3 ms·

Our society is deviant if not sick in the way that we push old people to the side and avoid them instead of honoring them. It seems related to our worship of yo

by gruseom 14y ago

Our society is deviant if not sick in the way that we push old people to the side and avoid them instead of honoring them. It seems related to our worship of youth and fear of death. I remember hearing an interview with a Canadian researcher who went to Cuba to study how they did something (I forget what, perhaps health care). While visiting a seniors' centre, she saw a bunch of 10-12 year old kids playing checkers with the old people in a common room. Later, she asked the director how they had come up with so successful a program to pair kids with seniors. "What program?" was the reply. "They just come in off the street." Such a thing is unthinkable where I live. That says a lot.

omegaworks 14y ago
Cuba has more then a few things going for it - namely relative cultural and linguistic homogeneity. My Spanish-speaking Mexican grandfather has a home in a historically German suburban neighborhood full of English-speaking Polish people. There's just not a whole lot of context for community building. Interactions happen only when they're necessary, meaning mostly to resolve some kind of conflict, so there's rarely a positive context. People are just sort of averse to talking to each other and building any kind of neighborly relationship.
marquis 14y ago
I spent a lot of time with the elderly as a kid due to my community structure. Somewhere into becoming a teenager your interests change and playing checkers isn't interesting anymore but I still consider those who are alive as good friends and still visit when I can. I have often grown angry seeing the modern community detach the children from the aged, as doesn't it seem that we developed as a human society exactly with the help of our elders to take care of children, as the youthful were gathering/hunting/building? Some of the most functional families I know live closely with the grandparents who are secondary caretakers. Of course a time comes when one's age doesn't allow you to chase 2 year olds, and that's where I don't know how modern society can 'resolve' this without care facilities as we're not willing to expand our family sizes, large families being who traditionally cared for the elderly.
psweber 14y ago
My hope is that I'm able (though technology and/or social change) to remain truly helpful and connected to society as I become elderly. Playing games with young kids is great, but I'd also want to be able to pass along wisdom to teens and twenty-somethings. Elderly people have started businesses, spent decades in romantic relationships, raised children, attained their goals, lost it all, achieved self discipline, found personal enlightenment, gone through major illnesses and seen how all these parts of life can or can't be balanced. Popular culture gives young westerners a very unrealistic portrayal of what life will be like. Having access to real experience seems vastly undervalued in our current culture.

by gruseom 14y ago

omegaworks 14y ago

Cuba has more then a few things going for it - namely relative cultural and linguistic homogeneity. My Spanish-speaking Mexican grandfather has a home in a historically German suburban neighborhood full of English-speaking Polish people. There's just not a whole lot of context for community building. Interactions happen only when they're necessary, meaning mostly to resolve some kind of conflict, so there's rarely a positive context. People are just sort of averse to talking to each other and building any kind of neighborly relationship.

marquis 14y ago

I spent a lot of time with the elderly as a kid due to my community structure. Somewhere into becoming a teenager your interests change and playing checkers isn't interesting anymore but I still consider those who are alive as good friends and still visit when I can. I have often grown angry seeing the modern community detach the children from the aged, as doesn't it seem that we developed as a human society exactly with the help of our elders to take care of children, as the youthful were gathering/hunting/building? Some of the most functional families I know live closely with the grandparents who are secondary caretakers. Of course a time comes when one's age doesn't allow you to chase 2 year olds, and that's where I don't know how modern society can 'resolve' this without care facilities as we're not willing to expand our family sizes, large families being who traditionally cared for the elderly.

psweber 14y ago

My hope is that I'm able (though technology and/or social change) to remain truly helpful and connected to society as I become elderly. Playing games with young kids is great, but I'd also want to be able to pass along wisdom to teens and twenty-somethings. Elderly people have started businesses, spent decades in romantic relationships, raised children, attained their goals, lost it all, achieved self discipline, found personal enlightenment, gone through major illnesses and seen how all these parts of life can or can't be balanced. Popular culture gives young westerners a very unrealistic portrayal of what life will be like. Having access to real experience seems vastly undervalued in our current culture.