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What Challenges Do Middle-Aged & Aging Families Face?
Middle-Aged Families
• Middle-Age Myths
• Aging people are generally healthier than they were in
previous generations
• Sexual desire & enjoyment remain intact
• Intelligence remains stable while verbal & social skills
increase
• Most people do not experience a mid-life crisis
• Some Middle-Aged Families do belong to the sandwich
generation
– The generation that may be responsible for care for
aging parents & young children at the same time
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• Tasks for Middle-Aged Families
• Males & females need to address the needs of their
spouse, children, other family members, & employers
• Need to negotiate changes in work roles &
expectations
• Need to change expectations & parenting strategies as
children grow
• Marital Satisfaction & Children
• Marital Satisfaction follows a predictable pattern:
– High before children
– Drop after children arrive
– Increase as they leave
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• Marital Satisfaction & Children Continued
• Empty Nest – a home after the last child has left
• Spacious Nest – the transition to more physical room in the
empty next home & more psychological space for the marital
relationship
• Renested or Cluttered Nest – a home to which adult children
have returned to live temporarily
– Boomerang Kids – adult children who return to live
temporarily with parents
• Becoming Grandparents
• Common occurrence
• If geographically close can serve as reserve parents
• Rates of grandparents providing childcare greater in African
& Hispanic American families than whites
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Aging Families
• How Old is “Old”?
• In US traditionally age 65 & older
• 5 Physical Characteristics of aging process
– Physiological changes are steady but gradual
– Individuals age at different rates
– Aging lowers the ability to respond to stress
– Age brings a lower resistance to disease
– Live past reproductive “usefulness”
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Aging Families Continued
• Implications for aging population for families
• The web of ties will increase in importance
• Intergenerational relationships between grandparents,
their children and their grandchildren will increase in
significance
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• Ethnic Differences
• Life expectancy differs with highest percentage
Whites, followed by Blacks, then Asians & Native
Americans, & then Hispanics
• Economic conditions resemble younger counterparts
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• Elders Who Have Never Married, Elder Gay Men &
Lesbians
• About 8% of the elderly have never married
– Are better adjusted than those who have
experienced divorce or widowhood
• Aging gay men & lesbians exhibit many of the same
patterns as heterosexuals who have never married
– Many of today’s homosexual elderly “lived in the
closet”
– Current acceptance of homosexual lifestyle may
change the elder homosexual experience in the
future
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• Family Changes in Later Years
• Work & Retirement
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• Work & Retirement Continued
– Ageism – discrimination in the workplace or other areas
because of age
– Faulty Stereotypes have infiltrated the workplace like
that older people produce less & have less physical
strength
– Older people may be laid off & may be less likely to be
hired
– US government has prohibited age discrimination
against workers up to the age of 70
– Men are retiring at younger ages
– When retirement occurs, significant changes in the
marriage is necessary
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• Income & Lifestyle Continued
– Fixed Income – income from a pension, annuity, or other
source that is frozen at a certain level
○ Though it may include a cost-of-living increase
– Elderly expenses may be lower, except for medical
expenses
– Feminization of Old Age
○ Women live longer than men
– Children & Parents
○ Relationships may change
– Health Issues
○ If able to adapt to minor changes, such as hearing
loss, may render the elder to adapt more
successfully to major changes
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Death, Loss, & Grieving
• Grieving within Families
• 4 Basic tasks for adapting to death
– Accept & acknowledge the death openly
– Share the experience of grief
– Renegotiate & reassign the roles of the deceased
– Move beyond the death of a family member
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• Grieving within Families Continued
– Past death experiences may help or hurt grieving
process
– Religious & cultural background also affect
• Death of a Same-Sex Partner
– Lack of family support of lifestyle may be harmful
to the grieving process
• Adjusting to Life as a Widow or Widower
– Adjustment to becoming strong & self-sufficient
offers greatest reward for those who were most
dependent on spouses
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• The Debate Over Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia
– Assisted Suicides – the situation in which one
person supplies the means for another to commit
suicide in order to prevent suffering
– Euthanasia – taking another person’s life to
prevent suffering
– Passive Euthanasia – withholding treatment that
would prolong life because the current quality of
life is minimal
○ Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order is somewhat
associated with passive euthanasia
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Think Marriages & Families
How Does Aging Affect Individuals, Families, & Society?
• Functionalism
• Disengagement – the orderly transfer of power from
an older generation to a younger one
• Conflict Theory
• Older women still face negative view of their work
potential & are denied some economic resources
others have
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Concept of “old” is socially constructed
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Can Elderly People Afford Essential Prescription Drugs?
• Congressional report in 2001 reported that uninsured
elderly pay significantly more for drugs
• Congressional report in 2003 reported that elders in the
US pay much more for prescriptions than those in
Canada, Europe, & Japan
