I have been so busy writing about politiks and aging - that I stopped posting to some of my other blogs...
I'd say I'll post more regularly - but then I will only feel guilty if I don't ...so I'll ust say I will try.
I am in a writing mode anyway as I want to get a few books out...and since one is on aging - this blog can be a place to post some of that prose...
Here is a question - what is mid-life or middle age?
Most books use the time frame of 34 to 60 for middle age...
For starters - what do a 34-year-old and a 60-year-old have in common? Why are they in the same category? Like other age based divisions I am betting that in a few years there will be so much research on people over 35 that chapters will be broken down into the 30's, 40' and 50's, etc.
The USA culture is age and calendar based - especially when dealing with child rearing issues. But now I think that we use ages and calendars for all our developmental divisions as well.
What if we used more of a transition definition for moving from one stage to another? I’m not sure how it would look or what the parts would be called - but I am working on it. Age divisions are so easy to use since we do not need to name them except by number.
But - now that families are having children into their 40's and even 50's [and 60's] it changes the idea of a common type of “middle” adulthood. Nowadays, careers for those in this age “range” are put on hold for many reasons, new careers are started; and in the last 5 or so years, jobs have disappeared, grown “children” have moved back home and what was once considered the “prime” of life can be a very different matter in this current century.
Added to all the above, people in this age range may have parents who are still alive and who may need their attention.
One reason the research has to change is that If you don’t know what to ask or look for - you keep expecting and then finding the same things. We expected older people to be gray haired, walking with walkers, sad, reflective, almost ready to die.....so that was what was found. But now we know older people who are active, in school, working and doing much the same as people in the 40's, 50's and 60's.
We "older" psychologists are still around, still mentally alert and some of us ski, kayak, sail and bike : - ) - a far different picture of an "older" person than what was portrayed not that long ago...
Showing posts with label ages and stages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ages and stages. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Numbers
Life by the numbers? I just had a birthday - decided that at my "age" they do not count anymore unless they end with a 5 or a 0 : ). With each year that I have surpassed the age at which my father died, I do think more about lifespans. My father died at 56; my mother at 95.
My mother and father both lived through the influenza epidemic of 1918 - 1919, the one that killed 675,000 Americans. How quickly we forget that what we now call "the flu" was a leading cause of death. Back in 1906 - 1907, when my parents were born, the life expectancy of a child born then was about 48 years. By the time I was born life expectancy was about 65 and for children born in 2001 [ the most recent government stats] it is about 77.
As our life expectancy increases, what we can do with and in our lives expands. Back when people such as Alexander the Great were around, life expectancy was about 35 and so you got into your life's work very early - in what we now call childhood - and did your "thing" in your late teens and 20's. Alexander became king at 20 on the death of his father and died when he was 32! So he had 12 years of doing his grownup "job." Of course he had been in training since he was a child and ruled in his father's absence but the major war campaigns were in his 20's.
There was no period of finding oneself - there wasn't any time. Adolescence is a "stage" that came about as our lifespan grew. Now we can spend time in school figuring out what we want to do when we grow up - and some, and I do include myself, are still figuring out what we will do when we grow up.
With our growing spans of life - we can keep learning and changing. Or we can stagnate - the choices are ours.
My mother and father both lived through the influenza epidemic of 1918 - 1919, the one that killed 675,000 Americans. How quickly we forget that what we now call "the flu" was a leading cause of death. Back in 1906 - 1907, when my parents were born, the life expectancy of a child born then was about 48 years. By the time I was born life expectancy was about 65 and for children born in 2001 [ the most recent government stats] it is about 77.
As our life expectancy increases, what we can do with and in our lives expands. Back when people such as Alexander the Great were around, life expectancy was about 35 and so you got into your life's work very early - in what we now call childhood - and did your "thing" in your late teens and 20's. Alexander became king at 20 on the death of his father and died when he was 32! So he had 12 years of doing his grownup "job." Of course he had been in training since he was a child and ruled in his father's absence but the major war campaigns were in his 20's.
There was no period of finding oneself - there wasn't any time. Adolescence is a "stage" that came about as our lifespan grew. Now we can spend time in school figuring out what we want to do when we grow up - and some, and I do include myself, are still figuring out what we will do when we grow up.
With our growing spans of life - we can keep learning and changing. Or we can stagnate - the choices are ours.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Ages? Stages? Behaviors?
How is it that our lifespan gets defined?
We used to speak of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Now we have prenatal, early postnatal, postnatal, early and later infancy, early and later childhood, prepuberty, puberty, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, etc., etc.
How old are you? And - which stage/label fits you? Can we be in a few categories simultaneously?
What are ages? Those are the definitions by years or decades. You are a child, a teen, an adult. But then oops it gets odd...Are the 20's,30's and 40's similar? What about 80's and 90's?
What are stages? Usually these are certain times in life when "most" people do "something." For example, we can speak of physical development and say that most humans walk at about one year so we can talk about a walking stage or a talking stage.
But what happens when we go into areas like higher education? marriage? childbirth? careers? In the "old days" of psychology, "most" adolescents were in high school and many late teens early 20's were in college or in their career. Marriage was something that happened and in your 20's as was the birth of your 1st child.
Now we have people of all ages finishing high school and starting college. Careers are not always started in your 20's and retirement is not always in your 50's or 60's. Women are having babies into their 40's and even 50's.
People in their 80's are still out there skiing. In the ski areas nearest me, one gets a free season pass from age 72 on and recently I met an 82 year old when I went skiing. Can one describe that person as "old?" In one sense, the number, yes, but in another sense of agility and activity, no. So what is it that defines us?
Stage? Age? or Behavior?
How old are you? Here's an interesting questionnaire: http://www.realage.com
We used to speak of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Now we have prenatal, early postnatal, postnatal, early and later infancy, early and later childhood, prepuberty, puberty, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, etc., etc.
How old are you? And - which stage/label fits you? Can we be in a few categories simultaneously?
What are ages? Those are the definitions by years or decades. You are a child, a teen, an adult. But then oops it gets odd...Are the 20's,30's and 40's similar? What about 80's and 90's?
What are stages? Usually these are certain times in life when "most" people do "something." For example, we can speak of physical development and say that most humans walk at about one year so we can talk about a walking stage or a talking stage.
But what happens when we go into areas like higher education? marriage? childbirth? careers? In the "old days" of psychology, "most" adolescents were in high school and many late teens early 20's were in college or in their career. Marriage was something that happened and in your 20's as was the birth of your 1st child.
Now we have people of all ages finishing high school and starting college. Careers are not always started in your 20's and retirement is not always in your 50's or 60's. Women are having babies into their 40's and even 50's.
People in their 80's are still out there skiing. In the ski areas nearest me, one gets a free season pass from age 72 on and recently I met an 82 year old when I went skiing. Can one describe that person as "old?" In one sense, the number, yes, but in another sense of agility and activity, no. So what is it that defines us?
Stage? Age? or Behavior?
How old are you? Here's an interesting questionnaire: http://www.realage.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)