That’s some way to start a blog! No offense intended. It might be a bummer but ageing is such a privilege. I don’t usually use such language but the sentiment came to mind pushing me to think of so many things. Some popular and some not so popular. Like how we look, who we know, getting to know ourselves better and on and on. So here I am writing. The consequences of getting on up in years. Stay with me as we wander around in typical old people style (as we say in patois).
I woke up this morning at 9:30 AM. No that’s not true. This morning, I finally decided to wake up at 9:30 AM. Big difference. In fact I was up at 3 and then 7. Reveal….to go to the bathroom. That pee machine just is not working like it used to.
My life is not an average one. I grew up in a middle class family with clear ideas about the importance of education, “good” upbringing” (i.e. moral decisions), and being on guard for genetic weaknesses (like diabetes).
From early childhood I was encouraged to make my own independent decisions. These had no place for sloppiness, no leaning on peers for advice. Names like Marian Anderson, Marcus Garvey, Norman Manley, Baden Powell and later the Maroons, were commonplace in family and friend talk. And most of all no forgetting that I was a child of God.
The process of ageing/ when does the world say you are growing old?
The first thing that springs to mind is retirement. That bad word that for many, means we now stop engaging actively with the world. We stop working 9 to 5 or whatever the time was. We no longer have that routine that we worked so hard to develop. But for many, retirement is a freeing of the spirit. That time when finally we are not waiting for some far off date when we can look about some of those other things that matter to us.
But the media treats ageing as something abnormal. Treats it as peculiar when someone over 70 does anything of note. As AMANDA HESS SEPT. 12, 2017, points out in the New York Times magazine,
“In this culture, to age is to be erased — to be deemed irrelevant, disappear from magazine covers and popular films and get tucked away into facilities, managed and cared for. For women, it also means being turned from a coveted object into a disposable one. We spend our lives fighting our own disappearance”. Have you ever tried googling or using Bing to search for ‘ageing process men’? Sexism and racial bias at its best. Not surprisingly this view catches the eyes of many, as with its display of/focus on women and not men, white-directed, corporate, male-defined beauty advertising rules the roost.
The process of ageing shows certain characteristics
The fact is that the process of ageing does show certain characteristics. We notice the skin losing its’ firmness or knees not being as flexible as they once were, now become hallmarks of being of less importance to the world.
Berk (2004 ) calls it middle adulthood and late adulthood as the characteristics that stand out are different. Personality traits tend to remain the same across these stages. In midlife we find:
- The personality traits reach stability in the fifties. These traits are:
- Most men seem to become a little more emotionally sensitive and nurturing.
- Generativity becomes more evident. Generativity means reaching out to others in the wider world and in that way contributing to what happens in the next generation. In this way adults fight against stagnation (church, community and political activity for example), feeling more secure about their self-concept.
- Many persons in midlife begin to lay more emphasis on finding a balance between youth and age. This is where the physical characteristics become even more important. Not all of us are so fortunate to move through midlife without noticing events such as the lens in the eyes losing their ability to adjust to near and far objects (presbyopia), hearing may not be as responsive, skin is not as tight as we are accustomed to or muscle-fat make-up changes leading to the need for medication or specific exercise. There is also the possibility of even severe illnesses.
The path to healthy, older living is strewn with challenges.
to be cont’d……