Kids of Older Parents May Behave Better
This post on Yahoo Lifestyle calls out a Dutch research project analyzing almost 33,000 Dutch children between the ages of 10-12 and whose parents were 16-68. The ages cited don’t really add up so i am thinking that it might have been the ages when parents had the children, but I tracked down the study here (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.13267) in case you want to look into it further.
While this is an opinion piece, I can relate to the questions about having a child later in life and it’s good to know that potentially having a more mature outlook on life can help in providing a stable environment for kids to grow up with good social standards on behavior. But no story is one sided and I would disagree with the author in this post that the why’s may be unimportant (i.e., regardless of the why’s). Socioeconomic factors play huge roles in analyzing data like this and it should be noted that in all big data sets we look at a population as a “whole” and make conclusions - accepting that these conditions are not “exclusive”. There are plenty of young parents with well behaved kids and plenty of older parents with kids that fly off the rails from time to time. Plus we need to look at what the definition of well behaved is...
However, if we find out why’s (like financial stability, more confidence in individual identity, broader social networks, etc.) what we can all start to do is move behavior to help those who might need it more - how could we help younger parents adjust better? Single parents adjust better? etc. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent or child, but what I take away from something like this is that age shouldn’t be the reason you don’t have a child - bringing in the life to this world is a blessing to your soul and being and I can think of no other gift I have been given in my 43 years that comes close to my family and my chance to be a dad.
Must Read Article on Ageist Rhetoric
I read this brief article on by Charlotte Albright and couldn’t agree more about her stance on the need for us to move away from accepted ageist rhetoric. I would even carry it out further and expand the concept to terms like millennials, “youth” and more. The political environment has been calling out concerns about energy levels or brain function of older candidates and I think we all just need to take a step back and think through what we really want - the best candidates possible.
In this editorial she talks about how we focus on the challenges with an aging population and rarely reflect on the opportunities. We have to note the challenges and prepare for them (just like addressing the increased debt held by today’s young adults) but we also have to assess potential. If there is a large group of people with great ideas and wisdom who are freeing up time, how do we engage that group to improve our communities? How can we take their individual and collective wisdom to make sure that we pass on the best of us to our future? Please read it to understand that past 60, 70, 80 and more, contribution is not necessarily weighed by what year you’re born, but rather by what value you continue to bring - value is not age defined:)
Every Big Hack to Date
CNET posted a piece outlining the major hacks of recent years. It’s helpful to see the scope and breadth of the attacks and the kinds of information that have been compromised. There are things we can do to help take a more active role in monitoring our credit and our identities given today’s landscape of data theft. It is doubtful that we can stop it or protect ourselves completely.
Frank Abagnale who helps the AARP Fraud Watch program identify and inform people about what is happening noted that the free credit reporting programs after a breach are nice, but largely ineffective because of the shelf life of the data that was compromised. He talked at Mohegan Sun and I created a summary of that program that you can find here https://static.wixstatic.com/ugd/e0c6e1_978c489fdc0c4967a0c753894f71da77.pdf.
But posts like this one from CNET are very helpful in illustrating the issues we face when large companies do get hacked. They need the data to provide us with the convenient services we desire, but that information is valuable to people looking to defraud you out of money and / or steal your identity. Data security is something all of us are going to have to be more vigilant of in the future.
Caregiver: Getting a Loved One to Bathe
This Column in the Globe Gazette of Northern Iowa addresses some of the unique challenges one may face when someone they care for no longer thinks bathing may be necessary or when a loved one has a hard time knowing they “need” to bathe. They reference a group which is important when taking on the role of caregiver-we learn and pick up tips when we share and discuss all the things we deal with.
I encourage people who may be dealing with this to read this column and / or perhaps follow it in the event there are more articles for caregivers with loved ones suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia. There are 4 immediate tips given in here that could help right away.
