October 1960 — VOL. 41, No. 8 —
The Social Challenge
of Old Age
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A new problem in human experience
has appeared in our Western World: the rapidly growing number
of older people in our population. So far as is known, no
culture in history has ever had such a high proportion of
people past middle age.
The problem is made up principally of four factors: economic,
social, medical and personal.
Every one of us desires to live long, yet not to be old.
But aging is inseparable from life. The process has been taking
place within our bodies from the day we were born. It is gradual
and continuous, though we do not all age in the same way or
equally fast. As in a steeplechase, the horses are nicely
bunched at the starting gate, but during the second lap those
that have not yet fallen are strung out in a line.
This Monthly Letter is not concerned with prescriptions
designed to lengthen life, but with what can be done toward
making fullest and happiest use of the years that we have.
Every announcement about the increased span of life has
significant personal meaning for us. Only total lack of imagination
can excuse us if we fail to identify our own future fate with
the present fate of the aged.
There is imperative need for social recognition of the problems
presented by our older population. But relative to the research
and tender care lavished on infants and adolescents, appallingly
little has been done.
The killers of youth, the contagious diseases, have been
largely eliminated, only to be replaced by a set of chronic
or degenerative diseases for which few specific cures have
been found. Mental diseases, which seem to multiply with age
under the stresses of our civilization, are not sufficiently
cared for by present rehabilitation centres, nursing homes
and home care plans. Unemployment problems, which hardly existed
in our century—ago world, are pressing upon thousands
of persons who still have years of satisfactory work within
their power. Socially, the aged are estranged. They are no
longer the heads of households of two or three generations.
Family organization today leaves no room for them.
How old is "old"?
Before deciding where we can draw the line at which old
age starts, let us look at the chronological ages of Canadians.
The Biblical figure of three score years and ten was an
enormous life extension figure in that era when average life
expectancy was not more than thirty years. A century ago (in
1840) the life expectancy of an infant was about 48 years.
A recent estimate of the life expectancy of males in Canada
was 67.6 years, and of females 73 years.
As to the future, interesting figures are given in the study
made by the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects.
In 1955 there were 1,730,000 persons in Canada aged 60 years
and over: it is estimated that by 1980 the number will be
3,345,000, an increase of 93 per cent.
There we have the cold statistical figures. In twenty years
we shall have 1,615,000 more men and women aged 60 or higher
than we had five years ago.
But when we are dealing with human beings we cannot depend
wholly upon statistics. Dependence upon strict chronological
age can have no real meaning. All that can recommend it is
the administrative convenience of its application.
The question "How old is 'old'?" should be rewritten: "Old
- with respect to what performance?".
Our difficulty is that many of the adjustment problems of
aging result not from declining capacities but from social
rules requiring the individual to give up certain forms of
participation when he reaches a prescribed age. He is expected
to behave in terms of what society has defined as proper for
his age—sex category without regard for his needs or
capacities.
If we are to handle the new problem of age so as to do the
best for people and for society, we need to use common sense
in our rule—making. To point up the matter lightly, consider
that there may be forty or fifty years variation in being
"too old to work" depending on whether the person is a prize
fighter, a ball player, a piano tuner, a company president,
a lawyer or a plasterer.
Age is a condition that is not measurable by years, but
by attributes. A life should be appraised on the level of
attributes - what qualities has a person -rather than by the
crude quantity measurement of the calendar - how long has
he lived. A survey reported in Industry a few years
ago pointed out that 64 per cent of the world's great achievements
have been accomplished by men who had passed their sixtieth
year. Johann Von Goethe, who was 20 when he started his great
dramatic poem and 83 when he finished it, put these words
into the mouth of Faust: "I am too old to trifle, too young,
no yearning wish to nurse."
There is ample evidence that the years have little enough
to do with initiative, determination, daring and accomplishment.
Not rarely the triumphal course of a man starts at an age
when the average person retires from business into idleness.
Brains that are used hourly in creative activity associated
with business building or scientific research or the development
of society do not deteriorate. Many of them give proof that
intellectual power can be intensified and energy increased
as the years pass.
The value of older persons
One of the problems of an aging population is to retain
in the stream of economic productivity and scientific discovery
those men and women whose wealth of knowledge, wisdom and
constructive work can contribute so greatly to the welfare
of Canada. As Schopenhauer put it in his essay on "The Ages
of Life": the first forty years furnish the text, while the
remaining thirty supply the commentary without which the text
cannot be properly understood.
Even if the circumstances of a man's employment make it
impracticable for him to remain in his job after pensionable
age - for example, because some younger men are coming along
behind him - that need not mean the end of the road for him,
There are many jobs available to experienced men - jobs where
the pressure from younger men seeking promotion is not felt.
The cult of youth
But, generally, our society as it is today does not award
age the credit due to it.
This is a time of the cult of youth. On the whole, our society
on this continent is organized to satisfy the wants of the
young, and makes relatively little provision for meeting the
needs of the aged.
In our literature, our advertising, and most other sectors
of our culture, youth is looked upon as the golden age to
which all else must be sacrificed. This, in addition to threatening
to pamper youth into unripe manhood, creates undue hardship
for the aged. The old are sometimes tolerated, but too seldom
valued. They are pushed off the bustling main road, and find
few side roads provided for their happiness.
With the heavy accent on caring for children, there is slight
emphasis upon any reciprocal obligation. Parents are reluctant
to assert demands even when urgent need arises. Children are
completely unaware of any obligation; indeed, their upbringing
leads them to think of older persons as existing only for
the satisfaction of the needs and wants of young people.
Learning to grow old
For their own good, as well as for the happiness of those
who are now aged, young people should start learning how to
grow old. There is no season of life for which preparation
is more necessary. There is no preparation that can be more
rewarding.
Every phase of life is a making ready for the one which
follows it. Just as what we learn during childhood determines
the success or failure of our adulthood, so does our development
in middle—life decide the nature of our old age.
In the realm of the physical, repeated insults to the human
machine in earlier life, such as infections, injuries, strains,
chronic malnutrition, alcoholism, drug addiction, obesity,
shock, and emotional turbulence, cause changes in the body
cells which are conducive to aging.
In the realm of ideas, education continued year by year
will tend to limit the wrong thoughts, the unhealthy prejudices
and the wild cravings that wear out or warp the mind.
And in the social realm continuous learning about aging
will give us understanding about those who are already aged,
so that when our turn comes we shall be fit and ready.
We need a programme for continuing education, beginning
in public school and carrying on through adulthood: education
that will help us to find new and pleasant things to do in
widely separated areas of life. It will keep our minds supple,
learning to live in accord with the changing social, economic
and political times. It will train us to weigh relative values,
so as to get the best return for our time. Continuing education
will enlarge our capacity to find our place today and tomorrow,
to win the right to prolonged participation and recognition.
On acting your age
There is a very fine saying of Voltaire's to the effect
that every age of life has its own peculiar mental character,
and that a man will feel completely unhappy if his mind is
not in accordance with his years.
It is true that if we do not wish to feel the weight of
our years we must look forward instead of backward. It is
silly to try to continue acting as we did five years ago.
All living implies a growth, then a peak, and then a decline.
The change from one stage to another makes certain types of
behaviour impossible or inadvisable if life is to be maintained.
Every period of life has its own emotional experiences. There
are times of depression, just as there are times of elation,
which it were foolishness to dwell upon.
The hardest part of aging is adaptation, we are told; adaptation
to the changes in our individual situations and to the expectations
of society.
To keep step with the progress of the years and to accept
each phase of life as it comes is to live in harmony with
nature. The great scientists, historians and philosophers
agree that life on earth has always been and is one continuous,
never—ceasing, process of readjustment.
What are the distinguishing attributes of various age groups?
Youth is marked by resiliency, strength and mobility. Maturity
shows balance, precision and achievement. The good qualities
of old age are thoroughness, steadiness, dependability and
wisdom.
One thing remains irrevocably fixed: our allotment of time
at 65 is just what it was at 15 - twenty—four hours a
day. It behooves us to use every twenty—four hours in
accord with the wisdom we have picked up along the way.
The wants of life
The wants of life differ at various stages of the journey.
A youth wants employment, knowledge, power, wife and children,
honour and fame; he has spiritual wants, aesthetic wants and
civil wants. One by one, day after day, he learns to coin
his wishes into realities. Insofar as he succeeds, he enters
old age without ferment, serene of thought and behaviour.
Youth is not a wholly happy time. Youths live amid a rabble
of passions. They are tormented by the want of correspondence
between things and thoughts. Michelangelo's head is so full
of conceptions of gigantic figures that he is fiercely unhappy
until his chisel can render them out of marble.
In late life the excitements have waned and the ardours
have cooled. We seek physical health and comfort, affection,
recognition, a chance to express our interests, and emotional
security.
Were these wants easier to satisfy in bygone years? In a
patriarchal society the old fitted into the picture almost
perfectly. They were able to perform necessary services, such
as caring for the flock or herd, fashioning utensils and tools,
spinning and sewing. Their hands retained their cunning to
the end. Their skill and counsel helped in the struggle of
the family and the tribe for the good things of life.
We cannot hope that our surroundings should be as they were
yesterday and that they should remain so. With the heightened
tempo of life, the growth of cities, and the swift plunge
from an economy based on agriculture to the factory system
and mass production, the aged have been made more economically
insecure. Questions which did not even arise in a Canada of
large families have become pressing problems in our metropolitan
apartment—house civilization. The trained aptitudes of
youth have, very often, put on the shelf the skills of the
aged.
We may hope that the disregard seen in our society for the
health, social and economic demands of life in its later years
is a temporary, transitional phenomenon. It will be so if
people now in their middle years see to it that the young
are educated in understanding and sympathy, and that what
can be done by church, community, industry and government
is done at once to meet the needs of our aged people. By proper
means, earnestly pursued, society and machines can be adapted
to gray—haired men, and gray—haired men and women
can be adapted to society and to machines.
Interested imaginative effort is needed, worthy of the best
thought of our institutions, our parliamentarians, our social
workers, our service clubs, and everyone who considers seriously
his own well—being, the welfare of the country and the
development of our culture.
Making the best of today
That is all very well for the future, some may say, but
we have many thousands who have already entered upon old age,
which should be a golden age, and have found it a dark age.
Their children - and other young people - talk "over" or "through"
them as if they aren't there. They are taken for granted.
Life is intensely real to the aged. The fictions are gone.
They want, above all, to know where they stand. Dr. J. L.
Gillin remarks in Social Pathology; "As one grows older,
the craving for response formerly satisfied in friendship
between those of the same sex, and love between the sexes,
changes to a desire for gratitude and love from one's children
or from those who owe something to one's efforts. How many
are the tragedies of the old which grow out of the failure
to secure such a response!"
These are not days in which the generality of humanity indulges
liberally in service to others. We blame the pace of life,
the shortness of time, the demands of duty, and other things,
for our neglect of the samaritan acts really natural to us,
but suppressed.
Here is an opportunity for those advanced in years. Dr.
Hans Selye says wisely in his book The Stress of Life:
"neither wealth, nor force, nor any other instrument of power
can ever be more reliable in assuring our security and peace
of mind than the knowledge of having inspired gratitude in
a great ninny people."
No longer hurried and confused by the headlong rush of life,
we are able to look around and distinguish the real from the
artificial, the excellent from the customary. Now is the time
to put into personal practice all that you have learned about
how to live, and to express in a continuing way your goodwill
toward others. By putting into daily practice the basic principle
of the Golden Rule you will find that you have not merely
alleviated a present ill, but have transformed it.
This does not mean that one should go around the family
or neighbours giving advice. Lord Chesterfield cautioned his
son in words like these: "Wear your learning, like your watch,
in a private pocket, and do not pull it out merely to show
you have it. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it;
but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked." Don't brag about
what you did when you were young, or boast about what you
would do today if you were not old.
If there is one quality more than another that marks maturity,
it is the quality of awareness. You will, when you are on
the lookout for it, sense the moment when your advice and
counsel would be fitting and useful; you will be aware, too,
of the times when the weight of your years' experience would
be a strain on good relations.
Take it easy: don't quit
The time has come to lower sails and gather in the lines.
When the sheet is slackened, the ship loses way, fails to
maintain its speed, and so takes more time to finish its course.
A clumsy sailor, of course, may "slack off the sheet" too
soon. The easy chair has become a source of calamity for people
past sixty. It requires no effort to become a sitter. We readily
get into the way of shunning exercise.
To "kill time", said Abbé Ernest Dimnet, is the most
sacrilegious phrase in modern languages. There are still fine,
strange things to be found, and regardless of what is found
the search itself is fun. Think up something you want, or
want to know. If you are at a loose end for interests, do
as a child without toys does: make some. Pitkin advised men
in that state to write down a dozen things they had thought
of at various times in their lives that they would like to
do, and then to try them one by one insofar as their strength
and funds allow.
The wisest investment of time lies in creative activities.
Hobbies can be boring, transient, things if they do not involve
imagination and doing. To design and build a doll house for
a granddaughter out of an orange crate; to make a railway
system for a grandson out of wire soldered on ties cut with
a penknife; to write the story of your life as an inspiration
to your children and their children; to prepare an anthology
of the great thoughts that you have come upon; to teach Boy
Scouts or Girl Guides what they need to know in order to earn
a proficiency badge in your profession or trade: these, and
hundreds of other activities such as church work, community
service, coaching in drama or art, managing a team of boys
or girls in a sport you know and like - all these hold out
promise of full and happy" years.
Keep an open mind
The most difficult thing is to keep the mind from slowly
going closed in the face of every—day undramatic happenings.
Mental rigidity and stagnation are not the fated conditions
of old age. Alfred North Whitehead said "I would make some
of this advanced education compulsory, and keep up the process
of education to the age of ninety".
To make it possible for older people to keep on learning
is the job of those who govern our educational institutions.
Schools can go some distance in making buildings and facilities
available for the use of older people. Adult education can
attune itself, not to filling in gaps in education, but to
opening opportunities for self—expression and self—realization,
while giving people guidance so that they can steer through
the shifting currents of changing times.
Youth is a heap of beginnings; age a handful of achievements;
but age gives us no time to dote or dream. Life is still a
grand adventure, a fine show. The trick is to look at it and
play in it at the same time.
The vital secret of happiness in old age is to keep moving.
And, who knows, some work of noble note may yet be done. Do
not forget the hands of the aged: they have touched much of
life and have become sensitive and sympathetic.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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