5.LIFE IN THE LATER YEARS: LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD
5.1Introduction
In this article I want to reflect on life in the later years, on the last chapter of the book of our life. We do not like ending a book, we prefer reading it. We do not like to talk about the end of life, we prefer to live life. After the end there is nothing more. It is over. Or is it? We do not know from experience what happens after the end. We only know by faith. That is why we do not like to talk about the end. And yet, what is a story without an ending? What is a book without a last chapter? What is a joke without the punch line? What is life without the later years? We feel ambivalent about life in the later years.
Is life in the later years worth living? Psalm 90 would say No! It is only "trouble and sorrow". But in looking at the life elderly people actually live I notice that it is full of joy and laughter. Near the end of his life Erik Erikson, a famous developmental psychologist, asked himself “What is real wisdom?” and he answered
It comes from experience, well digested. It's not what comes from reading great books. When it comes to understanding life, experiential learning is the only worthwhile kind; everything else is hearsay.
As I write this at 64 I am only beginning life in the later years. I do not yet know about it from experience. I only know it from hearsay. What I know about it comes from psychology books. So, what can I tell the elderly about in the later years that they do not know already? Yet, I propose to relate in this article what the books say about life in the later years. Hopefully those living in the later years may recognize a few insights as relevant for their lives.
5.2Two theories: disengagement, activity
Most psychological views about life in the later years are based on two theories of aging, the disengagement theory and the activity theory. Together these two theories reflect the ambivalence we feel about life in the later years.
The disengagement theory views life as a process of aging. That our bodies age over time is no secret to any of us. This biological aging process is already evident during middle age when the law of gravity takes its toll on the shape of our bodies and things are no longer in and out at the right places. ("Mom," the kids say, "Hold your stomach in. It shows!" To which Mom replies, "It is in!") Middle age is also the time when our eyes begin to lose their sensory acuity and we need glasses to read. After this, the process of aging continues for the rest of our life. It accelerates during the latter part of old age and eventually ends in the death of our bodies.
The disengagement theory argues that a similar process occurs in our activity life during the later years. Life in the later years is a process of disengagement, of withdrawing ourselves from the activities of life. First we withdraw from work. We do that when we retire. Next, when our loved ones pass away we withdraw from our relations to others into ourselves. We become preoccupied with ourselves, we turn inward and become reflective. Finally, at the end of our life, we withdraw from life itself, when we die.
The disengagement theory is considered outdated today. Not many psychologists adhere to it anymore. By contrast, the activity theory is very popular. It reacts to the pessimism of the disengagement theory. It holds that, like life earlier the later years are still a period of growth. It argues that older people can still do a lot. It urges older people to stay involved in life, to remain active, productive, to keep on growing. The best way to age during the later years, it says, is to lead a busy life. With respect to an older person's body, mind and emotions it advocates the motto: "use them or lose them".
5.3Aspects of life in the later years
Yet, neither the disengagement theory nor the activity theory tells us what older people are supposed to be doing during the later years. What kind of activities is appropriate for this last season? In principle older people can do everything younger people are able to do. They can eat, sleep, read, go on vacation, exercise, etc. But there are also limits to what one can do during old age. Running the 100-yd. dash in l0 seconds flat is out of the question. Life does slow down. At the very least older people do things differently than younger people. How differently? Let us explore some of the aspects of life in the later years in more detail.
5.4Retirement
The marker event, which, more than any other, ushers in life in the later years is retirement. People begin to plan for retirement in various ways already during middle age. They save for it. They think about it and they look towards it with either anticipation or dread. Retirement occurs when we surrender our position in the work force. We no longer have to work. That is a double-edged sword. Retirement means that we no longer have to and that we lose our familiar routine. For some people retirement is sudden and definitive, for others it is gradual. People differ on how they retire.
The age at which a person retires is also variable. Many retire at 65; some retire earlier, others later. The idea of mandatory retirement at age 65 is not a good idea. Nevertheless, sooner or later all of us enter a period when we are no longer "at work", when our worth must be measured in terms of who we are rather than in terms of what we can do. Sooner or later, what we do in the later years must take on the character of rest. Older people must realize that rest was also created. To make life complete we must wrap it up, and for that we need to rest. Life in the later years takes on new meaning in the light of the biblical notion of Sabbath.
Retiring is not an event, it is a process. Most people go through a series of phases after they retire. First, there is the honeymoon period. During this phase people travel a lot and in general do all the things they did not have time for before. But sooner or later people tire of traveling and when they do they enter the rest and relaxation period. At that time they are ready to settle down and take it easy. But, when they do, they may find themselves going through a period of disenchantment. They may find rest boring, or they may feel useless. For the husband it may be difficult to be home all the time. For the wife it may be difficult to have him home all the time. In any case, they may find that retirement is not what they expected it to be. Normally, however; this phase is followed by a reorientation period, during which retired people finally adjust to their new status. They let go of their work routine and settle into the routine of being retired. Instead of a vocation, most take up avocations such as hobbies and volunteer work.
5.5Changes in relationships
Life in the later years also represents a change in our relationships to others. Whereas formerly our primary relationships may have been with people at work, now family members and friends become more important. The older we get, the more important it becomes to live
close to our children. But not too close. Apparently, arrangements where aging parents live in with middle aged children are seldom successful.
Our relation to our children also changes as we get older. In fact, changes in this relationship can be seen as marker events throughout life. When we are born, we are our parents’ children.
Then, when we start our own family, we become our child's parents. Finally, toward the end of our life it is likely that we become our child's child. I.e., in the later years we gradually
relinquish our caregiver role with respect to our children and eventually we become dependent on the care they give to us. For people who have been caregivers most of their lives, this role reversal may be hard to adjust to.
One of the joys of life in the later years is grandparenting. The grandparenting relation differs from the parent-child relation. It is also an important adjunct to the relation between parents and children. It is good for children to have contact with grandparents. Because the grandparenting relation is less focussed on discipline and more on mutual support, it is less burdened by conflict than the parent-child relationship. Grandparents and grandchildren usually construct a de-militarized zone between them. They avoid talking about things that may create conflict and concentrate only on those things that may strengthen their relationship. Grandparents have more time and more money to spend on their grandchildren. They also have a tendency to spoil them a bit more than parents do. Because of these, and other reasons the grandparenting relationship is often more positive, more intimate and more mutually supporting than is the relationship that exists between parents and their children.
The quality of the grandparenting relationship also depends on the roles grandparents play in relation to their grandchildren. Some of these relationships are formal and distant. In such relationships there is not likely to be much contact. In other grandparenting relationships grandparent are fun to be with, they function as parent substitutes, or as the reservoir of family wisdom. In these kinds of relationships children are more likely to turn to their grandparents for help, advice and companionship.
One relationship in which older people are likely to experience a lot of change during the later years is in their relation to their spouse. During this time, many older people have to cope with the loss of their life partner through death. This is a very difficult experience. It is easier to die than to survive the death of ones life partner. The loss of a spouse often leaves us feeling abandoned, lost and alone. Yet widowerhood, and, since wives usually survive their husbands by a decade, more often widowhood is a sad reality for many people during the last season of life. One of the hard things about bereavement is the effect it has on our self-image. Marriage is a process in which two become one. After decades of marriage the partners learn to think of themselves as "we" rather than " you and I". After a spouse dies a person has to learn to think, to speak and to act in terms of "I" again. That is not easy to do.
People who are by nature self initiating and outgoing are better equipped to cope with the loneliness of widow(er)hood than those who tend to be dependent and socially isolated, but both must cope with going it alone. To cope with their loss older people often find it important to re-establish closer ties with their brothers and sisters. Having a close friend with whom we can be ourselves also helps, because a friend offers us a substitute for the life partner we have lost.
Finally, it is easier for us to cope with being a widow(er) if we belong to a close knit community, like a church. In such a case the loss of our marriage partner is still severe, but it is less traumatic, because it represents the loss of only one meaningful relationship among many. Moreover, the other members of our community are likely to support us as we grieve our loss.
5.6Loss of function
Even closer to home than the loss of a loved one is the loss of function during the later years. By loss of function I mean a reduction in bodily functioning, in mental ability and in emotional health during the later years. Loss of function seems to be the indicator for the aging of older people. A severe reduction of our bodily, mental and emotional abilities would then indicate that we are "getting old". However, when discussing the subject of "being old" we do well to carefully define what we mean by it. "Being old" could mean the subjective feeling of being old. Some people feel old at 50, others never do. "Being old" could also refer to the social expectations about being old. In some cultures people are considered old at 60, in others at 90. Finally, there is the objective fact of being old. There is no denying that there is a reduction of function during the later years and it would be foolhardy to ignore this fact. But even when we are talking about a real loss of function it is still prudent to ask what constitutes being old. If our abilities are sufficiently intact for the tasks we have to perform, can we be considered old?
People live longer today than ever before. They also remain healthy much longer. This is why researchers have recently begun to divide the later years into two phases, a young-old, and an old-old phase. It turns out that the reduction of function is minimal during the young-old phase (age 65-75). Furthermore, the reduction of function only becomes severe toward the end of the second phase and then in only a small percentage of old-old people at that.
By way of example, let us look at the alleged reduction of mental abilities during the later years. For the longest time the myth has been around that intellectual functioning increases during childhood and adolescence, that it peaks between 20 and 30 and that there is a gradual decline, until we lose it altogether during the later years. Recently, psychologists have been able to demonstrate something older people knew all along. This myth is false. In fact, intelligence generally increases with age and does not decline significantly until we are well into our 80's. Moreover, only about 3-5% of people over 80 suffer from senile dementia, an affliction that is characterized by memory loss and mental confusion. Within this small group only a fraction of the cases can be attributed to organic brain dysfunction (for instance due to a stroke or a tumor). The rest of the cases are either the result of the fact that some people experience more changes than they can handle, or, what is more likely, they are due to the side effects of overmedication by physicians. The point is that even in this small percentage of old-old people the loss of orientation and of memory is often reversible. In short, the extent and the severity of the alleged decline in mental functioning during the later years have been grossly overestimated.
There is a decline during the later years in some of our other functions, such as sight, hearing and in general bodily health. This has implications for the way we live when we are older. For example, when we were younger, our body functioned like a well-oiled machine. We never had to pay attention to it. Now that we are older it clamours for attention with its aches and pains. Now, we can no longer take our health for granted.
However, there is a vast difference between being judiciously careful about our fragile health and becoming obsessed with every ache and pain that we feel. Some older people learn to live with the frailty of their body, other people are defeated by it. Older people should not be so concerned about their health that it keeps them from activities they might otherwise enjoy doing. With respect to our eyes, our ears, our brain and our body it is good to be aware of the fact that we only lose them when we no longer use them.
5.7Life review: the unique task of the later years
Is there any value in the fact that we age during the later years? That seems like a strange question to ask, for few people like to age. It is hard to enjoy the aging process and the reduction of function that accompanies it. So, how can it be good for anything? One thing that aging does, is slow us down. It also gives us more time to think, time to reflect on our life, time to review it from beginning to end.
Next to retirement, another task to be completed during the later years is life review. At no other time in our lives do we spend so much time thinking about the past. And this activity is necessary, some psychologists tell us for the emotional health of older people. Older people need to take a leisurely walk through their life from beginning to end They need to reminisce, and as they remember they need to evaluate and to question. They need to ask what was my life like? What did I do? What did I experience? Was it good or bad? What did I learn from all this? What did my life amount to? During the later years we reflect on our lives, honestly, we look at both the good and the bad of it in order to arrive at what Solomon called " the sum of all things," the conclusion.
People need to review their lives so that they can write a conclusion to their lives. They need to be able to say This is what my life was like, for better or worse, and this is what I have learned from it. This conclusion brings order into the last season. We need to review and come to a conclusion, says Erik Erikson, in order to age gracefully and with integrity.
Older people, it is said, are wise. In my experience most of them are. Concluding wisdom is the product of life review. Wise people are people who have reflected on their lives and who have concluded to the " sum of all things". Because of this, they are also at peace with themselves and the world. Life review is good for emotional health. It allows people to rest from their labour. It would be a pity if such wisdom should only be good for older people and not for younger people as well. It seems like a waste that all the hard won lessons older people have gained from life through their experience should follow them into the grave and should lie there forgotten and unused. Somehow all this hard-earned wisdom by the old should also benefit the young.