The Signs of Aging and Wisdom in the Elderly

Interview With the Elderly

As Cavanaugh and Blanchard-Fields (2014) assert, "We cannot understand adults' experiences without appreciating what came before in childhood and adolescence" (p. 4). The interviewee, therefore, was asked to describe her childhood experiences on the farm where she grew up. She recalled a life that was much more rugged and basic than today's childhood experiences. She described having to help with the slaughter of pigs, which she did not like, because it smelled terribly. She described the flowers that her father grew and the greenhouse that was popular. She talked about the stone house and how it was divided up among her parents and her siblings and how they would have curtains separating "rooms" and how there was no such thing as television when she was a child. These experiences clearly shaped her character and her perspective of things as she grew older and the world around her became more technologically dependent. She had an obvious not of condescension in her voice when talking about today's youth and some of her grandchildren.

She married late (in her late 20s) to a widower with five children, the oldest of whom was only a few years younger than she. With her husband she had three children before he died of a heart attack. They had met at work where she was a secretary until she had her first child and then she stayed at home with the children. This behavior was statistically normative for the 1950s though it could also be viewed as a temporal norm, since both marriage and stay-at-home motherhood has shifted in terms of cultural importance or norms.

The interviewee described the age-related changes in her life in terms of physical limitations: she could not get up without help and she could not do needlework anymore, which is what she had done for many years to pass the time. She had nothing to occupy her mind, so she slept and talked for a little while to whoever stopped to see her. She could not hear very easily anymore and needed a hearing aid, but her mind was still very sharp and she could make jokes and laugh at jokes and she remembered a lot about people, though some names and details she could not remember and this was an age-related memory loss. Thus, while her cognitive abilities were strong, they were not as strong as they once had been, and her creative activities were virtually all gone for she could not physically do them anymore.

She had never had any "mid-life crises" she said because she had always been a consistent person in terms of structure and discipline, which was accounted for by the way she grew up in childhood. Her early formative years set the tone for the rest of her life.

Her greatest pleasures of this period are in hearing and telling stories and in meeting the young spouses of her grandchildren and in seeing her great-grandchildren. The little children give her delight and a sense of happiness and joy. Their simplicity mirrors or reflects, in some degree, her own simplicity and with them she is most comfortable and at peace.

The wisdom that she shared with the interviewer was rooted in that which she learned in her early youth during her upbringing. It was based on the concept that to get ahead in life you must work hard and not be lazy. She also had common sense wisdom that she expressed, such as the idea that one should be considerate to others and not do anything selfishly.

The factors that contributed to her accelerated sensory decline in her old age were her arthritis, hearing loss, and vision loss. She also suffered from diabetes and obesity and was not very mobile. Her cognitive functioning, however, has remained very steady. Her creative performance, however, has dropped considerably in recent years as she is able to do less as a result of her physical decline. With the number of medications that she is prescribed, her cognitive ability also has declined though it is still at a very high level; it is just not where it was five or ten years prior, when she was more mobile and active. Thus there can be seen an association between physical activity and cognitive ability.

The physical needs of the interviewee were rooted in her need to be helped out of her seat and to have food cooked for her. She cannot drive but she can still walk though she sometimes uses a cane or walker for support. Her socioemotional needs are apparent in her desire for company, for someone to talk to, as she has little else that she can do. She prefers people that she knows, with whom she is familiar, as opposed to strangers such as caretakers. She does not have much interest in establishing any new relationships and would rather see people with whom she has a long-standing relationship, such as children or grandchildren or old friends. Carstensen (2012) shows that this is a typical behavioral pattern of the elderly and in the interviewee it appeared to be a normative behavior. Additionally, there was the expression of the renewal of contacts with individuals at regularly scheduled meetings -- such as reunions where the family would gather, or meetings with friends for lunch. These were important events and the interviewee expressed frustration and sadness when these events were not kept or were cancelled because of weather or illness or some other reason, which the interviewee did not view as being a very good reason.