Squished: by Peak 65
Of button sizes, Substack's glaring omission, and maybe? a way forward
My last post ended with a rallying cry that may have seemed, to some of you, like a giant cliché. Let’s all talk about this getting older stuff! No really!
Believe me, I’m aware of the maaaaany conversations about the graying of the nation, and all the scary data points that point to shortfalls in the economy and holes in the healthcare system.
But when you hear that we are at “peak 65”, i.e. there are some 11,200 people turning 65 every day (about 4.1 million people per year)1 — or that the percentage of the U.S. population that’s over 65 is the highest it’s ever been: 16.8% (55.8 million people)2 —
It’s not helpful.
We need a way to express, in words, to each other, what those numbers really mean for the millions of families and friends and neighbors who do incalculable amounts of work taking care of our older ones. This new reality of longer longevity requires new conversations about how to do this better.
A few words about kids
Think about how critical conversation is to parenting.
Put two parents in a room. They don’t have to know each other, and their kids don’t have to be the same age or at the same developmental stage. One kid might have many advantages and the other not. Doesn’t matter.
Those two parents will have a whole long conversation about sleep, poop, ADHD, money, grandparents at the holidays, the cost of car seats, how to fill out FAFSA, mucus, daycare, the whole megillah. Serve them a beverage, and they’ll go on for hours.
Why?
A) Because we love our children. And B) Because that’s how the jogging stroller got invented.
In other words, over time we the people have created a beautiful thing: A cultural conversation that’s so efficient and widely understood that it enables parents and non-parents to exchange information, sympathy, support, hacks, jokes, eye rolls, recipes — and get our needs met.
This is the type of conversation we need for older people and their overwhelmed, stretched-thin, confused and exhausted caregivers who love them. Because love is often beside the point, in the face of the maddening inadequacy of adult diaper products.
Pushing my buttons
If I talk to another middle-age person with an 80-ish or 90-ish parent, I can say, “Omg, can we do something about the BUTTONS?!,” and they’ll get it. Most buttons are too small for old eyes and shaking fingers.3 The TV remotes, the phones, the computers, the car, the microwave. I don’t even have to explain.
But outside of the Squished demographic, it’s harder to get the ideas across because we don’t yet have a commonly accepted vocabulary that reflects the brand-new reality we’re all in: i.e. needing to care for more old people than the world has ever had to handle at one time.
And in order to fix these myriad issues, at scale, we need to create a system for transmitting ideas to the larger world where the wizards of money and technology live.4
A sad but true example
Case in point: I was setting up Squished on Substack, and had to choose from 28 topics in order to categorize my newsletter. Among them: Food & Drink, Travel, Culture, Parenting, Philosophy, Finance, History, Education, Crypto [of course], etc.
BUT.
I’m sure you know where this is going:
Nothing on Aging.
In fact, there wasn’t (and still isn’t, as of this writing) a category for Old. Or Getting Older. Or Middle Age. Or Retirement, for crying out loud.
Friends: They don’t even have a category for Death. Which is a pretty glaring omission.
I mean, I had to laugh! Because here I am, working up my nerve to talk about how bizarre it all is, so that we can all bang our heads on the same wall (and, I hope, make progress) — and then the category I’m writing about isn’t here. Lol.
Yes, I emailed support@substack.com (no pressure to join, but if the spirit moves you…), and got the comforting reply: “I’ve logged your request for consideration as we continuously work to improve and expand our category options…”
Ok. Thanks.
One small step…
How to move forward? I was talking to one of my cousins about this (she helps care for her mom and now her very ill younger brother). And we were saying how tough it is to find the words to say anything about anything to anybody.
So : What if we use the lingo of parenting as a template for expanding the conversations around aging? We can start with: “She’s so cute, how old is she — about 88? 89?” And the conversation will naturally flow right into:
How is she sleeping?
How are you sleeping? [make a joke about sleep-training kids and old parents, and agree it’s not funny]
How’s her memory? [tell a cute story about how your dad carries around the TV remote in his pocket cuz he thinks it’s the phone]
Is she walking on her own, or using a cane/walker/wheelchair?
Can she follow a conversation, or watch TV? [nod sympathetically]
What does the doctor say? [shake your head and commiserate]
It’s worth a try. This isn’t the Enigma Machine, people. We don’t need a tortured genius to crack the code. We just need to start talking.
Thank you for being heeeeere! I’d love to hear your stories, comments, ideas (find me at thisissquished@substack.com), and I will never use what you share without your permission.
Yes, there are many new larger-button devices, but we need MORE.
On a related note, more about the data, Balancing act is a great new post from #NewRules
Love the buttons! specially when you have to increase the font size in your Iphone to the max to read the texts in huge fragmented words like a kindergarten book :)
And most importantly, we have to do this the way you’re doing it - with humor and grace. It will grow tired too quickly without a few laughs along the way!