Aging in America

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Myths and realities of aging in the ’90s

By Laura Carstensen

t is, arguably, the most important adaptive change the human species has ever witnessed: the creation of old age. In less than a century, approximately 30 years of life have been added to our life cycle. Old age has become, for the first time in the history of the human species, a usual stage in life.

Yet, old age is a time in life that few people look forward to. Most of us are uneasy about it and this uneasiness is fueled by alarming statistics that appear regularly in our newspapers and on our television sets. We have come to associate old age with dementia, poverty, physical frailty, depletion of Medicare funds, indeed, bankruptcy of the federal government.

I will not deny that old age ­ as we know it - presents formidable challenges to individuals and societies. But I also argue ­ in part because old age is new ­ that it is a life stage cloaked in myths and misconceptions. Simply put, much of what we hear about old age is not true, that it is all and only about loneliness, depression, intergenerational wars. Like every stage in life, old age does have its problems ­ in fact, I'd agree with the popular contention that there are more problems associated with old age than earlier life stages. However, a lot of so-called knowledge about old age is actually speculation. We know less about the last 30 years in life than we know about the first five. Human culture has created old age and now it is essential that we create a new culture to support it.

There are three "tacit" myths about aging:

* There is a fountain of youth, or the search for eternal youth and the avoidance of death.

* Aging is all downhill and all differences are interpreted as age decrements.

Aging in America (Plain text)

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