I Don't Feel Old: The Experience of Later LifeDrawing on several hundred printed and recorded autobiographical recollections and life story interviews with three generations of families, this book by Britain's preeminent oral historian provides a unique view of later life. Little has ever been written by historians about growing older in earlier generations, and because sociologists and gerontologists, policy experts, and health researchers have concentrated on problems--reinforcing common images of old age as a time of dependence, incapability, and withdrawal--the typical experience of aging today has never been revealed. The men and women in this study--ranging in age from their sixties to their eighties--reject these derogatory images. They have met later life as a an active challenge, and tell of meaningful, fulfilling lives. |
Contents
Glimpses of a Lost History | 19 |
The Autobiographers | 44 |
At the Edge of Living Memory | 62 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
Abrams reported active Ageing and Society Agnes Dunbar attitudes autobiographies Bill Duncan Brunel University childhood close clubs contrast couple dancing daugh daughter death died earlier early elderly empty nest experience farm Farningham father feel old felt friends garden George Lansbury girl grand grandad grandchild grandchildren granddaughter grandfather grandma grandmother grandmother's grandparents grandson granny husband interviews Jackie knitting Lancashire later less lives London longer look marriage married Mary Wesley mean memories middle-class mother never night nurse old age old lady old people's older Oxfordshire parents patterns pension physical relationship remarried remembered retired role Rowntree's Sadie King Scots seventy sister sixty social sometimes stay stereotypes talk there's things thought Tiverton typical walk week widow wife woman women workers workhouse working-class young younger