While completing the designation for S.R.E.S. Senior Real Estate Specialist I was reminded of the differences between the generations. Today’s seniors experienced the Depression, World War II and the Korean War. They saw more changes during their lifetimes than any other generation has done; meanwhile the world moved headlong into the age of the computer.

For some people this has been exhilarating, offering new options and possibilities for communication and learning. For others it is threatening and foreign. The speed at which we live now is frightening to many older people and they resist that speed, resist change they find threatening. When we forget this, communication between the generations can break down.

When working with a senior couple, we must remember they may have trouble hearing us or can’t read the small print of documents we give them. Because they are proud they can’t admit this to us. They are not used to depending on younger people for important decisions; they may have lost their previous trusted advisors. They are now living in a new world and they no longer speak the language. What could be more terrifying than this?

When an older couple or an older person who has been widowed seeks to sell the family home and move into a different environment, care must be taken to proceed with caution and understanding. The home that has raised their children, holds their memories, may no longer serve them but they will still have trouble letting it go. Their possessions, the neighbourhood they belonged to will be lost and they feel fear. While a younger person might see this as an exciting, challenging opportunity to live more freely, make new friends, develop new skills, an older person might find the same transition frightening.As long as he remains in his old home he has a sense that things are still as they were, even though he truly knows otherwise.

Statistics suggest women tend to outlive their husbands so we have to consider the elderly widow now in a state of transition. Her generation of wives always deferred to the husband as the planner, the decision maker, the bread winner. She raised the children and she ran the house. But the husband is gone now, the children have families and concerns of their own and probably live a great distance away. She has had to learn about investments, annuities, insurance policies, social security, taxes, bank accounts. Now she has to figure out how to sell her home, most of her possessions and secure new housing while making sure she has enough money to live on to the end of her life. She might suffer from some disabling illness, she might feel depression or loneliness; she certainly feels fear and desperation when faced with the huge tasks ahead of her.

This is when she needs a network of trust and love around her to guide her through the morass. Sometimes in seeking someone to trust she mistakes the motives of people who offer help and advice. She can be very badly hurt, financially or otherwise. This unthinkable circumstance is so prevalent now that a whole new category of specialists has been developed around Elder Abuse. New law has been written and in California there are very harsh penalties for people found guilty of misguiding older people for their own profit. Nothing could be more reprehensible or frightening. This is one of the reasons S.R.E.S. was created.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Professional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.