Time has a funny way of slipping up on us. For me, this was never made more apparent than when I last got together with my siblings. Instead of laughing over old stories from childhood, we were discussing which of us hadn’t yet gotten a colonoscopy.
I have six brothers, and we’re all members of the baby boom generation, a group that in just a little over a year will start crossing the threshold into what has been traditionally defined as “old age.” Yet, it’s not really aging that bothers me — it’s the getting old part that’s hard to take.
I came by my reluctance honestly, having been raised by a wonderful mother who never admitted to a birthday past 39.
But what really constitutes old age? According to the Pew Research Center, the actual number changes depending upon the age of the person asked. It also seems that the older we get the younger we feel, with the gap growing along with the years. But there is an old saying: What we can’t get around, we have to face. And the reality is that the baby boomers are graying.
When I first moved here in the early ’80s, Colorado was considered a young state. Today, one in five of us is 55 or older. What we are facing is the changing dynamics of a large and aging population. It will impact how services are allocated and affect everything from housing to health care. There is a significant demographic shift headed our way, and we need to make sure that we, and the rest of Colorado, will be ready.
What does this redistribution mean for the Denver metro area, which is already home to more than 46 percent of the state’s senior population? For starters, the majority of us won’t be moving to Florida, so we’ll have to be accommodated. About 90 percent of baby boomers say they want to stay put. In other words, most of us are planning on aging in place, and staying in our homes. More importantly, we’ll also be aging in our communities.
For this to work, we’ll need to make them livable — a concept describing a place where we can not only age, but age well. And how do we do that? To begin with, good medical care will need to be available — and lots of it. We’ll want to grow older in a place where top doctors are recruited and our numerical age doesn’t determine whether we’re worth patching up.
We’ll need more long term care. For those of us who don’t get hit by the proverbial bus, the longer we live the better our chances of having one or more chronic ailments, like congestive heart failure or diabetes. One thing is certain: We must reverse the current trend of having more physicians involved in anti-aging medicine than geriatrics.
We will need help figuring out how to stay in our homes and out of facilities. It’s one of the biggest fears most of us have about growing old. My family and friends decided that when the time comes, we’ll move in together and pool our resources to hire the caregivers we’ll need. Of course, the hard part will be finding those caregivers. Previous generations tapped their families when care was needed, but baby boomers had fewer kids and more divorces than their parents, so for some, help from children and spouses might not be an option.
Formal caregivers are in short supply as well, not surprisingly due to low pay and few or no benefits. For the amount of help we’ll need, we’ll have to work together to find a solution that attracts and retains those in this profession.
If we live long enough, no doubt someone will take away our transportation options. Of course, it’s not just the car that’s lost but the independence that goes along with it. My best friend’s grandfather was the lone surviving husband in their circle and so had to drive his wife and all of her friends to doctors’ appointments and church. But boomers will want more choices than that. Mobility ranks high with us. Whether it’s pedestrian pathways, mass transit or volunteer driving services, we’ll want reliable and user-friendly alternatives.
Adding to the challenge will be who and how we will pay for all of this. Those working to support the dependent groups will be stretched thin. According to Denver’s Summit on Aging report, the 2005 age distribution in Denver resulted in a ratio of 47 percent, which meant there were roughly 47 dependents for every 100 working-age people. But in 2035, an 82 percent ratio is projected.
The road ahead of us will be challenging as we come to terms with both our own aging and how to create a place that supports the needs of such a large and older population. There is no one right answer to address these issues, but the communities that get it right will reap the benefits. Planning in the metro area has already started with the creation of an Age Matters task force, but we all need to be involved and add our voice.
But getting may not be as bad as we might have thought it would be. The Pew research found a pretty sizable gap between the expectations that younger adults had of old age and the actual experiences themselves. The older adults reported fewer negative issues — but also fewer benefits, as well. There’s no denying the downsides to getting old: memory loss, loneliness, feeling like a burden. Still, out of those 85 and older, only 1 percent said their lives had turned out worse than they expected. I’ll take those odds any day.
No matter how many times we may try to convince ourselves that 60 is the new 40, the years are passing. But instead of making it up as we go along, baby boomers now have the chance to redefine the concept of aging. We could change society’s idea of aging in such a way that before long everyone would want to do it.
We are a generation to whom much was given. And despite our intentions or youthful predictions, maybe we didn’t change the world. But we still have the chance to change the way the world looks at being old. Together we can create livable communities that celebrate life at every age. We can make Colorado our place; not just to age in but to live in as well.
Debbie Reslock (dreslock@q.com) of Evergreen is a partner in Reslock and Sullivan, an architectural and planning company.
