Selfishness

I am slowly developing a theory about aging that I don't really like.  In general I resist the notion that as people age they become cranky, hard to get along with, self-centred and rigid in their views.  Whenever someone tells me that they think that older people are overly self-focused I feel the need to point out that personalities don't change all that much over time (as confirmed by many studies in psychology).  It follows that anyone who is selfish later in life probably always was.

However, I am collecting anecdotal information on this issue and this has prompted me to question my defence of the elderly.  First of all, my husband has been fully retired for many years.  One of the most common views about retirement and one of the things that people say they look forward to the most is being able to "do what I want to do when I want to do it".  My husband certainly lives by this creed.  The bulk of his time is spent doing what he wants when he wants.  What I've noticed is that the more he has had the freedom to live this way, the more he wants to.  In other words, if there is something I want him to do (or something someone else wants him to do), and it doesn't perfectly align with what he wants to do, then we have a problem!!  Getting him to shift off his agenda isn't easy.  It stands to reason that if, in retirement, most people are able to indulge themselves doing what they want, there may be resistance to giving this up in order to please someone else.

The second phenomenon I've been noticing has to do with people my age who are trying to help their parents.  A youngish sales woman the other day told me that her parents live in a small town in Quebec and are reaching a point where they can't really manage a large house and property.  Her mother accepts that it is time to downsize and to perhaps move closer to their daughter in the city.  Her father doesn't see it this way at all and is extremely reluctant to sell, to downsize and to move.  Their daughter is a single parent and is trying to juggle fulltime work, being a mother, and also caring for her parents at a distance.  While she understands her father's reluctance, she feels he doesn't appreciate how hard it is for her to help them when they live two hours away.  He doesn't seem to be taking into account the impact of his choices on her.

I do believe that it is important in later life to be living in the place you want to be, but it is also important to appreciate the impact of your choices on your adult children who really want to be of help.  Decisions around where to live should, at the very least, take this into account.