, that's especially one that I love because my heart is with music as well.

That's an inter-racial band, AJ?

What did you say? Yeah, it's intergenerational symphony.

Intergenerational symphony. That's great. Yeah. And that could happen without the intention, but to have the intention behind it, to bring together the age groups, that makes it more powerful. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, I've read a lot about ageism, and there's still this notion of internalized ageism where it's not other people, it's ourselves that, right. Maintain these myths, or gee, you know, my parents didn't live beyond 70 or 80, and that means I'm not going to live much longer. You're supposed to become dependent and helpless as you get— I mean, these are internalized beliefs. They're false beliefs. But what do you think about that? What can we do about that?

Well, I think one of the good things and one of the heartwarming things that I'm seeing is that there's more more positive role models of aging out there in the media. So I think that that really helps because I think unfortunately when we are barraged by images of the negative impacts of aging, that's when we internalize it as well. And so the more that we can show the positive side of aging, I think that that really helps. I also think if you are around other people, like I'm, I'm doing another film called The Primetime Band, which is about musicians who are basically, uh, well, they can start as young as 40, but most of them are 60s, in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.. And, um, they come back to instruments later in life. And one of the people that I interviewed in is in her 60s. And she said, you know, these other people in the band, they are my positive role models of aging cuz they are still coming to band practice and still performing. And so I think to put yourself in those environments where you're dealing with older adults really helps our internal voice of what we think about aging. When we see in action the positive side of aging, it helps us come up with that. You know, I know I'm Italian. If I go back to Italy, there are certain women who decide at a certain age, if their spouse has died, they dress in all black and that's it. And they are old and they're not gonna do anything else. And they live for a long life, right? But it is not necessarily a life of joy because they have decided that they are old and they can and cannot do things based on the fact that they're widowed or that they're a certain age. So there's certainly that, I think that's changing. And I do think a lot of that has to do to do with what we are seeing in the media, in the Dan Buettner's The Blue Zones, and seeing, you know, what is— what some of those things that are possible, I think, has changed our perception and changed our internalized conversation that we have with ourselves. I think we also do need to check ourselves every once in a while and check the language that we use with ourselves, with our friends, when we are talking about aging. Janine Vanderburg, who I also interviewed for the book, is part of— she started Changing the Narrative, which is all about thinking about how we are speaking about aging. And, you know, the birthday cards, that joke about aging, and not buying into that. I think that we can also, with our dollars, kind of, you know, set the stage for how we have the conversation about aging, whether it's external or internal. I think that that's super important.

Yeah, yeah, you're so true. It's, you know, the whole notion of little by little, we're seeing the positive role models, we're seeing the people in their 80s and 90s, we read about the stories You know, I tell the story about a 102-year-old physician. Her husband divorced her when she was 70 years old. And, you know, she went— she was devastated, of course, because he was her partner. He was her practice partner. And she went on to write a book at 100 years old about, you know, holistic medicine. Somebody asked her, would you ever think of remarrying? She said, no, why would I want to take care of another old man?

I love it.

But you're right about the culture, we, we kind of expect these things, and we're getting away from some of those taboos about looking at a new relationship. Um, and that's great. I read about, um, the, uh, the man who was the oldest person in the US last month or two months ago when he passed away, 111. I forget his name, Morrie Makov, but he, uh, he was kind of a sculptor and would, um, collect pieces of scrap metal and makes films. He did his first showing at a museum at age 100. So let's get rid of the number, right?

The number, right? Well, you know, I think that my grandmother always used to say age is just a number. And I think that what she meant by that is that she didn't— she was very proud of how old she was, but she didn't want that number to define what she could or could not do. And I think that that is really important that we don't say we are this number. So there's an And unfortunately, you know, society does put us in those age blocks where, you know, you turn 65, you get Medicare, and you turn whatever, you know, you have these different numbers that we reach. And so in our mind, I think that that also feeds into that internalized ageism. But I think the more that we can say, this is just a number, and I'm not going to let that define who I am, I'm proud of that number, but that doesn't mean that it defines what I can and cannot do.

Exactly. Yeah, because the 90-year-old can do as much, if not more, than some 60-year-old. So that, that number gets in the way. And I agree with your grandmother that it is only, it's only a number, and we shouldn't let it define what we can do and can't do. Yeah, it's our performance, and it's how, you know, our reasoning and thinking and judgment and executive skills. So that's what really matters.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, tell us about your movies. You mentioned the one, Primetime Band, you're working on now. Tell us about that.

Yeah, I mean, I fell into this because like I said, I'm a band geek and I played flute, clarinet, and bassoon when I was in high school and junior high school. And I love this idea of people coming back to music later in life. And so I'm following a band in Santa Barbara that's doing just that. But they also, because anything that I do will have an intergenerational connection to it in some way. And so most of the people in the band are also part of a group called the Music Van, which is quite literally, they have a van that's filled with instruments that they go into 3rd grade classrooms and introduce 8-year-olds to instruments for the first, many of whom have never touched an instrument, so for the first time. And I love this cycle of older adults coming back to their passion and then paying it forward and maybe introducing a passion to an 8-year-old who, who would never have had the opportunity. And to see those kids pick up like a French horn or a trombone or a violin for the first time, there is there's no greater joy than watching that. So I'm, I'm super excited about that film. Um, and the other film is called Mochisuki, which is a little difficult to pronounce, but it is, um, the Japanese tradition of making mochi to bring in the new year. And if you've never had mochi, mochi is, um, rice that's steamed and cooked, and then it's pounded until it's kind of like the consistency of bread dough, and then it's formed into mochi balls. And if you've ever heard of it, you've probably seen it like in Costco or Trader Jo's. It's like mochi ice cream. It's very chewy. And, um, I love this because it's really, um, for me, I grew up in my grandmother's kitchen. That's where the best wisdom and knowledge was handed down as we were cooking together. And to see this mochizuki ceremony where generations come together and there's a passing of down of tradition, of wisdom, of knowledge, um, all through this mochizuki ceremony, it's just wonderful. And I think everyone that's listening can probably think of something that you did in your family that was around food that brought generations together. And so, um, it's— there's that kind of common element about food and, and connection. And, um, let's face it, we all love to eat, so it's beautiful to watch it being made and, and to see how that tradition continues on.

So your film will document this story, like a family that's—

yeah, so it's documenting that, but it's also documenting the Japanese American experience as told through Mochizuki as kind of a through line, um, because because, you know, we don't really, I don't think that that's really been portrayed all that much, the Japanese American experience. Like why did people come from Japan to this country? What did they do once they got here? What happened to people during World War II? Even during World War II when Japanese Americans were incarcerated, they still figured out a way to do their mochizuki because it's such an important ceremony and such an important way of showing hope and resilience. And I love that. And then, you know, what happened after the war and where did they go to? And how do they keep that tradition alive? And it's still alive to this day. So I think there is a bit of that Japanese American history as well.

Well, that's great. That's great. Kudos to you for—

thank you—

putting the energy together for that. I mean, I love the music. You know, I may have mentioned I bought myself some drums a few years ago, drums, and I'm trying to learn to play the drum. I've got a lesson in a couple hours, so I don't want to be late for for it. But, um, it's great. And I, you know, like I said, I've never played a musical instrument, but I love it. It's challenging and I'm learning, and I really enjoy kind of banging away on it. So I think it's important that we kind of push ourselves, right? We open new doors and see what else is out there, step out of that comfort zone.

Absolutely. And I think that one of the reasons that I was so inspired to do the Primetime Band film, besides the fact that I am a band geek, is that I feel like it's a nice follow-up to Lives Lived because all the people in the band really embody, you know, sense of purpose, resilience, and positivity and community. So, you know, sense of purpose, they come together to make music. They have resilience. You see some people, there's one woman who plays a flute. She can't hold it up horizontally anymore. She figured out a way to get a headstock so that she could hold it vertically and still play. Or somebody, another guy that has Parkinson's whose tremors, he shakes, but he still playing trombone and still going every Tuesday to rehearsals and performing. And then, of course, this wonderful, you know, community that's formed that people care about each other and they, you know, really check in with each other. And so I just, I think the band kind of embodies all the things that I loved about Lives Well Lived, but in a different sense with music.

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great story. I love that. Yeah. And it's all about adapting to change too, because we're not going to perform like we did in our 20s or 30s, but who cares?

Exactly. I think that it's much more about, about trying, like you said, about trying, about doing it. I mean, and there are some people who have never played an instrument who decide that they really want to learn an instrument, and they are also part of the band, and maybe they play every other note, but they are so part of the band.

Yeah. Yeah. So tell us, can you think of any other, um, agencies or companies doing things around the US to combat ageism? I mean, you've been exposed to a lot of it. So any other bright spots that jump out at you?

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, CoGenerate, as I mentioned before, they're amazing about trying to connect generations. Changing the Narrative is another one. There's another group out of Australia called Every Age Counts. There's Generations United in the US by Donna Butz, who brings generations together. I mean, there's so many out there.

I just—

it's It's, it's heartwarming to see the number that have cropped up even just in the last 10 years, because I've been at this for longer than 10 years, for more than a decade at this point. And so I've really seen it kind of take shape and see how things have blossomed. And it's just, that's, that's wonderful. I hope there continues to be a plethora of, of ways that people are combating ageism. And, you know, there's like Ageism Awareness Day now that's in October. So there are actually days that are dedicated to really having these conversations, and that's also something that's fairly recently new.

Yeah, well, so your book really chronicles so many of these organizations around the world that are doing a lot of these good things. So people can read your book and learn more about them, and maybe, you know, it might trigger their own programs or ideas or inspiration. Who knows?

That's what I hope for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what, what's, um, what's a takeaway for the audience here? What do you hope they remember from this conversation?

Well, you know, I hope that listeners will take away the importance of intergenerational connections and the value of celebrating life at every age. And, you know, by sharing stories and experiences, we can combat ageism and enrich all of our lives. So, you know, I'd like to encourage everyone to stay curious, keep learning, and cherish the wisdom that comes with age. I think that that's, you know, those are all things that I hope that people take away.

Yeah. Yeah. And respect our parents and respect our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents.

Yeah.

How can people buy your new book and how can they see the movie?

Well, thank you for that plug. The book is on Amazon and it's available as a paperback and Kindle, and we're going to have it on audio probably by the fall of 2025 or 2024. And the film is available everywhere you can stream something except for Netflix. It's on Amazon and iTunes. Tunes and PBS Passport and Kanopy.

Okay, is there a website that you have?

Yeah, the best website for me is actually skybergmanproductions.com, and my name is just S-K-Y-B-E-R-G-M-A-N-productions.com, and that has all the projects that I'm working on and links to the— how you can get the book and how you can watch the film. So everything is there.

Great, great resource. Great. Well, thanks so much for being a guest on today's program, Skye. I'm glad to have you back, and you shared some really vital information about aging well and letting go of all those, those negative stereotypes. Yeah, that's great.

Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure. Yeah, great.

Well, it looks like we're out of time, but before we wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.com. Subscribe, sign up for my email list, and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. And if you're affiliated with a senior living setting, be sure to look for my new training manual and activity guide, Better, Longer, and Happier. Skye, thanks again for being a guest, and your website is skyebergmanproductions.com.

Yeah, yes, thanks so much.

You're very You're welcome. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.