Aging From A Phenomenological Perspective

Most of people tend not to think too much about old age, they don't want to. They’re in denial, they fear aging. Retirement is seen as the end of productivity, a death sentence. And that is why so many of us fear aging, it leads to an inevitable conclusion, death. Author and feminist Betty Friedan brilliantly challenges this preconceived idea we have about aging. She shook the country in the 1960s with her "The Feminine Mystique”. She gave shape to a major women's movement that continues to reverberate today. Women were regarded as housewives, viewed solely on the basis of biological functions.

Three theory apply to aging the elderly. Our first theory is called structural-functional theory. As the author of our textbook, John Macionis, agrees that this approach views society as a complex, but interconnected system, where each part works together as a functional whole (p.16). The author of the book applies this approach to the aging topic and show how the "operations" of the society can be confused and disordered on the fact that people grow old and die ultimately. As a result of that the society dissociate older people from important tasks or disband them from responsibilities as they grow older (p.439). Drawing on the structural-functional theory, the disengagement theory illustrates that as people grow old the society eliminates them from their responsibilities and their

The elderly population is growing rapidly and now makes up greater than thirteen percent of the United States population. (APA, 1994). With such a record growth, there are different aspects to aging that are still being analyzed. Many may think of reaching late life as a rite of passage, but many face this time with a different view. Through the movie "UP', we are granted an opportunity into view the struggles of an elderly widowed man by the name of Mr. Fredrickson and the challenges in which he faces in his later life. The movie, takes one on a journey through his sorrows and his triumphs until he realizes what the true meaning of happiness is.

For this paper, two separate interviews were conducted with two retirees. One, M.Q., is a 66 year-old white woman who lives in a beach area. The other was JH, a 78 year-old African-American man who lives in a very rural area. Both interviews were conducted over the phone, as M.Q. is recuperating from a bilateral knee replacement and JH lives several states away. These two were chosen because they are complete opposites. While both currently live in the Southern United States, M.Q. was raised north of the Mason-Dixon line, while JH has lived south of the Mason-Dixon line his entire life. The only similarity they share is that they are retirees living on the East Coast. Because they are complete opposites, interviewing the two of them as opposed to a married couple, two sisters, or something of the like, I was able to get a more complete picture of what it means to be retired. This gave me more information, and a better idea of what I needed to look for in the articles I used.

1. In her speech, Jane Fonda spoke about aging and the effect that it can have on a person. Fonda talked about “Life’s Third act” or the last three decades of a person’s life. Fonda explained that the advances in medicine and technology enabled the human race to live longer than before (Fonda, 2012). According to Fonda, humans are living on average, thirty years longer than past generations. The human life span has been extended and humans are spending a great deal of their lives in older age (Fonda, 2012). Fonda explains that we should not accept aging as a decline to our mental and physical capacity. According to her, our spirits do not age but mature over time which explains why people over the age of fifty are generally happier, less

Aging is a natural occurrence in a human being life. As human’s age and transition into adulthood little attention is given to retirement, rather individuals focus on individual decisions, such as going to college, starting a family, buying a home and other individual choices. Often times, as individuals age so do their social roles and identities, for instance a student, sister, daughter, wife, and mother. Hence, in society there is an age norm in which a society assigns roles and division of labor based on age. Thus, a key component to age norms is timing an appropriate age to marry, have a child and retirement. Furthermore, specifically aging women engage in the social clock that orders major events like marriage, having children

Aging is a phenomena we are all familiar with, a trait characteristic of all humankind, in fact, of all living organisms. What are the effects of aging, especially those which go beyond the biological aspects and effect the social aspects of changing roles, seniority, and treatment of the aged? What was the original human condition before high-tech medical interventions redefined death and dying, before the industrial age changed the nature of the nuclear and extended family? Going back still farther, what can the behavior of chimpanzees tell us about the origins of our responses to the aging of those around us?

When most people think of aging, the only thing that comes to mind is frail, weakly and wrinkled. In fact, a lot of people associate aging with disease prevalence. These myths and stereotypes about aging have been brought about by the media, jokes we hear and even the films we watch. Some of these you hear are blown out of proportion and exaggerated.

Firstly, a key influence on retirement is gender. James M. Henslin, author of “Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach” uses the term gender age to describe how gender has influence on retirement. Gender age can be portrayed as the relative value assigned to men and women by their length of life (Henslin, 372). Symbolic interactionists use four factors to determine whether a person is considered old or not. These include biology, personal history, gender age, and societies idea of old (Henslin, 372). This is significant since gender age plays a crucial role in determining when age cohorts, or people born at around similar time and progress through life in conjunction, are considered old in societies standards. In addition, not only gender, but

Not everyone has the same dreams and desires; thus, no one’s retirement is exactly the same because of outside influences like previous hobbies, gender roles, stresses pertaining to previous careers, marital life experiences, and previous level of physical activity pre-retirement. As stated by Barnes-Farrell, that retirees’ demographics like age, gender, and health can shape an individual’s retirement (Barnes-Farrell, 2003). Bill prefers living a very active lifestyle that involves going to the gym, swimming, biking, running and paddleboarding. Whereas, Rose prefers to spend her retirement relaxing inside her apartment watching baseball, reading, taking naps, talking on the phone to her children, going to church and spending time with her family. The differences observed between these participants could be

A couple of days ago, I was astonished when I saw on the news that a 94-year-old great grandmother graduated from Southern New Hampshire University with a 4.0 grade point average. As some of you may know from my introduction post, I am in Vietnam right now, and for such a story to make headlines all the way over here is truly inspirational. Regardless of cultural differences, we do not typically imagine seeing elderly people, such as Amy Craton, attending college much less earning a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English. She is the epitome of redefining what aging means. As the first chapter mentions, aging is not a single process, and that it consists of three distinctive process. The later of these two processes include dementia

I hated when people asked, “What do want to do when you grow older?” That was a question I avoided as much as possible. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I just needed time to think about it, but then again, there was not enough time in the world for me to think about it. I liked everything the way it was, and I dragged this thought everywhere I went. What do I want to do when I grow older? The problem was that I had no clue. I didn’t even have an idea of what I liked to do, or what I was good at. That was my most hated topic. The future.

The key lives events that have influenced Helen’s relationships include losing of pleasure and comfort after the death of her husband (Plummer, Makris & Brocksen, 2014). However, what makes it a key event in my own perspective is Helen maintained that since the death of her husband, she has nobody “to talk to” even when Stephanie is home (Plummer et al., 2014). Another key life event that affected Helen was the many years of her happier marriage which was directly affected by death and being in love will give her feelings of a successful marriage (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). On the other hand, being a widow has influenced the sense of her well-being making her face emotional and practical problems

This research proposal intends to expand the existing knowledge by targeting a less studied group: elderly women residing in retirement homes.

In the study of aging, our understanding of issues is always colored by the training and perspectives of the researchers whose work we read. The purpose of this paper is to examine the interdisciplinary nature of gerontology. The disciplinary perspectives to be considered are psychological, sociological, and economic.