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10.2: Understanding the Generations of Life

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    308844
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    Life course is an ideal sequence of events and positions the average person is expected to experience as he/she matures and moves through life. Dependence and independence levels change over the life course. From birth to the pre-teen years, children's levels of dependence are relatively high and adults' levels of dependence are relatively low. New-borns have little ability to nurture others, but as they are socialized and grow into their later-teen roles things change. By young adulthood, independence is a prime value in the U.S. which leads many to move out on their own and gain their own experiences. A young adult's ability to nurture is moderate, but often dormant since most pursue avenues of preparation for their adult lives rather than immediately beginning their own families. Married and cohabiting couples are much more independent and capable of nurturing and remain so throughout the grand-parenting years. As the life course progresses into later life, the oldest elderly begin to lose their independence as their health declines to the point that their resources lag behind the daily demands placed upon them. Senescence is the social, emotional, biological, intellectual, and spiritual processes associated with aging (www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj).

    For many in our modern societies, aging is feared, vilified, and surgically and cosmetically repaired. We do not like being "off our game" and senescence is viewed as a weakness. Yet many elderly find their lives very satisfying and they tend to report higher levels of self-esteem than do younger members of society. Because we tend to value youth, youthful appearance, and youthful-centered entertainment, biases appear in the U.S. Ageism is the prejudice and discrimination against a person based on his/her chronological age.

    Ageism is a unique form of bias. One may be prejudiced against another racial, ethnic, or religious group while never being at risk of becoming a member of that group but ageist people are aging right now and will be until the day they die-they are essentially biased against their own future status.


    10.2: Understanding the Generations of Life is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.