What Will You Do When
YOU Can No Longer Drive
This talk was delivered as a panel member before a California Commishion on Aging field hearing on Senior Transportation in early June, 2009.
My name is Rabon Saip, and I appreciate this opportunity to speak on a topic of such importance to me. My particular interest in elder transportation is guided by the fact that I have a background in clinical psychology, including the psychology of ageing. From my study and research into the history of old age, I am aware that our society is currently on the verge of some radical changes, not only in the way we view ageing, but also in the way we do ageing. As for now, however, we are still in the throes of a difficult period of transition.
Many years ago Winston Churchill made a statement which I think is even more relevant today. He said: “We are changing the world faster than we can change ourselves, and we are applying to the present the habits of the past.”
Most of us want to live long enough to become old, but hardly anyone wants to BE old. We have added years to our lives, but struggle with our capacity to add life to the years we have gained. In other words, ageing well from a psychological point of view lags far behind the increase we have made in sheer biological longevity.
It is a statistical fact that most of you in this room today will outlive your ability to drive. Think about that. Consider all the places you have gone during this past week; your work, your recreation, your shopping, other appointments. Can you imagine getting through that week without your car? And don’t think that just because you will become an older adult your need for transportation will be diminished; in fact, it may well increase. So what will you do when you can no longer drive?
Until that day finally comes, and it will, you cannot fully appreciate the reality of how your license to drive is synonymous with your dignity, your self-respect, your social membership, your independence and quality of life. Until that day finally comes, when you are no longer in control of your mobility, and therefore your freedom; when, after decades of driving, you are suddenly relegated to a marginalized level of vulnerability and dependence, you cannot possibly realize the full impact it can have on your life.
Due to my visual impairment (I am legally blind), I was forced to stop driving over 20 years ago. And, as a non-driver in an auto-centric society, I am constantly struggling with how to get to where I need to go, when I need to get there.
In just the short time I have here today, I would like to broaden this topic to make a point. Aside from my focus on volunteer driver programs, I am currently a member of an Older Adults Substance Abuse Work Group, through the Planning and Prevention Division of the Sonoma County Health Department. And, I am personally developing a PowerPoint presentation about the “Hidden Epidemic” of prescription drug and alcohol misuse among older adults. I mention this in today’s context because the issue of chemical dependency misuse among older adults is intrinsically tied to the life changes that typically occur after the cessation of driving.
One of the most cogent things I’ve ever read about ageing is this: “Ageing is universally experienced - without regard to race, class, income, education, religion, or gender - yet for the most part, it is experienced in isolation.” It is this isolation we must address, and the drastic, demoralizing changes in the elder’s self-perception.
Seniors, or as I prefer to call them, Elders, will some day be encouraged to grow into new roles, will be far better integrated into society as they learn to define and potentiate this new stage of the human life course.
The idea of “graduating from driving” has a much more positive connotation than “giving up” your driver’s license, or “quitting.” One model I have found in my research, initiated by the Central Plains Area Agency on Aging in Wichita, Kansas, developed a proactive approach to driving cessation. This consists of two key elements: planning ahead for retirement from driving, and learning to drive safely longer. The premise of this dual approach is that the decision to stop driving should be intrinsically motivated and made by the individual for him- or herself. I haven’t followed up on this particular research, but I am in complete agreement with the idea of empowering elders to make the final decision about no longer driving for themselves.
However, from my experience, until we can provide a viable and dignified transition plan from the independence of driving to the dependence to not driving, our elders will hang onto their car keys for dear life; because, dear life is exactly what those car keys represent. Believe me, as one who has gone through it, the cessation of driving can be the equal to a cessation of life.
What I propose is careful attention to the humanistic aspects of this transition, not to unnecessarily psychologize, but to facilitate programs that include support groups for those who have graduated from driving, along with those who will soon be doing so, and perhaps even the children of these elders. The idea is to avoid the isolation that leads to depression, substance misuse, and even suicide. Older adults do in fact have the highest suicide rate of any age group.
So, what I’m proposing is a wrap around process for elder drivers that begins BEFORE they decide to cease driving. This could begin with a reference from the DMV, or friends and family, to a place where driving retirement can be seen as a new phase of life, and discussion of related issues can be shared with others in the same circumstance.
Caring support and education will make this difficult time more bearable, perhaps even a relief. This kind of socialization, along with a volunteer driver program to ease the transition, along with education and gradual introduction to public transportation, will counter the serious health problems, both physical and mental, that often follow the cessation of driving.
The ageing among us, who have done their part for our society, deserve no less. And, those of you who will some day be in the same situation, also deserve no less. Thank you.
The Geezers’ Crusade
By DAVID BROOKS
February 1, 2010 - We like to think that in days gone by, the young venerated the elderly. But that wasn’t always so. In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s morose character, Jaques, calls old age “second childishness and mere oblivion.” Walt Whitman hoped that the tedium and pettiness of his senior years would not infect his poetry.
Developmental psychologists, when they treated old age at all, often regarded it as a period of withdrawal. The elderly slowly separate themselves from the world. They cannot be expected to achieve new transformations. “About the age of fifty,” Freud wrote, “the elasticity of the mental processes on which treatment depends is, as a rule, lacking. Old people are no longer educable.”
Well, that was wrong. Over the past few years, researchers have found that the brain is capable of creating new connections and even new neurons all through life. While some mental processes — like working memory and the ability to quickly solve math problems — clearly deteriorate, others do not. Older people retain their ability to remember emotionally nuanced events. They are able to integrate memories from their left and right hemispheres. Their brains reorganize to help compensate for the effects of aging.
A series of longitudinal studies, begun decades ago, are producing a rosier portrait of life after retirement. These studies don’t portray old age as surrender or even serenity. They portray it as a period of development — and they’re not even talking about über-oldsters jumping out of airplanes.
People are most unhappy in middle age and report being happier as they get older. This could be because as people age they pay less attention to negative emotional stimuli, according to a study by the psychologists Mara Mather, Turhan Canli and others.
Gender roles begin to merge. Many women get more assertive while many men get more emotionally attuned. Personalities often become more vivid as people become more of what they already are. Norma Haan of the University of California, Berkeley, and others conducted a 50-year follow-up of people who had been studied while young and concluded that the subjects had become more outgoing, self-confident and warm with age.
The research paints a comforting picture. And the nicest part is that virtue is rewarded. One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls “generativity” — providing for future generations. Seniors who perform service for the young have more positive lives and better marriages than those who don’t. As Vaillant writes in his book “Aging Well,” “Biology flows downhill.” We are naturally inclined to serve those who come after and thrive when performing that role.
The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.
Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control.
Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of G.D.P. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending.
In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come. In the public sphere, they take it away.
I used to think that political leaders could avert fiscal suicide. But it’s now clear change will not be led from Washington. On the other hand, over the past couple of years we’ve seen the power of spontaneous social movements: first the movement that formed behind Barack Obama, and now, equally large, the Tea Party movement.
Spontaneous social movements can make the unthinkable thinkable, and they can do it quickly. It now seems clear that the only way the U.S. is going to avoid an economic crisis is if the oldsters take it upon themselves to arise and force change. The young lack the political power. Only the old can lead a generativity revolution — millions of people demanding changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren.
It may seem unrealistic — to expect a generation to organize around the cause of nonselfishness. But in the private sphere, you see it every day. Old people now have the time, the energy and, with the Internet, the tools to organize.
The elderly. They are our future.
NY Times