So, I heard of the book “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Re-Invented Old Age” and bought it, ‘cause I figured I exemplified the target audience. Should have read it on a park bench as befits someone of my years, but I was in Chicago for the Christmas holidays and it was too damn cold. So, I read it in a nice warm easy chair, which come to think of it also befits someone my age.
Author James Chappel, judging by his picture on the book jacket, doesn’t appear old enough to be discussing this topic from personal experience, but he put a helluva lot of research into it which makes it a worthwhile read, if sometimes a bit dry.
He reminds us that in days of yore, Americans were expected to work until they died or became too debilitated by age, at which time tradition demanded they be taken care of by their adult children. He points out that a major turning point came in the Depression years: “Whereas in the past, grown children may have borne the cost of supporting their aging parents, the Depression made it impossible for many families to do so. And given the fact that younger people were losing their savings and older people were increasingly exiting the workforce, it was unlikely that the earlier system would ever return.” Thus were the seeds sown for Social Security and the subsequent Medicare.
Chappel considers the old TV series “Golden Girls” to be almost a documentary of what happens to aging females in this society, and was a harbinger of trends impacting the elderly in the years since.
The author makes the point that before the end of this decade, senior citizens are expected to number more than the under-18 population.
What to do? One wag he quotes may have the best answer: “Don’t get old.”