Options and Ideals
The original inspiration for this blog came from discussion of the ideal lifestyle for aging in America. The truth is that anyone who can manage daily life independently doesn't need special accommodations for age.
As long as you can walk and drive, if you can hold a job or manage investments, if you can write checks to pay the bills and balance the checkbook at the end of the month, if you can wash the floor and shop at the grocery store, if you remember to take the kettle off the fire before it burns, if you remember to shower and brush your teeth, if you remember to prepare and eat meals, and if you have the energy to mow the lawn or shovel the snow as the season requires--then your age is not important. Anyone who can do all those mundane chores can decide for himself or herself how to live according to personal tastes. There are people in their nineties who can manage all those chores and people in their fifties who can not.
As strength and life skills wane, as they will over time for most of us, then options for compensating for the loss of independence become important. The majority of people do not go from fully functioning to bedridden overnight. For most people there will be a chain of choices to the extent that there are options available. Over the years, we've all made choices and those choices provide today's benefits and consequences. Yesterday's choices define today's options.
The ideal for one's last years, if you ask me, would be a family farm in the bosom of three or four generations of family together in one house. You could help in the kitchen when you first came home to the farm--perhaps shucking corn or snapping peas, for example. You could spend your weakest final days rocking on the porch in the heat of the sun, breathing air perfumed by the scent of new mown hay.. What could be a more idyllic end to a full life?
One problem is that no one in America lives like that anymore. You could go home to the old family farm--if your family once had a farm--but it would be empty--deserted--the walls of the homestead fallen in, the wooden planks aged silver from exposure to sun, wind and rain.
Too bad.
No, you must select not from the most idyllic options but from the options available.
For those with the most congenial families, moving in with relatives might a good option. For those born with silver spoons, there might be trusted family retainers to ensure truly adequate care at home. For some lucky few with ample financial resources, there might be an active adult condo attached to an assisted living facility attached to a nursing home--the final and universally dreaded stop in what may be a decades long journey.
The rest of us have to select from the limited options available to us. Right now the real estate market doesn't provide many options at all, so ideals are irrelevant. If you could sell the home you own, would you prefer a condo or a cottage in an active senior development with a clubhouse, or perhaps a more carefree rented apartment? Could you manage in a condo? Could you manage a condo's special assessment? Does your community have apartments for seniors to help you stay closer to your old home with less expense?
If you can't sell your home, can you afford to hire someone to mow the lawn and shovel the snow? Is there anyone to hire?
If you can no longer drive, does your community support your survival with a well-developed bus system? Are you still able to climb up that first step onto a bus?
A city dweller may be able to walk everywhere even with a cane. Another person who has loved a lifetime of living in a country cottage may have no choice but to move to town.
If you can't sell your home, do you have a way to pay your real estate taxes much less pay for any needed caregiver?
Not everyone can afford to hire a caregiver and not everyone has family to do for them. My guess would be that Boomers will have more people aging with no one to do for them then our parents' generation because so many of us cherished our freedom and self-fulfillment while we were young and strong. For too many Boomers a retirement financial plan was to keep working--a plan that didn't take global economic downturns into consideration. Too many Boomers may be planning to die before they find themselves in a condition where they couldn't care for themselves; that is a plan most of us would wish for, but not one to count on.
Our society does relatively little to assist its weakest members compared to some other industrialized countries. Scandinavian socialism provides a lot of assistance to the aging and disabled who would like to live at home. Caregivers and nurses visit regularly and the cost to the government is cheaper than our nation's choice of unnecessary institutionalization.
Government paid caregivers are more reliable than family and volunteers. If one catches a cold, the governing agency sends out a substitute. Few daughters have reliable backup. Try to hire a substitute daughter! If you have a daughter but your daughter gets the flu, you may just have to wait until her health improves before you can get groceries or go to the doctor or whatever else you need from that daughter. Ditto a volunteer--and volunteers get tired of volunteering and quit.
In the group where I sometimes volunteer, many volunteers leave town for the winter. When they do, the people they normally assist are left behind.
As a society, America despises weakness and tends to approve most of more casual arrangements for assistance to those who can not manage for themselves. Family, if any, and private charity "should be" the responsible parties for society's most defenseless. But, of course, those less formal arrangements that our society so much favors are also disorganized and unreliable. As growing numbers of us lurch toward aging, are we planning to rely on the kindness of strangers just when we become most vulnerable? Is that an option? Is that ideal?
As long as you can walk and drive, if you can hold a job or manage investments, if you can write checks to pay the bills and balance the checkbook at the end of the month, if you can wash the floor and shop at the grocery store, if you remember to take the kettle off the fire before it burns, if you remember to shower and brush your teeth, if you remember to prepare and eat meals, and if you have the energy to mow the lawn or shovel the snow as the season requires--then your age is not important. Anyone who can do all those mundane chores can decide for himself or herself how to live according to personal tastes. There are people in their nineties who can manage all those chores and people in their fifties who can not.
As strength and life skills wane, as they will over time for most of us, then options for compensating for the loss of independence become important. The majority of people do not go from fully functioning to bedridden overnight. For most people there will be a chain of choices to the extent that there are options available. Over the years, we've all made choices and those choices provide today's benefits and consequences. Yesterday's choices define today's options.
The ideal for one's last years, if you ask me, would be a family farm in the bosom of three or four generations of family together in one house. You could help in the kitchen when you first came home to the farm--perhaps shucking corn or snapping peas, for example. You could spend your weakest final days rocking on the porch in the heat of the sun, breathing air perfumed by the scent of new mown hay.. What could be a more idyllic end to a full life?
One problem is that no one in America lives like that anymore. You could go home to the old family farm--if your family once had a farm--but it would be empty--deserted--the walls of the homestead fallen in, the wooden planks aged silver from exposure to sun, wind and rain.
Too bad.
No, you must select not from the most idyllic options but from the options available.
For those with the most congenial families, moving in with relatives might a good option. For those born with silver spoons, there might be trusted family retainers to ensure truly adequate care at home. For some lucky few with ample financial resources, there might be an active adult condo attached to an assisted living facility attached to a nursing home--the final and universally dreaded stop in what may be a decades long journey.
The rest of us have to select from the limited options available to us. Right now the real estate market doesn't provide many options at all, so ideals are irrelevant. If you could sell the home you own, would you prefer a condo or a cottage in an active senior development with a clubhouse, or perhaps a more carefree rented apartment? Could you manage in a condo? Could you manage a condo's special assessment? Does your community have apartments for seniors to help you stay closer to your old home with less expense?
If you can't sell your home, can you afford to hire someone to mow the lawn and shovel the snow? Is there anyone to hire?
If you can no longer drive, does your community support your survival with a well-developed bus system? Are you still able to climb up that first step onto a bus?
A city dweller may be able to walk everywhere even with a cane. Another person who has loved a lifetime of living in a country cottage may have no choice but to move to town.
If you can't sell your home, do you have a way to pay your real estate taxes much less pay for any needed caregiver?
Not everyone can afford to hire a caregiver and not everyone has family to do for them. My guess would be that Boomers will have more people aging with no one to do for them then our parents' generation because so many of us cherished our freedom and self-fulfillment while we were young and strong. For too many Boomers a retirement financial plan was to keep working--a plan that didn't take global economic downturns into consideration. Too many Boomers may be planning to die before they find themselves in a condition where they couldn't care for themselves; that is a plan most of us would wish for, but not one to count on.
Our society does relatively little to assist its weakest members compared to some other industrialized countries. Scandinavian socialism provides a lot of assistance to the aging and disabled who would like to live at home. Caregivers and nurses visit regularly and the cost to the government is cheaper than our nation's choice of unnecessary institutionalization.
Government paid caregivers are more reliable than family and volunteers. If one catches a cold, the governing agency sends out a substitute. Few daughters have reliable backup. Try to hire a substitute daughter! If you have a daughter but your daughter gets the flu, you may just have to wait until her health improves before you can get groceries or go to the doctor or whatever else you need from that daughter. Ditto a volunteer--and volunteers get tired of volunteering and quit.
In the group where I sometimes volunteer, many volunteers leave town for the winter. When they do, the people they normally assist are left behind.
As a society, America despises weakness and tends to approve most of more casual arrangements for assistance to those who can not manage for themselves. Family, if any, and private charity "should be" the responsible parties for society's most defenseless. But, of course, those less formal arrangements that our society so much favors are also disorganized and unreliable. As growing numbers of us lurch toward aging, are we planning to rely on the kindness of strangers just when we become most vulnerable? Is that an option? Is that ideal?
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