I'll try out an extreme point of view here. Modern culture has failed, we need to replace it. One third of 50 year olds living alone is as good a symptom as any. You could mention the birth rate also. The two are obviously connected.
Am I right? Is that too nuts? I just don't see how this ends well. We have effectively socialized old age care, and now we are expecting future generations, an ever-shrinking group, to pay for the pensions of people they have never met.
> We have effectively socialized old age care, and now we are expecting future generations, an ever-shrinking group, to pay for the pensions of people they have never met.
In some form or fashion, this is how things have always worked. The young take care of the old. It's not really a problem, so long as you have enough young folks around.
I think your first paragraph is right--modern culture is failing at giving humans the connection they need. That's the real problem we need to figure out. Taking care of old people is just always going to be A Thing We Have To Do until we all get issued a robot or whatever.
We're also perpetuating values like fierce independence. This has an effect as everyone is focused on me-me-me rather than finding a mate. To this style of rhetoric, finding a mate is succumbing to the status quo, and surrendering to common relationship ideals.
The last two decades have aimed at perpetuating dependence and collectivism, not independence. Part of that is emphasis on feelings, feeling good, aiming for self-fulfillment, claiming one's entitlements, and resenting achievements of others. Destruction of the nuclear family is one of the intents.
The side-effect is people being old and alone. Being married, becoming a "breeder" is offensive and oppressive (again, collectivist rhetoric, not the rhetoric of independence), because it "perpetuates the patriarchy" or "it continues systemic racism" or "advances white European values and disenfranchises minorities."
You'll find all of this out there, and not a lick of it is advocating independence. Quite the opposite.
Seeking a mate and raising children used to be considered a duty to society, where, as a side-effect, and not the main intent, you got assistance in old age, and provided assistance to your children in raising theirs.
You're right that seeking the side-effect is wrong-headed and selfish.
Well for one, I think it's the first time that "It's better to die alone than to settle for someone who isn't ideal' is commonly agreed with. People feel they shouldn't waste their time, they will only sacrifice for a relationship with someone amazing. There was once a time this was seen as selfish. It still is in a lot of places, in fact.
No, you have flawed logic ;) you're expecting logic from people.. ?
If you into a relationship expecting perfection, you will always be sadly mistaken as people are imperfect. Entering the relationship contract this way is "bad faith" but not unheard of.
I'm glad that you've never had to deal with it, but in reality it happens.
it is easier to reach each other only if you have a bond with them. I can video call my family with a few taps. But it is harder to make those bonds in the first place.
I have a multi generational household right now with my father staying in our finished basement. It’s working out very well, but we also have a fairly big house in the Midwest. I’m not sure it could work for us in a small place. It’d be hard for my wife and I to have a relationship or any intimacy.
Other cultures deal with this though. I’m sure it can be done. There’s ways to build privacy into a small place. Did it in college. But it would require some changes to how we expect to use the space, something more like a dorm with common areas than a traditional house.
Sure. Are most people single in their 50s by choice, as in they would prefer that to being in a relationship with children? I doubt it. Even if they are, if they're relying on being supported by the next generation, that is still leaning on outsiders, and the outcome may be quite disappointing.
> Are most people single in their 50s by choice, as in they would prefer that to being in a relationship with children?
Firstly, There have always been — though I dislike the term — leftover men and women recluses and spinsters. People don't exist as sperm donors and incubators whose only purpose to form a family unit. They have rich lives as individuals.
Secondly, the question to ask would be a choice at what cost? I'm sure any naif would answer affirmatively to having a relationship with children. But those who are aware of what the question implies — the surrender of opportunity and free time, the fiduciary duty to spouse and child, the peer pressure and stress from society from without and one's SO from within, the potential for everything to fall apart at one's expense even when doing everything right — will rightfully be more uncertain about whether such a relationship is worth pursuing. No one in this universe has a choice as to someone else's behaviors, and, as a result, the only "reliable" metrics are semi-controllable tradeoffs (i.e. freedom vs loneliness, financial security vs fiduciary obligation) and an ability to judge character.
> I doubt it. Even if they are, if they're relying on being supported by the next generation, that is still leaning on outsiders, and the outcome may be quite disappointing.
What's the difference? Most people on Earth don't become their parents' geriatric specialists. You'll be depending on outsiders whether or not you have children. In fact, kids especially rely on outsiders to comfort of them, feed them, medicate them, make cheap products for them, teach them, and transport them, for about two decades. And by that point they'll have their own lives with their own demands.
The biggest difference is that a lot of the tasks you mentioned (feeding, medicating, teaching, transporting) can be outsourced to other random young people. But it is hard to get love and caring from someone who interacts with you on a purely transactional basis. I haven't yet seen any effective replacement to the joy grandkids can bring to grandparents. Or a warm Thanksgiving meal with family around the table.
TBF, friends can replace some of the roles families used to play. But intergenerational friendship is still rare and as you get old, your friends are also getting old and cannot care for you the way a younger family member would do.
Nothing happens without reason and some of those reasons maybe due to choices made earlier in life. Take responsibility for those choices , and most importantly if someone is feeling lonely please consider to wholeheartedly getting involved in volunteering and helping others. It is not a replacement for a relationship but it opens doors to human connections. Life is impermanent , we come alone and go alone , whatever time you find in this planet try whatever ways you can connect to others.
You don't really. You just have to make the assumptions that 1) the proportion between the two groups isn't radically increasing recently in favor of people who want to be alone, and 2) that when a higher proportion of people who are alone report being sad about that and sadder and sicker in general as compared to people who are not, they're not trying to trick you.
> But while many people in their 50s and 60s thrive living solo, research is unequivocal that people aging alone experience worse physical and mental health outcomes and shorter life spans.
I look at this issue and see a market failure. Maybe it is not corporately profitable to provide the pile of services that a population aging in place need (welfare checks, transportation, food, housing...) but it should be possible to build the infrastructure to create the raft out of parts of a solution. Maybe a mix of formal (paid-for) and informal (volunteer, value-add) services. I see this as a necessity for people that do not at the moment face this "cliff". After all, spouses die, children leave and/or live far away. Any person in a stable situation at the moment could easily find themselves in need of these services.
My spouse and I have talked about if one of us dies after we empty the nest, we want to Golden Girls setup with fellow retiree roommates. Wonder why that died out?
I reason it’s because culturally we don’t include friendship as important when making life decisions (career, living situations, child reading, etc.). We live in increasingly small units.
Devils advocate for the sake of debate: We're breaking a lot of relationship norms in the recent generations, why shouldn't being married in a nuclear arrangement be one of those?
But you aren't really advocating for anything. "Breaking a lot of norms recently" isn't really an argument, unless you have some specific argument for why lots of elderly people living alone is a good thing.
It’s very common for the older generation to persist in toxic relationships, because a) “till death do us part” and b) anyone who didn’t want a nuclear family was “not normal”. Modern generations are realising they don’t need to live a life they don’t enjoy, which leads to more isolation. I would rather live alone than live in a bad relationship. Not saying this is the sole cause, but it would definitely be a factor.
That norm is definitely mostly broken. While I suppose we should always question old norms, we probably should apply at least as much scrutiny to new ideals as well. Despite some gains here and there (and some of it irretrievably important), I don't think we've really figured it out on the social front at all, and we're losing almost as much as we are gaining.
IMO it's simply because it gets clicks. People love to see the issues they care about being featured, and this is a issue that is important to a lot of people.
It's because they do. The NYT loathes the average American. They get a hard-on when talking about 'deaths of dispair' in 'flyover countries'. Makes sense considering who owns it.
Oh, please. This is such a dismissive, bad faith statement it should be deleted. Nobody at the NYT "loathes" the "average" American. They do not get sexually aroused when reporting tragedy. Be a better person.
I think the broader point is to prevent them from getting in front of eyeballs in the first place. If a view of hackernews is available where paywalled content can't make it to the top, this puts the onus on people promoting paywalls to change their behavior.
> this puts the onus on people promoting paywalls to change their behavior.
The amount of onus this delivers has to be calculated using infinitesimals. Especially compared to the amount of money delivered by paying subscribers.
It would also be nice if the original submitter (especially frequent ones, who should know better, tho this isn't aimed at anybody in particular including the op) make the effort to post a non-paywalled link at the same time in the first comment rather than the "hit-and-run" approach of many of them. Or if it's a common news story then post from another site instead.
Not nearly as pathetic as assuming that the 8 billion are (a) essentially fungible from a relationship standpoint (b) equally eager to engage in a relationship with anyone who likes (c) within reasonable proximity and that's just a start of the assumptions you probably didn't even do enough thinking to know that you thoughtlessly made.
On the plus side, coming in hot with a low-value comment frosted with general contempt for an entire class of people does narrow down where in the 8 billion people someone might look for rewarding companionship by at least a value of one, or provide you with the opportunity to bask in the kind of disagreeable engagement and connection you seem to have indicated you prefer, so I guess that's kindof nice.
Must be an extrovert. It’s easy to be lonely in a crowd and in fact the crowd having strong interactions can drive it home. Different strokes, eh. Be empathetic with those unlike yourself.
It's hard to be sympathetic when these boomers choose to be alone, not marry, and not have kids. What did they think was going to happen when they got old?
We have a lot of friends / acquaintances in their 60s and 70s, especially women, who live alone. We've surmised they should all start a meal club. As in, none of them like to cook for one, but if they each took one night per week to cook for the "team" it would be easier on all of them. Co-living and/or support networks make a lot of sense for various demographics.
What's the solution? I skimmed the article and I'm left confused as to what exactly "co-housing" entails. Is it just a college dorm situation where multiple people live in one building with separate rooms and shared common areas?
>Too bad such a thing would be deemed "socialist" in the US.
I hate statements like these with a vengeance because:
1. it instills a defeatist attitude that we will never be able to get the change we want because of opponents
2. it asserts without evidence that the opponents are cartoonishly evil/ignorant
Am I right? Is that too nuts? I just don't see how this ends well. We have effectively socialized old age care, and now we are expecting future generations, an ever-shrinking group, to pay for the pensions of people they have never met.