As Gen X and Boomers Age, They Confront Living Alone

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/us/living-alone-aging.html

by wallflower • 4 years ago

49 59 4 years ago

nytimes.com

RosanaAnaDana2• 4 years ago

We need a version of hackernews that dismisses paywalled/ adwalled/ crap walled content.

slang8002• 4 years ago

I'd be happy with a browser extension that replaces all the paywalled links on HN with archive links.

johnea2• 4 years ago

The new york times is easily read by disabling all javascript and cookies...

johnea2• 4 years ago

Which is really the way you should surf the intertubes anyway.

Do you just enjoy being a (lonely) data harvesting resource?

RosanaAnaDana2• 4 years ago

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.

mellosouls• 4 years ago

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.

shagie• 4 years ago

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/27/us/living-alone-aging.htm...

gala8y• 4 years ago

Thanks

slang8002• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/SxVta

mahathu• 4 years ago

That shift presents issues on housing, health care and personal finance.

I wonder why it leaves out the adverse effects on mental health of living alone, which are arguably the worst of the bunch.

toomuchtodo• 4 years ago

From the piece:

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.

dash22• 4 years ago

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.

la647102• 4 years ago

You have to make a small distinction between groups that are alone and unhappy AND groups that are alone to be happy.

To each his own I say.

dash22• 4 years ago

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.

pessimizer2• 4 years ago

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.

copperx• 4 years ago

I wouldn't go as far, but certainly, the death of the multi-generational household has brought tragic consequences.

api2• 4 years ago

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.

whynotminot2• 4 years ago

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.

aliqot2• 4 years ago

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.

api2• 4 years ago

Modern culture makes it easier than ever for people to reach each other but it also makes it easy for people to isolate and live alone.

Quite a few people seem to choose the latter even though it usually makes people less happy and less fulfilled.

Or… does it? I know more than one person who lives alone because they got too tired of drama.

I don’t live alone but have a pretty good relationship with my SO. If I had a bad one and could not repair it, living alone may be preferable.

RestlessMind3• 4 years ago

In some form or fashion, this is how things have always worked. The young take care of the old

The young take care of the old in their own communities, where the said old have spent a lot of energy and resources bringing up those young. FTFY.

aliqot2• 4 years ago

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?

hn_throwaway_99• 4 years ago

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.

shortcake27• 4 years ago

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.

jasmer• 4 years ago

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.

WBrentWilliams• 4 years ago

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.

EasyTiger_• 4 years ago

Why does US media seem to get a stiffy out of others' despair?

35amxn353• 4 years ago

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.

riotnrrd• 4 years ago

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.

tsol2• 4 years ago

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.

nitwit005• 4 years ago

It's hardly just the US media.

It got shared, it got up votes, people are discussing it. The results speak for themselves.

throwaway128128• 4 years ago

Denmark's got a great solution: https://journal.theaou.org/news-and-reviews/the-popularity-o...

Too bad such a thing would be deemed "socialist" in the US.

poulsbohemian• 4 years ago

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.

35amxn353• 4 years ago

Wtf? Why would "co-housing" be deemed socialist? Is sharing an appartment with roommates deemed socialist in the US? Is couchsurfing?

gruez• 4 years ago

Denmark's got a great solution

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

nytesky• 4 years ago

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?

hall0ween• 4 years ago

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.

As Gen X and Boomers Age, They Confront Living Alone

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