Aging Differently

I have been interested in issues around aging for quite a while, having watched my parents go into assisted living and then die. They were not rich by any means, and they had six kids to boot, but Dad was a college professor who eventually became a college president, and he was good about socking away retirement in TIAA, the financial services company serving many in academia. They were of the Greatest Generation and those savings along with Social Security gave them a comfortable retirement.   

But I could see that theirs would likely be the last generation to live that reality. I saw how much they paid monthly for assisted living and wondered how I would ever be able to afford that myself. I saw their kids jumping on planes to help in emergencies and felt my lack of offspring acutely. I noticed that all the people working in my parents’ facility in Florida were immigrants and wondered what would happen to this workforce if there was a big crackdown on hiring foreign-born workers.   

And I read the excellent series in the Santa Fe New Mexican about what the state is facing in terms of aging. It’s a microcosm of the larger issues facing the country, and so far, I see no significant push for big policy solutions, even though aging loved ones, and caregiving for them, affects thousands of people.   

So I was eager to hear from Emily Kaltenbach, the state’s new Aging and Long-Term Services Department secretary, about how her agency plans to address challenges around getting people in New Mexico services and helping caregivers. The state does have a lot of money right now, but so much of this world also relies on Medicare and Medicaid – and that future looks pretty uncertain right now with the Trump Administration’s push to cut costs across government.   

Kaltenbach joined me for an interview on this week’s episode of New Mexico in Focus and, though we covered a lot of ground, it was clear we could have kept talking for hours.   

However, I have also been interested in the potential of tapping older adults’ knowledge in ways we are not doing right now. I heard Chip Conley on a national show several years ago talking about how this last third of life could be an amazing time of reinvention and discovery. As one heading into this time, I was inspired. Also, I was aware of the ageism in our society, both towards younger generations and older people, and I wanted to hear from someone who cuts through all that to a new way of thinking about how we can all work together and focus on solutions. We now have five generations in the workplace, and we need to be able to bring all these skills to bear in this complex world. Plus, many people may not be able to afford to leave the workforce.   

When I learned he was bringing his Modern Elder Academy to New Mexico, I set up an interview with him on KUNM. Now that it’s up and running, I wanted to touch base and see how he’s helping people realize they still have great years ahead of them. We spoke on last week’s episode of NMiF.

So hopefully these two interviews offer an authentic look at the challenges we all face, as well as practical wisdom for how to think about aging differently.  

– Megan Kamerick, KUNM News Director and NMiF Correspondent