Chapter 17 Blog

My Summary:

The chapter begins with talking about the increase in life expectancy. This is why our society is aging and at exponential rate. This shows that there is great diversity in the aged population, but people who are of the age 65 or older have similar issues. Some examples are a decline in health, dealing with stereotypes, and adjusting to retirement. This being said these older people are now expected to work longer than the normal retirement age of 65 and even if they wanted to work they might be involuntarily impaired. There are several factors that contribute to the length of employment which are gender, race and ethnicity, marital status, and social class.

As one can guess when talking about older people we refer to them as our elders or grandparents. There are several different approaches on the behavior and style of grandparenting. There is remote, companionate, involved, advisory, and cultural transmitter. These styles reflect factors such as the grandparents’ age, geographic distance, and relationships with their adult children. Grandparents can become more of substitute parents in some cases. Also grandparents have a hard role if there is a conflict in the marriage of their adult children. It can create dilemmas or opportunities with which the relationships with the grandchildren can become stronger or weaker, and this can depend on the closeness of the other grandparents as well.

It can be expected that with age there is a lot of encounters with death as well and at one point or another families will have to struggle with the death of a loved one. It is also hard to deal with because of the different views that physicians and other health care professionals view death. A good bit of families go to hospices for dying family members. A hospice is a place where it makes a dying person comfortable and provides companionship and pain control. On average women live at least five years longer than men. This is why women will typically outlive their husbands, but with that being said widows’ and widowers’ coping strategies typically involve adapting to a change in income and dealing with a loss of a companion and the loneliness.

It is more common today to see adult children providing the necessary care to their older parents for longer time periods than before. This is a necessity nowadays due to the more disabled and frail Americans who will need long term care. Even though this seems to be a logical solution it is a controversial issue about whether we are providing the elderly with too much treatment especially those who are terminally ill and which consequently takes away from care of children. There is also the question of who will demand more health care services. Will it be the aging baby boomers or some earlier birth cohorts?

My Opinions:

The section that particularly stood out to me was the coping with death part. The reason was because when my grandpa passed away it was really devastating to my grandmother. He was not only her husband but her best friend and I think she felt that she had lost a piece of her when he died. I feel like that she could only mourn his death for so long though because he was really sick and on oxygen tanks so now she had had a weight of responsibility lifted off of her shoulders. She had all this free time to do with and nothing to keep her busy. So she went back to college and graduated. She also takes several classes at the community center and always has dinner with one of my aunts or uncles. She basically is never in her house or alone. I think that she is trying to avoid thinking about my grandfather even though they may be positive memories it just makes her upset and sends her into a depression. I feel like the problem with losing someone so late in life is that it does create a void in your life and the question is whether or not to replace it with something else. I feel that people are afraid of forgetting so that is why the duration of this depression continues even though it appears that the person is fine.

The point that also interested me was the responsibility of adult children when parents are becoming elderly. The only problem I have with this is the medical attention and care that is required for the elderly parents. I mean if you have an elderly parent with dementia, three kids, and a functioning household there is only so much you can do. I am not saying to completely abandon your parents, but there are only so many things one person can do. Also that is why people are trained specifically to deal with these special cases and scenarios. I feel like people should always be a part of their parents’ lives, but should not be solely responsible for their entire well-being.

Questions:

I had a question for the class: Are your grandparents working? If so what kind of jobs are they working and why? My grandfather is almost seventy- one and is still trying to find a job because his social security does not even cover the bills for his house, which the mortgage has been paid off for. I think it is ridiculous that he has general medical issues and is not able to just live a comfortable life without needing to worry about finances.

My other question is actually about the stereotypes. Do you feel that it is reasonable that these judgments are made on older people and that they are true? I know my grandmother who is seventy-one will say that there was this old man somewhere and then the question will be asked how old was he and she will respond seventy. I just wonder if people feel that these stereotypes are actually true that even when you are older yourself you would still say them.

Also out of pure curiosity do you think that people should have to retake their drivers' license test again at the age of 65?