This document summarizes challenges faced by middle-aged and aging families. It discusses issues like caring for both children and parents (the "sandwich generation"), maintaining marital satisfaction, adjusting to retirement and loss of income, health challenges of aging, and end-of-life issues like grief and assisted suicide debates. It also looks at these topics through the lenses of functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.

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Chapter 14:
Middle-Aged & Aging Families

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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

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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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Discover Marriages & Families in Action
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