Today's Senior Generation Gap
Today's seniors actually span three age groups: seniors between 50 and 65, mid-seniors 66 to 75 and seniors 75 and older.
Within each senior age group, there are generation gaps. Seniors 50 to 65 are active, involved and some represent the "boomer generation". Youngest seniors ages 50 through 60, recoil at being considered a "senior". Most are employed, saving for retirement, putting kids through college and caring for aging parents or grandparents. Their accent is physical fitness and youthfulness.
Seniors reaching 60 count the years until they can retire in a type of "pre-retirement syndrome". They see possibly a decade of employment within their view. Thus, the aura of "winding down" and hurrying to achieve life goals put them at odds emotionally and mentally with their sense of future stability....a kind of "senior life ambivalence". Inner drive and ambitions slow due to the onset of senior-type congential health problems: Adult Type II Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, phlebitis, heart disease. The aging body is at war with the still youthful mentality. Staving off signs of aging for those still employed is a daily obsession. Wrinkled skin, loss of vigor, thinning hair become billboards for seniors competing with Generation X, Y and Z for jobs.
Those 66 to 75 find new freedom and release from years of routine, work and drudgery. This group is enjoying the threshhold of a whole new phase of their lives. They take inventory, get rid of youthful dreams and replace them with treasured friends, activities and memories. They find new empathy with the aches and pains shared with their peers.
The oldest group of seniors are virtural treasure troves of experience for the young. Though some may still have vitality, all accept the reality that life is not forever. Each 24 hours becomes a treasure of greatest value.