Interview with an Elderly Woman: Aging, Memory & Life

Childhood Experiences and Their Lasting Influence

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 was therefore 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 enjoy because of the terrible smell. She described the flowers her father grew and the greenhouse that was popular in the area. She talked about the stone house and how it was divided among her parents and siblings, with 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 on things as she grew older and the world around her became more technologically dependent. There was an obvious note of condescension in her voice when she talked about today's youth and some of her grandchildren. Her early formative years set the tone for the rest of her life, and she never experienced any mid-life crisis, she said, because she had always been a consistent person in terms of structure and discipline — qualities she attributed directly to the way she was raised.

The wisdom she shared with the interviewer was rooted in what she had learned during her upbringing. It was grounded in the belief that to get ahead in life one must work hard and not be lazy. She also expressed common-sense wisdom, such as the importance of being considerate to others and not acting selfishly.

Marriage, Work, and Family Life

She married late — in her late twenties — 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 employed as a secretary until she had her first child, after which she stayed at home to raise the children. This behavior was statistically normative for the 1950s, though it could also be viewed as a temporal norm, since both marriage rates and stay-at-home motherhood have shifted considerably in terms of cultural importance and social expectations over the decades.

Physical and Cognitive Changes in Old Age

The interviewee described the age-related changes in her life primarily in terms of physical limitations: she could not get up without help, and she could no longer do needlework, which had occupied her for many years. With little left to engage her mind, she slept and talked for short periods with whoever came to visit. Her hearing had diminished significantly and she required a hearing aid, but her mind remained sharp. She could make and appreciate jokes, and she remembered a great deal about people, though some names and details escaped her — a sign of age-related memory loss. While her cognitive abilities were still strong, they were not as strong as they once had been, and her creative activities had virtually disappeared because she could no longer physically perform them.

The factors that contributed to her accelerated sensory decline included arthritis, hearing loss, and vision loss. She also suffered from diabetes and obesity and had become largely immobile. Her cognitive functioning, however, remained relatively steady. Her creative performance had dropped considerably in recent years as a result of her physical decline. The number of medications she was prescribed had also contributed to some cognitive slowing, though her overall functioning remained at a high level — just not where it had been five or ten years earlier, when she had been more mobile and active. An association between physical activity and cognitive ability is thus apparent in her case.

Her greatest pleasures during this period came from hearing and telling stories, meeting the young spouses of her grandchildren, and seeing her great-grandchildren. The little children brought her delight and a deep sense of happiness and joy. Their simplicity mirrored, in some degree, her own, and with them she felt most comfortable and at peace.

Conclusion

The interviewee demonstrated that her cognitive capacity had not substantially declined in her old age, but that her physical limitations were severe and that these negatively impacted her cognitive function over time. Her main concerns were for socioemotional connectivity with familiar persons — whether friends or family. The wisdom she had to offer came not so much from abstract social judgments, which she was not lacking in, but from her upbringing on a farm where particular virtues and ways of behaving were impressed upon her and ingrained in her thinking. These, she suggested to the interviewer, were methods of conduct that all people would do well to follow.

References

Abel, V. (2013). Insight into psychology of aging. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-31glZYYr8

Carstensen, L. (2012). Emotion and aging: Exploding the misery myth. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhrrbQCElw

Cavanaugh, J. C., & Blanchard-Fields, F. (2015). Adult development and aging (7th ed.). Stamford, CT: Thompson Learning.