Old Age Is Another Country

Noted American historian Page Smith provides a travel guide to the unknown country of old age, a collection of essays designed to show the young what lies ahead of them and stir them into changing society so that when they reach their "golden years", age prejudice and disrespect of elders will be a thing of the past.

Noted American historian Page Smith provides a travel guide to the unknown country of old age, a collection of essays designed to show the young what lies ahead of them and stir them into changing society so that when they reach their "golden years", age prejudice and disrespect of elders will be a thing of the past.

There are more older people in America today than ever before. They are our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles and in-laws. They are living longer, but in a culture that has come to worship youth--a culture in which families have dispersed, communities have broken down, and older people are isolated. Meanwhile, adults in two-career families are struggling to divide their time among their kids, their jobs, and their aging parents--searching for the right words to talk about loneliness, forgetfulness, or selling the house. Another Country is a field guide to this rough terrain for a generation of baby boomers who are finding themselves unprepared to care for those who have always cared for them. Psychologist and bestselling writer Mary Pipher maps out strategies that help bridge the gaps that separate us from our elders. And with her inimitable combination of respect and realism, she offers us new ways of supporting each other--new ways of sharing our time, our energy, and our love.

This multidisciplinary collection critically examines conditions and representations of old age and aging in Eastern and Southeastern Europe from various perspectives. By shedding light on these culturally specific contexts, it widens our understanding of the aging process in all its diversity and challenges the presumptions of aging studies.

Old age is the most ignored and gloomy state of life in the present context of materialistic world. The senior citizens are being harassed in their homes in every corner of the country. They are being deprived of love, care and respect from nears and dears at their hapless stage of life which in turn has shaped into a much spoken social issue. Even though realising this, many of us get entrapped in that bizarre. Some accept it as fate and some blame their offspring and the social change. Is not it rubbish to finger others for the issue at this juncture of scientific life? It would rather better to go with an early plan for a beautiful old age. It is certainly possible if we look into certain aspects of our life within which our entire life roll forward on. If we carefully maintain a prejudged harmony in all those domains of life, then definitely, that will lead our entity towards a beautiful and peaceful horizon at our fourth stage. In this book the proposition reflects mainly six vital aspects of life determine the state of our old age life. The aspects are financial resources, Health, Family life, Social life, Life styles and Cause to live. To draw the impact of each aspect, exemplary short stories have been put under respective headings. The short stories have been footed on the real life situations seen in the society. The stories do posses the power to keep tying the interest and concentration of the readers up to the end.

The exploration of what May Sarton calls the »foreign country of old age« usually does not go far beyond the familiar: the focus of aging studies has thus far clearly rested upon North America and Western Europe. This multi-disciplinary essay collection critically examines conditions and representations of old age and aging in Eastern and Southeastern Europe from various perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. By shedding light on these culturally specific contexts, the contributions widen our understanding of the aging process in all its diversity and demonstrate that a shift in perspectives might in fact challenge a number of taken-for-granted positions and presumptions of aging studies.