Aging in America
A good piece on aging in America. The only thing I would add is that it is also imperative for older generations to respect their youth along the way, no matter how different and more American they may seem. True respect can only be born out of reciprocity.
Aging in a Foreign Land
New America Media, Commentary, Ngoc B. Lam, as told to Andrew Lam, Posted: Jan 10, 2007
Editor's Note: Growing old in America can mean growing more isolated, and that’s particularly tough on those whose home cultures stress strong family and clan ties. Ngoc B. Lam came to America in 1975 as a refugee and worked as an accountant for more than 20 years. Andrew Lam is a NAM editor and author of “Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora†(Heyday Books, 2005).
FREMONT, Calif.--There's a Vietnamese saying: America is paradise for the young, but hell for the old, and how true it seems now that I'm in my mid-70s. America has all these products that cater to children: toys, movies, video games, theme parks. For the old there's only isolation and loneliness.
Vietnamese are defined by family, by community, and when you lose that, you lose a big part of who you are. In Vietnam I never thought of living anywhere else but in my homeland. You live and die where your ancestors lived and died. You have your relatives, your clan; you have your family, your temple.
Once we were bound to the land in which our ancestors are buried, and we were not afraid of death and dying. But in America our old way of life is gone. We were forced to flee after the war ended in 1975, and we have lived in exile since then. Today, my friends and relatives are scattered across the world.
In America you lose so much the older you get -- friends, relatives, memories, mobility, a sense of yourself. The phone rings. I pick it up. It's Mrs. so-and-so in Los Angeles. She's got diabetes and had her leg amputated. Then the phone rings again: Mr. so-and-so in Georgia has lung cancer. He's only got a few months left. Back in Vietnam, we were all good friends. But at my age, how do you visit when they're thousands of miles away? Can you imagine calling your close friends as they lay dying in a hospital, apologizing for not being able to go see them for one last time? Well, I do that monthly now. It's very sad.
My husband and I, we are planning a trip this summer to Europe. It's our final trip, to say goodbye to relatives and friends. We know we won’t be able to travel after this, as our strength is failing. We'll never see them again after that. I can hardly climb down stairs because my knees hurt very badly. We sold our house and live in a condo with an elevator because it's the only way to be independent now.
What I worry about most is that my memory is not what it used to be. I am the keeper of our family tree, but it's all in my head. Who's related to whom was my specialty, being the oldest daughter in the family. But none of my children know about the large clan connection, not even my younger siblings. Without me, people who used to be relatives will be strangers if they meet again on the street. I used to know all the way to my third cousins on both my side and my husband's side of the family. I have to write down all of their names before my memory goes.
Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I stare out at the trees outside and wonder where I am. Sometimes I go to the apartment complex across the street, where there are some abandoned cats. I feed them with my leftovers. They recognize my voice. I call and they run to me. They are my source of joy.
When my children and grandchildren visit it's a great time, of course. But everyone has their own lives. They come once in a while, but what do you do with all those empty hours that stretch out before you?
My mother, who died at the age of 97, and my mother-in-law, who died at the age of 95, were in the same convalescent home for years. I used to take the bus to see them everyday, even when I was working. I knew how sad it was to grow old in America even back then, when I was healthy and younger. The nurses told me how lucky the two grandmothers were, having all these children and grandchildren visiting them on a regular basis. "It's the Vietnamese way," I would tell them. All those other old people, their children rarely visit. I remember a few old women sitting in their wheelchairs waiting for their children or family, day in and day out, and no one came. There was even one who outlived her children and still, everyday, she expected her sons to walk in through the door. How tragic to live so long and to be so alone!
The old are obsolete here in America. Neither respected nor deemed important. Back home, the elders are given the highest place of honor, and it was they who dispensed wisdom and shared their experiences with those who came up after them. It's not true here. No one wants to hear what you have to say. You feel isolated from your Americanized children and grandchildren. They laugh at things I don't understand. America is so much more their country than it is mine.
In the winter afternoons I sit and watch the barren trees, feeling very lost. I think of how the whole world I once knew is all gone now, like incense smoke. I think of the old country, of the Tet Festivals back in Saigon, of the weddings and holidays, with gatherings of families and friends, everyone together, children running, adults gossiping, women cooking together, and I feel this deep yearning for the distant past.
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Women Bloggers Network | Aging | Culture | Death and Dying | Ethnicity | Family | Friendship | Senior Citizens | Social Security | Andrew Lam | Asia | India | Shreya Mandal | united states | Vietnam
Love your attitude
Submitted by Shreya Mandal on 14 January 2007 - 11:40am.
They say attitude is everything. Yes, you do have a right for your voice to be heard. I also wish for your fellow peers that life could be more versatile beyond just medical appointments but as I'm sure you know already, it's all a mindset. This of course is easy for me say these things at this point, since all I have is pure empathy and a grave lack of experience.
I'll get back to you later
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 14 January 2007 - 12:14pm.
Haven't read the obits yet. People in East Tennessee live to be old, it seems. All those who die get their two inches of print in the paper. Like most older people, I read them every day. At this moment three of my dear friends are in jeopardy. Two are older than I. The third is a few years younger and is more tragic. He was a heavy smoker and has lung problems. Only one person of the three is in my city, and her mind is slow because of a heart condition. I feel helpless to be with them in ways I would like to. Why? Because I have my own limitations. At the keyboard I can keep up. Doing physical things requires more effort.
I have this theory that the reason those a generation younger than we are so reluctant to talk sincerely with us is because they see where they are heading and are concerned about it. I think more people should be enrolled in a gerontology class. But what's gerontology? It's supposed to be a study of the elderly and it ends up being statistics and social work and little sad jokes. As a member of the older generation, I find myself telling younger friends to "try it, you might like it." Again, TUDE, as the younger generation calls it, is what lets us hold on.
I'm finally "getting back"
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 20 January 2007 - 6:21pm.
In my last post, basicly I wanted to say that the elderly, like all generations, should not be stereotyped. We have special problems, including transportation when we can't drive and there are no public facilities. We have mandatory health insurance, with so many variables that it's hard to make decisions. What we don't need is social isolation. In my view, it is debilitating to arrive in a senior facility and have no one to interact with except others who feel shut in. In my building with a unit of 118 apartments there's a good chance that the ambulance will arrive more than once a day. That's reality and we are likely to find out who they "took out." There hangs over us the possibility that some day we will lose our chance for independent living and end up in a nursing home. With outside friends there is less likelihood that a person will become morbidly obsessed. Otherwise, it's possible that social withdrawal will make a person sicker than he/she thinks it can. I consider the study of gerontology to be looking into the way generations can enjoy the company of their senior citizens.
We here at the Towers have a few women who meet once a month to write in a Reminiscing Workshop. Those who do that say they find out so much about themselves, and besides, their children wanted them to "write something down."
Does anyone know of any blogs where members write about lifelong experiences?
america's age segregation disturbs me
Submitted by zensnob on 21 January 2007 - 4:55am.
MB, isn't every blog for lifelong experience? I sure slurped up the 1st-hand FDR Democrat account. There's something about witnessing history, especially before the advent of TV, that can't be conveyed but by the anecdotes & footnotes that give cultural context. Everything changes simultaneously, and influences everything else, but our records typically are restricted by discipline, so the influence of, e.g., art on politics, can often be overlooked. I never read of Marion Anderson in any history textbook I had, but such figures give inspiration momentum.
Isn't part of the American loss of community related to the segregation by age that seems predominant here? The kids get shipped off to pre-school & the folks off to retirement communities. And everybody wanders around in our respective age bubbles (caveatesque: I'm unsure to what extent my life experience is biased by how phobic Californians tend to be about aging).
For much of my childhood & teenage years, I lived in the same house with my grandparents, both active members of the household. Whereas I love to pet my grandma's soft skin, and we often lounge draped around each other, most of my friends grandparents get a cursory upper-half non-contact hug on the way in and the way out, if that. We all need contact!
In comparison with my own experience, the relationships most of my friends had with their grandparents seemed so stiff & distant, and many of them even seemed scared of old people. It's so sad. Instead of the case of Vietnamese elders who have stature and who contribute to maintain the social fabric, we have devalued an important resource here.
Maybe the best aspect of it is that, as with the tomato, current generations just don't know what they're missing. Me, however, I suffer because I have lived for over a decade on the east coast apart from my grandparents; I've missed them profoundly. Letters and phone calls are wonderful treats, but in many respects, meager substitute.
If we don't cultivate interactions that transcend generations, we lose our sense of our own history, of our own selves, and we will have no gauge for which aspects of existence have truly changed, and which have remained the same, over recent history.
Isolating and devaluing our elders has some unhealthy self-loathing aspects to it, as well, since eventually, if we're each lucky enough to, we'll be old someday too, right?
Ah well, as the Boomers get on, advertisers and Hollywood will presumably cater more to that demographic, and that might reshape the aging stigma outlook somewhat, hopefully?
Consumerism & "family values"
Submitted by Margaret Bassett on 21 January 2007 - 10:29am.
We are all demographed to death. If we don't long for the little purple pill, the latest botox scheme, the cruise for "our kind," we are not in. Karl Rove took his scheme to new heights when he classified every voting district by its buying habits. Agism, sexism, racism, and a number of other isms are all minor in comparison to consumerism.
I am not one who wants to live on Walden Pond, but I am also one who can't abide TV ads. It's why I believe we go down the wrong path when we count campaigners' war chest. And of course California gets a bad rap for exotic bahavior. Hollywood had its part in that. I remember when I wore bright red lipstick and sucked on a cigarette to show I was sophisticated. Very adolescent!
I have two doctors I'm proud of. One is responsible for prescribing my pacemaker. I have an appointment twice a year to get an electronic readout, and then I talk to a man who listens. The last time we met we discussed the article in the New York Times about how aging can be done without becoming frail. He deplored obesity in children because it was going to be a national crisis later on. He wanted more public transportation to save our air. I mentioned that Jim Haslam, mayor of Knoxville who owns a gasoline distribution company and is a major supporter of Bush, would not like to see a monorail installed on the parkway from Oak Ridge to Knoxville. Light bulb! If not a Democrat, at least a more educated Republican. I assume all doctors are Republicans. At least I've never had one who wasn't.
My other doctor is an ophthalmogist who just performed cataract surgery on my one seeing eye. My friend who drove me to the office had his grandmother as her 5th grade teacher. She is living at home at the age of 96.
The heart doctor's father is 90 plus and had a stroke making it necessary to use a wheelchair part time. The loving son wanted to buy him a motorized wheelchair and the old man was affronted. He prefers the one which he can push, like a shopping cart, because it keeps his muscles strong.
I'll stop now before I tell you about my friends at the warm water arthitis aerobics class.
I'm not getting older, I'm getting better
Some little Merry Sunshine puts out the line. But I have another way of looking at it. Human beings are to be congratulated for surviving. And I'm doing my best to make my 85th birthday next month. What would the elderly do without the internet!
I wish I could have read your whole article easier. Now that I had cataract surgery, I can see. But this page has smiley faces covering what I see.
About aging, my idea is that it's the best thing we've got going for us. Although it hurts the Social Security fund, I feel we have the right to be heard. And that means listening. As I tell my friends in the Boomer generation, who are so concerned about their approaching old age, "Get yournter friends, or you won't have any."
I live in a building with 118 apartments. To be here one must be on Social Security. What concerns me is how little some of the residents think about anything except doctor appointments and what they like to eat. Don't they realize that those older than 85 represent 20% of the US population? I hope to hear from you again.