The Age of Dignity by Ai-Jen Poo (with Ariane Conrad)

c.2015, The New Press

$25.95/$32.50 Canada

230 pages

The plates you ate from years ago are still stacked neatly in the cupboard. Below them, instruments of love: cookbooks propped up by a battered mixing bowl, an ancient percolator and a cookie jar that’s filled, as it should be.

Those are scraps of your childhood but to your mother, they represent home – and you’re hoping, as she ages, you can keep her there. In The Age of Dignity by Ai-Jen Poo (with Ariane Conrad), you may find the strength to do it.

As her beloved grandfather lay dying in a nursing home, Ai-Jen Poo felt tremendous guilt. He’d been a vibrant, active man who hadn’t wanted that kind of death – but it’s what he got, much to the chagrin of his family.

“The great majority of us want to live and age at home,” Poo says, and most want to be there as long as possible. So why do we treat getting older as “a crisis” – an expensive one, at that – by putting our elders in care facilities they don’t want?

Part of the issue, she notes, is with a rising population: 100 years ago, 1 in 25 Americans was over age 65.

Five years from now, that number will be 1 in 6, and over 1 million elders will be without family to care for them.

“These are,” says Poo, “astonishing statistics.”

But along with rising population, we lack enough gerontologists and home health care workers; the former, because it “isn’t profitable,” the latter because it’s a job with “innumerable challenges, among them low wages … and inadequate training.”

Still, says Poo, “taking full responsibility for the care of an aging relative is … not necessarily a real option.” That can leave children and spouses frustrated and trapped – especially if they’re women, upon whom the burden traditionally falls.

What can be done, she believes, is to change our attitudes toward immigration. Two-thirds of childcare and eldercare workers are foreign-born; “half of them are undocumented.” Embracing the Village Movement can help, as can investing in “The Care Grid” and using technology where appropriate.

But first, it all starts “with respectful communication in our own homes.”

The Age of Dignity is a unique take on an issue that, if you’re over the age of 40, you’ll likely face soon enough. It’s filled with anecdotal evidence of success and other ideas that may prove viable – but this book is not without its controversy.

Through the use of dozens of stories and (alas!) repetition, author Ai-Jen Poo (with Ariane Conrad) advocates keeping elders at home as long as possible – something few of us can argue against. The quarrel may be in the idea of employing, among others, undocumented immigrants and in the creative rearranging of government dollars, neither of which are popular topics in some circles.

Even so, no matter where you stand on the greater issues, this book is a starter for conversations long overdue.  If you are someone’s child, a spouse or concerned about yourself someday, The Age of Dignity will give you food for thought.

 

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to Terri in care of this publication.