 "Photo: Julie Cosgrove")
It’s a wave, it’s a tsunami, it’s the graying of America! Baby boomers are reaching the age of retirement and are creating a huge demographic shift.
As a Silver Panther (baby boomer), I was intrigued when I read of a gerontology conference, “Links for Life,” offered by Chaffey’s Gerontology program on April 23. As part of the aging boomer generation that is expected to dominate our demographic picture, I thought, “Wow, this conference is about me! Better find out what’s in store for us.”
The conference pulled together academics, professionals, students and people from the community to show students the opportunities in a wide-ranging field expected to grow exponentially. Much of it was like a pep rally, touting job satisfaction as a major benefit of the field.
Catherine Bacus of the Gerontology Program pointed to the fact that America is getting older. As seniors age, their needs will create challenges and problems for them and their families.
The upside of this demographic change is that there will be jobs created, especially in caring for frail older adults, often at the end of their lives. “Don’t worry,” she said about the current recession. “[The jobs] will come.”
Chaffey College appears to be in the forefront of this wave. It is one of 15 out of the 110 California community colleges that offer a gerontology program. Some of the classes are designed for members of the community as well as for professional development, for example, a class helping students deal with family members who have dementia.
The keynote speaker of the conference was the Reverend James H. Covey, Chaplin and Executive Director of Inland Valley Hospice Association.
“All of us would like to think when we reach the end of our days that we mattered,” he began, “that we were a giver, that we made a difference to someone. And we would like to think that our lives meant something.”
Hospice caregivers can help give their clients that validation by learning to be good listeners.
Although their clients are dying, it is not depressing to work in a hospice, he said, “because you get to work with real people with no agenda, no anything. And they give you permission to be you. Don’t you wish the whole world was like that? Non-manipulating, willing to listen, to affirm you? What a wonderful thing.”
The rest of the conference alternated between discussions of various vocational opportunities in adult education, culinary arts (food services), relocation services and hospice care. But the point made over and over again was the fact there is a great deal of job satisfaction to be had working with seniors and even with frail seniors at the very end of their lives.
Wayne Scott, director of food services at Claremont Manor, after a lifetime as a professional chef, discovered that he was spending much of his time in the dining room talking to people.
“And the stories you hear are absolutely amazing,” he said. “One of our residents helped institute the public broadcasting system, one helped design casings for the first atomic bomb. And you become part of their family.”
Lorine Stoikowitz of Gentle Transitions told of her job helping seniors make a move that is often not of their own choosing, to a senior facility or nursing home.
“Everyday I’m not just moving a person from A to B,” she said. “But I’m also walking the journey with this person for this time and it’s amazing what you can pick up. We allow them to tell us what is important to them, who they were when they were young and strong. It’s so immensely rewarding.”
Former student, Judy Schamaden concluded the testimonials noting that she had worked as an executive secretary and as a teaching assistant but nothing compared to the satisfaction she gets when she makes a connection.
“Finding that soul,” she calls it. “When they’re hunched and bent over and you have to get down on your hands and knees to look in their eyes and you know that there’s someone still there, that moves me.”
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