What does it mean to have a better birthday?

The Better Birthdays campaign was launched in the summer of 2022 by   Changing the Narrative, Canopy and Age Friendly Vibes 

We held a webinar on Tuesday 31st October to celebrate the highlights of the first year, to share what we have learnt about humour and internalised ageism and to launch our #notafraidofmybirthday campaign. See the webinar recording in resources.

Over a hundred people registered mainly from the US and the UK.

Better Birthdays Campaign - Highlights of the first year

Canopy in the UK - As well as running a number of workshops with age organisations and networks using Birthdays cards to discuss ageing and ageism, we also focused upon making contact with a range of senior executives in the UK Greeting Card industry, including card makers & retailers as well as the Greeting Card Association itself. This was to raise awareness of the impact of ageism on people’s health, wellbeing and life expectancy. As a result of these meetings ageism has been added to the agenda for the UK Greeting Card Association’s diversity and inclusion committee and an explanatory blog post about the Better Birthdays campaign included on the Association’s website.

Age-Friendly Vibes - It was the second year of business for Age Friendly Vibes and delighted to be named as one of 10 Designers to Watch by Stationery Trends , also Barnes & Noble / Paper Source now stock Age Friendly Vibes cards. Jan has been working on a variety of collaborations most recently producing care giver and dementia awareness cards.

Changing the Narrative (CTN) - The first Anti-Ageist card competition took place in 2020 which produced 20 designs and in January 2023 CTN selected 10 designers to create Anti-Ageist Birthday Cards. These campaigns have been very successful in eliciting responses, both positive and negative; they’ve been featured in the NY Times and had national television coverage as a result.  

Why Birthday Cards?

Some people think there may be other more important topics, but here are some reasons:

·         Birthdays are a logical time to think about age. And birthday cards are how many cultures celebrate birthdays.

·         Birthday card messages reflect and reinforce our cultural beliefs about age and ageing. (it’s troubling that so many older people buy ageist cards for their peers).

·         Ageism doesn’t just impact older people; it impacts us throughout the lifecourse.

·         Birthday cards are an easy to understand example of ageism in our culture. 

·         Most of all, birthday cards are a great way to reinforce positive age beliefs.

·         We wanted to create everyday conversations about how we feel about our ageing; birthdays and birthday cards provide opportunities with family, friends and colleagues to challenge and change our attitudes.

·         Birthday cards publicly reflect the stereotypical attitudes and views about ageing – they are the cultural posters of our society’s story of ageing.

·         Birthdays get to core of our feeling towards ageing – ours and of others. If we are to challenge ageism – we need to examine and own our attitudes; ageist birthday cards don’t get a pass because they are exchanged between older people and are “harmless fun!”

·         By promoting pro-ageing/age friendly cards we show a positive perspective for celebrating ageing not lamenting and denigrating it.

Humor is a complicated subject. CTN has a lot of experience with multiple years of running campaigns and it’s the Anti-Ageist card campaign that gets the most attention, both positive & negative. Two objections CTN get are

1. why birthday cards? (something so frivolous) and

2. people enjoy the humor 

Being able to laugh about things that are difficult is helpful. It’s a way we bond with friends and peers. But we are also reinforcing the ageist story/stereotypes and we stay stuck in the negativity. We may mean it well, but we are reinforcing age bias. 

Ageist humor is not an inside joke between two people. Cards are displayed publicly. They add to the ageist messages that over 90% of people over 50 report seeing every day. 

Sometimes messages can hide when they are in the form of a joke. 

Can’t you take a joke? That kind of question shames the offended person into not questioning the message. So, maybe we just shouldn’t take a joke. 

Overall this is complicated, but it’s worth thinking about the stories we are accepting and what stories we want to spread. 

Better Birthdays Survey

With the UK Silver Marketing Association, we created a consumer survey on giving and receiving “jokey” birthday cards, here’s some extracts and findings.

The webinar concluded with focusing upon what we can do to combat ageism and promote positive age beliefs.

What can we do?

• Birthdays are a great way to reinforce positive age-beliefs

• Buy, give and ask for different cards. 

• Address your internalized ageism. Until we get a grip on our own internalized ageism, stand up and own it.

Start by owning your birthday -  We launched the  #NotAfraidofMyBirthday campaign.

During the month of November, we asked people to take a stand on social media, to show pride in being their age, choosing to celebrate everything another birthday means. We asked people to share a picture on social media with the hashtag #NotAfraidofMyBirthday which would

• Let their friends, family, and colleagues know they are not afraid of aging or birthdays

• To use birthdays as a way to spread age-positive beliefs

• To take action against #ageism and join the pro-age movement!

The campaign aimed to start a conversation about age on social media and let the world know that we don't buy into the narrative of fear of ageing.