Examples from the interviews.
The researchers cite many examples from the interviews to make their case. Here is a sample:
Mrs B (aged 87), a former nursing assistant, is no longer able to keep up with her housework. "Whenever I think: 'Oh, you ought to tidy things up again!', I don't do it every time, it doesn't bother me."
Mrs M (aged 88), a retired school teacher who uses a walking frame, reflects on how she will never be able to travel abroad again. "I'll never get there [to the ocean] again - never mind. That's just the thing, you make the most of the things you've had […] Of course, it's a shame I've never been to Greece. But: so what? As a child I saw half the world." [words in italics were uttered in English.]
Mrs H (aged 86), a former laundry shop worker, speaking about her incontinence: "I can think of more pleasant things."
Mrs L (aged 84), a former unskilled assistant at trade auctions, suffers from chronic pain. "… [Y]ou take what comes. What else can you do? I can still take pleasure in this and that."
Abstract here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890406513000595
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Highlights
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- Public perceptions of old age (80 +) focus largely on deficiency and loss.
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- By contrast, elderly people (80 +) report ways in which they are able to live well.
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- Living well in old age can be associated with the capacity to “keep cool”.
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- This “senior coolness” renders personal and societal problems manageable.
Abstract
With
demographic change becoming an ever more pressing issue in Germany, old
age (80 +) is currently talked about above all in terms of being a
problem. In mainstream discourse on the situation of the oldest old an
interpretive framework has emerged that effectively rules out the
possibility of people living positively and well in old age. With regard
to both individual (personal) and collective (societal) spheres,
negative images of old age dominate public debate. This is the starting
point for an interdisciplinary research project designed to look at the
ways in which people manage to “live well in old age in the face of
vulnerability and finitude” — in express contrast to dominant negative
perspectives. Based on the results of this project, the present article
addresses an attitudinal and behavioral mode which we have coined
“senior coolness”. Coolness here is understood as both a socio-cultural
resource and an individualized habitus of everyday living. By providing
an effective strategy of self-assertion, this ability can, as we show,
be just as important for elderly people as for anyone else. “Senior
coolness” is discussed, finally, as a phenomenon that testifies to the
ways elderly people retain a positive outlook on life — especially in
the face of difficult circumstances and powerful socio-cultural
pressures.
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