Ageing [Aging] is good for us?

'Ageing is good for us' (or in Canada, aging) is the title of an article in today's Times (UK). It's not a subject that gets much attention, either from Canadian or British newspapers. But what there is is usually biased and negative. According to the article, Nir Barzilai, director of an Institute for Aging Research in the US, considers "Age itself [is] the disease that must be treated."

Aging is a normal process, as I see it, though medical events that happen in the older person's life could certainly receive intervention in order to make the process go more smoothly and less painfully. That doesn't always happen, however.

The article's author, Eleanor Mills, asks, "Isn’t getting old and frail a fundamental part of the human experience, one of the great levellers, the touchstones that make us who we are? "

I'm not so sure aging is "good for us," as a stage of life that should always be looked forward to, even in Canada. "Getting old and frail," as Mills puts it, is not one of the great levelers, though the experience does become part of who we are, I suppose - part of our life cycle development and our identity. But as a fundamental part of the human experience, my concern is that, even without the invention of a new drug to combat the ageing process, there are still differences in the quality of medical treatment and care people receive as they grow older. Far different to be in a caring community, with a loving family and a doctor and health care team whose only concern is to ensure all their patients receive the best health care available. That thought is a bit utopian, isn't it. Right now, with the ageing babyboomers seen to be controlling the world, I sense some effort abounds to rid the world of the ones on the fringes of society.

As usual, with articles about aging, the author of this one too has a few disparaging comments to make about the baby boomers, as follows:

"Spare a thought for the rest of us. While I can see that a super-long, super-fit old age rounds off the gilded lives of that generation very nicely thank you, I can’t help thinking that those magic pills will only exacerbate the chronic inter-generational problems that are looming. The oldies are already bed-blocking the housing market and spending the kids’ inheritance — now they’ll be hanging on to their interesting jobs until they are 90 as well."
While there may be some truth to this, there is also the other side - in fact, readers often demand that old people keep working well past retirement age in order to pay for their pensions. Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't have the good jobs open up to the next generation AND expect them to keep working. And while many older people will not be able to contribute to their non-existent retirement income, many can, and will be paying members of the next generation for their support, one way or another, providing jobs that didn't used to be there.

Getting back to Eleanor Mills's notion that geting old is "one of the great levelers." It's not. Some old people will fare a great deal better than others, and not simply because they have money. They will fare better because this idea that the babyboomers are a burden and a waste of time and energy is being internalized by generation x - by article such as Mills's.

We are being misled as to the threat that the babyboomers pose, so much so that I think some people will use their power to prohibit any extra healthcare that would enhance some people's lives as they grow older. When the babyboomers were young, any problems of overcrowded classrooms, or delivery rooms at the hospital, or medical care, or jobs, or home, were dealt with, without the kind of pessimistic view that Eleanor Mills and most other journalists portray, of this time in history, as the babyboomers grow old. We had world wars in which many men lost their lives, so many that the future of our countries changed forever. Our countries have been through major health crises which have threatened our existence, yet we have come through them without placing blame on one category of people. It is so easy to blame the old, as it will be the poor old who will have to take the blame, while the rich old get to carry on as normal, or better than normal. Don't let this myth of the babyboomers wrecking society for the next generations take hold of your thinking and the way you act towards the old. It is a myth perpetuated by the middle classes.

The problem of saying no to the sick
By Michael Bliss
Globe and Mail
Mar. 26, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-problem-of-saying-no-to-the-sick/article1512418/

A Graying Population, a Graying Work Force
By JOHN LELAND
New York Times
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25care.html?th&emc=th

So you thought Generation X was angry?
By Leah McLaren
Globe and Mail
Feb. 05, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/so-you-thought-generation-x-was-angry/article1457660

Ageing is good for us
By Eleanor Mills
The Sunday Times, London, UK
May 16, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7127537.ece