‘I’m sick of feeling devalued because of my age’

I am a pre-baby boomer and I have been told since I was 40 that I am too old to employ. I was a mature age student, educated myself with no support or help of any sort from government (especially not Centrelink — who were supposed to support people to get back to work). In fact, they actually told me that I had to drop out of university if I found a job when I had spent six years and only had two months left to complete my undergraduate course.

Then I was told by Centrelink I was too old to get a job anyway so why was I bothering?

I have an undergraduate in early childhood education and primary teaching, and a post-graudate in teacher librarianship and as a teacher for those who are hearing impaired.

Every early childhood educator interview I went to I was interviewed by a panel of young mothers, who looked askance as to why I was there for an interview.

Embarrassing!

Yet at 40 I had a 10-year-old and had run a play centre for five years.

So, for the next 25-30 years I had many jobs in the teaching areas such as teaching adult education at Swinburne; intellectually disabled/challenged; literacy and basic math to VCE students; math to hospitality students at Swinburne; relief teaching (in I have forgotten how may schools and kindergartens) etc. I have paid taxes all my life and I have paid a tax for my pension.

I paid a private super fund, which the government had nothing to do with, never paid a cent into, and yet had complete control of it.

I have no love for the Liberal Government who have manipulated my life; devalued me as a person because of my age.

And now, they are begging to get us back into the workforce because they have spent our pensions and those of you do who have a super fund it is usually not old enough to have accumulated enough to retire upon and the taxes you paid for throughout your working life for retirement, are no longer there to claim.

What is to like about the government that treats its citizens as second class until it behooves them to remember they don’t have the wherewithal to let us retire when we need to.

Some of us can work until we are 90, others will have health issues that will see them struggling and unable to afford the medical treatment they need.

Yet they are lumping us all into one basket.

Euthanasia will be the next issue; we will be labelled past our “use by” date.

Already I read comments from young people. One in particular said “I can’t wait until the greedy baby boomers die out. Then we might have a chance.”

Why can’t they make and take their own chances? That is what we had to do!

Have you felt devalued because of your age? Share your story with us.

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