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Interviews with older people
Successful aging theory
Interviews with older people
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In this research paper, my task is to interview an older man and an older woman about their life experiences on how they experience aging differently based on the time period. The stories are discussed from a past and present perspective to understand the different roles a older man and a older woman takes. I have the opportunity to examine what steps a man and a woman take when facing a conflict and how they overcome it. The time period examines if people age successfully depending on their education, income and employment. I want to learn more about how a man and a woman prepares transitioning from young, to adulthood, and preparing for old age. Another thing I would like to learn is how resources are different from today compare to the past. My question is are the younger generation at the disadvantages compared to the earlier born generation?
Research Methods
My first interview is Maria Smith born in Chicago, Illinois, she is 78 years old. She is a widowed since 2010 and have one son named Ahama. She have one brother is 68 year old and the second
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She knew her husband is chronically ill because he had bad asthma, blood problems, diabetes, and heart attack. It just never occurred that her husband would died on the bedroom floor without notice. Her friend and colleague Carol, a sociologist help her because they both shared the same experience where her husband was found dead in bed. After his death, she said, “I have more physical freedom and when I’m alone I can do what I please.” She explains I miss my husband but I’m not lonely. For example, she go out to eat alone and do things alone while her son study in New York. When you’re older for a good reason, you will do that because you will have jobs where you want to have dinner afterwards. You don’t need an escort for everything by any means. This applies when she is reading, the source of comfortable that she is okay with being
Lonely” is a poem about a kid having trouble living his life and he isolates himself from other people which makes his life harder. In this poem the author uses symbolism, a metaphor, and rhetorical questions to show how being isolated can make life more difficult. The author tells the audience that whenever anyone tries to isolates themselves there life gets harder for them.
Takamura, J.C. (1999). Getting ready for the 21st Century: The aging of America and the older
Within the thin exterior of the cold dark building she called home, she wanted to keep the bodies of those in which she felt she had a connection. Whether it be a reasonable connection or not, she didn’t want to be alone. Her connection with her father brought her to keeping his corps in the house as well as the other man. Her distance from other people around her only drove her to madness causing nothing but isolation and a craving for any type of relation she could hold or be close
Hiller, S. M., & Barrow, G. M. (2011). Aging, the individual, and society. (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
Miss Brill’s loneliness causes her to listen in on conversations. This is her only means of achieving a sense of companionship. She feels that for a moment she is “sitting in other people’s lives just for a minute” (98). Aside from that, she is part of no one’s life.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
An interview was arranged with an older adult to discuss issues related to aging. The interview was designed to gain appreciation and understanding of an older adult. One theory of aging came into mind when I thought about this topic. Erik Erikson Life-Course and Personality Development theory, “Erikson described the task of old age as balancing the search for integrity and wholeness with a sense of despair.” NS is the older adult that I conducted the interview with. I’ve decided to pick NS to interview because she is very positive about life and her age. Everything that I have come across about aging is negative such as depression, isolation, and illness.
Adults entering the midlife years (middle adulthood) are experiencing an overabundance of life changes. Hall, Hernandez, Wong, and Justice (2015) stated that, during middle adulthood important changes occur across the physical, cognitive, and social domains of development. There is a mounting amount of research on the changes that middle-aged adults experience. One of the most unexplored factor that middle-aged adults experience is Ageism. Ageism can be defined as the act of being prejudice or discriminative towards a specific age group. Although, Ageism can occur at any given place and in any age group. Research shows that it is more prevalent in older adults,
This reflection paper is based on the life history interview conducted on me and a 78-year-old woman who is soon going to celebrate her 79th birthday on Sep 21st. I would call her with a fictitious name “Smita” in the entire paper to maintain and protect her privacy. The interview was about our life. It was divided into six major life categories: childhood, adulthood, identity, the present, aging, and life lessons. Having an opportunity to interview a 78-year-old woman and writing this reflective paper about the life history and experiences had made me realize that I have a lot to learn about the stages of human life. Every individual lives are different and it varies tremendously. As an interviewee my goal was to collect the details of life, different stories, and experiences that makes our life unique from the rest of the people.
Ageing is something that everyone will eventually experience if they are fortunate to live a long life. The process of ageing comes with various negative and positive outlooks. In western culture, ageing for both genders is particularly condemned. In the media in particular, the process of ageing for men and women vary greatly. Where, women are condemned for ageing more than men are. Media greatly highlights on the stereotypical notion of ageing especially in the aspect of portraying men and women and their social roles through advertisement. I will be discussing
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
Older adults are a very knowledgeable population and have had a lot of life experiences. As people age, things start to change physically, mentally, and socially. It’s important to understand the process of aging, so that older adults can be taken care of properly. I interviewed P.R. who is a 71-year-old male that lives alone in his home. P.R. is a retired coal miner, and is currently living off his social security and savings. He lives close to both his daughter and son, who frequently help him out with things that are needed. P.R. was able to give me a lot of insight about specific challenges that he has experienced in his life that is associated with aging. I will be discussing challenges that P.R experienced physically, mentally,
Her role as a wife and a mother starts to become her daily routine, and she is not satisfied with it. She tries her best to satiate herself. She starts making efforts to achieve different approaches to satisfy these efforts but still “she does not get pleasure in her duties” (Goodwin 39), and this is the reason why she always get dissatisfaction in her life. Her dissatisfaction with this role in life also leads the narrator protagonist to try on other roles. Though she tries on many, none of these seem to satisfy her either; she "tried these personalities on like costumes, then discarded them" (Goodwin 38). Her inability to find any role that satisfies her probably contributes to her general sense of helplessness, and continues to withdraw from her family. Since she cannot find any particular role that suits her, she attempts not to have any role at all; the coldness and isolation of the undecorated white room make it seem that she is trying to empty herself of her previous life.