Crabby's Senior Center Blues

On various occasions, when ranting about the age discrimination in the workplace, Crabby Old Lady has assailed the “experts” who offer the same-old, same-old advice for job seekers older than 40 or 50. It never varies over time or from person to person, and is always insulting:

• Update your skills
• Omit dates from your resume
• Be enthusiastic and energetic
• Update your wardrobe
• Get a new hairstyle
• Etc.

One demented fool directed older job seekers to get cosmetic surgery if they expected to be hired.

How do these folks think we have worked all these years without constantly updating our skills, buying new clothes as necessary, getting a haircut and all the rest. The advice and its repetition tells Crabby more about the prejudice of the job search experts against older people than it does about job searching.

Lately, Crabby has been reading a lot of about senior centers and has become convinced that their directors are moonlighting as job search experts - or vice versa. Like the employment advice, the principles senior center operators say they are based on all sound the same from expert to expert and senior center to senior center:

• Successful aging begins with a positive attitude.
• Aging well requires confidence in oneself.
• Successful aging is defined as maximizing one’s potential.
• Keeping busy with activities keeps you healthy.
• Eat right and exercise.

Such a plethora of meaningless platitudes Crabby has not heard since the last presidential address. Do these senior center operators believe no one knows these things?

It is the banality, lack of imagination and condescension that bothers Crabby. Most senior centers offer the same activities – bridge, painting, ceramics, cooking classes - and with the exception of a computer class some centers throw in, the activities all sound like busy work to Crabby.

Many elders become socially isolated and lonely due to a number of factors. They no longer have the daily camaraderie of the workplace. Families may live far away. Old friends die. A place to meet others who would like some companionship seems like a good idea to Crabby. But most of the senior centers Crabby has been reading about are so brain dead-sounding that they may as well pass out doses of soma as people arrive.

There are a few senior centers that offer a better mix of more interesting activities and appear to be vibrant, appealing communities. But there are not nearly enough of them. Crabby has been wondering if the cause is those offensively simplistic platitudes about aging that senior center directors regularly regurgitate. It is not that they are false; it is that any meaning or usefulness is lost in the academic monotony of them.

Comments

[notdotdot]

Great evaluation!
How can it be fixed? (Who's in the driver's seat?)

[Darlene Costner]

Years ago I visited two Senior Centers thinking I might find interesting new friends. What I found was anything but;I never went back. Some do provide exercise in the form of social dancing and others have Bridge and Pinochle card games which is stimulating for those who enjoy the activity. There are others that take escorted trips out of state at competitive rates. Having said that, I still avoid them.

[Dee]

Many years ago, my DMIL, then in her 60s, visited Florida with her (second)husband. They were thinking of retiring there. On return she said...."No way I'm moving to Florida. It's full of old people." That's how I feel about senior centers. Instead I opt for yoga once a week. Diverse in age, gender & professions, it is the place to be. And oh do we laugh & have fun. Dee

[Cop Car]

As I see it, ninety-nine percent of the "self-help" books for people of any age are filled with useless trivia--and they are insulting in intimating that reasonably intelligent people couldn't come up with their own "solutions" without reading the book. Still, there must be a lot of desperate people out there: the books sell...and sell...and sell. People look for answers in all of the wrong places, be it in a book or a bottle or an advisor. We are the only ones who can solve our own problems.

Until I can provide better advice than is being offered by the books (or by the senior centers or by the employment advisors), I can hardly raise Cain with those who are trying to be helpful. What happens if, alternatively, the advisors say, "Don't ask me!" when someone comes looking for the answers to lifes problems? The advisors don't make a living and/or feel bad about not trying to help, and the seekers get no solice. Maybe it's worth a shot. I'll practice my "Don't ask me"s. *grin*

What sort of advice would you and your other readers give the seekers?

[Rain]

My parents and parents-in-law enjoyed senior center activities but I have never even thought of going to one until I read this. I am certainly the age, and then some, to be going; but I didn't figure the activities would interest me. They are trying to appeal to everyone and that means they have to be very politically correct and maybe that's the problem with providing activities of interest to someone like me.

If they offered discussion groups on spirituality, which I realize is always tricky; travel groups where they explore places they have been or want to go; political information groups, book or movie clubs, those are things that might attract me to give it a shot. I have favored, as some of your commenters mentioned above, groups of mixed ages, but I wouldn't mind being with all people my age and could see benefits in it-- but it sure wasn't something I had been considering.

[Bob Frank]

Excellent analysis on aging, peoples' attitudes, senior centers etc. I turned 72 last week and had prostate surgery a month ago and now as my doc said this morning "slowly move into your regular life". Indeed I'm about ready to workout with my weight/aerobic training program. In the mid 70s my parents moved to Florida and my family visited them every year for 10 years. I learned that it's not the place for me in retirement. Too many people the same age living in the same community. It lacked diversity.
Five years ago I was shopping for a fitness center. I visited my local senior center and could not leave fast enough with people sitting playing board games and the bulletin board filled with trips to nostalgia concerts, gambling halls etc. It was like Florida in my local senior center.

In response to Cop Car's question regarding advice to the seekers I would say "Stay current". That was the advice my grandfather gave me when I was 18. He meant don't get stuck in the past with your thinking and action. Get involved in current events. I would suggest Cop Car that's what you are doing now--blogging. Also my close friends energize me with their diverse views and interests. Where and if possible take adult education course that match your interests.

[serene ambition]

The larger cultural problem you are talking about is the result of an interpretation that people are objects. (e.g. I think therefore I am). If we buy into this worldview, and most of us do, then success whether in a job or after retirement depends on 'fitting into' the 'right behavior', look, slot that the circumtances define. I am not an object and neither are you, so we have a choice and it is that choice that can empower us to invent who we are and our way of being in the world so that age is nothing more or less than a record of how long we've been playing the game.

Senior centers can be fun if they are member created and operated -- as 'social services' they are little more than 'day care centers' for people who are judged as incapable of taking care of ourselves. How about creating "People Centers" and design some cross-generational programs?

[Bonnie]

An example of an alternative to senior centers in a university town is our Osher Lifetime Learning Institute. The fee to become a member is nominal, and the charges for classes or lectures is also small. There are guest speakers, special events, travel-study tours, a Readers' Circle, Converstion with the Artists, and a long list of current affairs groups as well as language classes. You pick whatever interests you and go occasionally or regularly. I have met some really fun and interesting folks with wit and wisdom and curiosity. I was asked to lead a group after I had attended a while.

Incidentally, it is named Osher because of a grant acquired through the Division of Outreach and Distance Education. I believe these grants are available all over the U.S.

[Cop Car]

Bob Frank--You have perfectly illustrated my point. "Keeping current" (AKA "update your knowledge") is one of the "platitudes" that Ronni mentioned. It's hard to improve on that particular one, in my view.

It just occurred to me that, a month or two after I retired, I joined a jaunt from our local senior center--to tour a B-29, "Doc", that is being restored to airworthiness, locally. As an aircraft structures engineer, the tour was right up my ally. Most of the people restoring "Doc" had worked on the original production line and are, thus, at least in their 70s. An interesting bunch to talk to (and there were lots of women!) I do read the monthly summary of what's going on at the center, but that is the only activity in which I've yet participated.

[Joared]

I think you have made an interesting point here about the banality of many senior center offerings. Maybe we should compare offerings of each of our centers, select ideas we'd like to share with our centers leaders.

Here's what our Senior Services Centers offer:
Daily hot lunches
# Art
# Beading, Sewing and Knitting
# Bridge
# Pinochle
# Adult School
# Computer -- This dynamic group of computer "techies" and "want-a-bes" meet every Tuesday; weekly workshops on Fridays in their computer lab and offer great classes.
# Creative Writing
# Cultural Lectures (has included survivors of Holocaust, Japanese Prison Camps WWII, Russian Gulag, Afgan re history of that part of world as impacts world events today.)
# Current Events
# Dance
# Drawing and Art Appreciation
# Exercise
# Foreign Language
# Genealogy
# Paper Arts
# Poetry
Shakespeare/Play Studies - trips to live stage theatre productions

They do have periodic organized trips, some of which develop. within any one of these classes.

Participants need to take some responsibility for offering suggestions, promoting what they want.

I like the Adult Ed classes, creative writing, computer classes, foreign language i.e. French most of which meet at night; some have day and/or evening classes.

I agree with all those who said they prefer an environment that included diverse age groups, people with differing interests.

Glad to read your observations here, Bob -- you have an interesting blog.

[Xtreme EnglishX]

Blows my mind when people "over 40 or 50" consider themselves SENIORS!!! or OLD!!! They've got calendaritis, methinks. jaysus...I've got KIDS over 40!!

[Doctafill]

I've been retired 2 and a half years. Did all kinds of home renos, volunteered, took a few adult ed courses and work part time. But I have been looking for something new in part time work as I am a dance floor person and not a sideliner. I check the internet and newspaper daily. The only jobs I see are telemarketing, working in stores, construction...I taught 27 years and already worked in stores when I was younger. I'm thinking of going back to school full time to learn web page building so I can have another career. Not interested in looking back, want something new that fits my creative side. I'm going to the information session on the web page program and figure I may be the oldest one in the class if I decide to take the course. I wonder what they'll think when they see a 63 year old woman applying. A certain part of me wants to force change this ageist baloney. Lets see what happens. I was in Mexico & met 2 groups of Elderhostel tourists. Can't imagine being on that trip. They all do the same thing at the same time. I talked to some of them & got mixed reviews about how they liked E. I knew it wasn't for me. I hate being herded about like a zombie.

[doctafill]

While I'm at it, all this junk about improving your looks and etc. I'm sick of these phony lines. I inline skate, snow shoe, ride a bike, walk, and kayak. So don't tell me to get in shape. My hair is cut properly, I take no medication, am fit, healthy and could knock Paris Hilton and Britney Spears heads together like kettle drums. Sick of reading about these Hollywood twits. By the way, Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger is in top shape at 63.) were the biggest moneymakers of all singers last year. Top that.

[Gina Foster/England]

How very interesting to read these comments. I consider myself very much of an onlooker here. Knowing I have painting, sewing, keyboard practice, not to mention keeping house and garden in order, and not wanting to do any of it ,and, as one blogger said, never getting to finish those half read books makes me feel weary enough...The Osher thing sounded up my street and I may look for something like that here in England. My husband likes to 'cloud watch'. It drives me mad but because he has worked till 65 I honestly feel he is entitled to do just as he pleases. I would like to look at the sea every day but he will not move. A question here. You all sound really bright clever people. Do you find yourself doing things that your other half will not participate in?