Veneration is an initiative of Gen Xers and Millennials challenging our peers and our elders to communicate, plan and innovate in response to the challenges and opportunities of our rapidly aging society.
When I graduated from college I seriously debated cutting off all contact from my mother. Our relationship was so toxic by that time that I could hardly last 24 hours at home before fleeing to neutral territory. The medication that had once controlled her mood swings had stopped working, and she fluctuated from raving, hateful [...]
By Laurie Miller, Founder, Apple Care & Companion – I have never really appreciated the snow cone. It melts a little too quickly, then it drips on you and you get sticky. Your tongue and lips become dyed an unnatural color. All for what? A little shaved ice with sugary flavored syrup? I really [...]
A few days ago my dad called me with a big question. He’d received a notice from the university where he’s currently teaching: an offer to purchase long-term care insurance. He was looking for advice. Long-term care insurance is a product that helps provide for the cost oflong-term care beyond those covered by private health [...]
A whole new interdisciplinary field has evolved to study the pursuit of happiness. What makes us happy and how does that change throughout our lives? A 2010 study found that globally, both men and women get happier as they age. Other studies have found a statistical ‘U-bend,’ indicating that people are, in fact, unhappiest at [...]
Walking through my neighborhood this morning I passed a building I’d never noticed, a big regal brick structure with a plaque that says ‘Graham Home for Old Ladies.’ It’s now a condo in an up and coming neighborhood, but according to local blog the Brooklyn Rail,the home was built in 1851 by paint manufacturer and [...]
My step-mom was in town yesterday and wanted to see the Cindy Sherman exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Art critics see Sherman’s (self-) portraits as narratives of the female role in society. Among her early portraits you’ll find her inhabiting the role of a coed, domestic goddess or movie star, then splayed numbly [...]
“If there is one thing we should all be working on, it is preserving the environment.” – Mary Catherine Bateson, septuagenarian writer and cultural anthropologist. This Earth Day we want to honor the work and dedication of older Americans who are leading the fight for environmental preservation. Gray is Green (the National Senior Conservation Corps) [...]
By Meghan Richards, Brooklyn College class of 2013 ‘Do you have advanced medical directives?’ the professor asked my class. The classroom went silent. What is an advanced directive? I asked myself. I learned that they are legal documents that contain your medical wishes, in case you are no longer able to speak on your behalf. [...]
Taking over your own tax prep might is up there on the list of rites of passage into American adulthood. Into my early twenties my dad insisted it was easier for him to just do them for me. After grad school, when I finally considered myself respectably employed, I insisted on taking them over. Still, [...]
By Jeanne Heifetz, via Ian Millhiser - Dear Friends, One of the first people I met canvassing for Obama during the Pennsylvania primary in 2008 was a 98-year-old resident of North Philly who had retired from a lifetime as an auto mechanic and become a self-taught sculptor and painter. Born in segregated South Carolina, he had [...]