Old age is a part of human life that normally everyone has to face someday. It is an unavoidable part of life. What is old age or at what age should we start to call a person old? Is it the age when a person retires from their job or is it the age when their children are all married and give them grand children to play with or is it the age when their body gives up from inside or is it the age when they get so old that their faces gets all wrinkly or is it the age when they starts to behave like a child?
There is no definite answer of an old age or at exactly which age should people start to consider themselves as old people. Old age in reality varies from person to person. Some people say they feel old at the age of forty and some say they are still young at the age of sixty.
Some people’s body give up at the age of thirty and some other people feel young and fit at the age of seventy. So we can safely say that the old age is a thing of our mind, if we consider ourselves to be old then we are old or else we are not. Different people have different opinion about it.
However, a time comes in everyone’s life when they feel old from the inside and they think that they should just give up and this time usually comes to someone’s life when they have lead a long life. This people then start accepting the old life like any other individual out there. So, we can safely say that old age varies from person to person like their way of thinking.
According to the legislature of our country, people who are of the age of sixty are classified as old people and people who are of the age of eighty are classified as super old people. Here also even the law cannot exactly say that which age is called the old age. Age is just a number and nothing else. When someone feels from inside that they have become old, they can consider themselves as old people. So, a person become of old age when they feel like it from the inside.
Meaning of old age according to the Dictionaries
In Oxford Dictionaries it is written hat old age means – the later part of normal life or the state of being old and in Cambridge English dictionary it is said that – the period in a person’s life when he or she is old. Both of the meaning is same and just written in different words.
By saying the later part of life, they are talking about the time of life that usually comes after youth. But it does not refer to the time that comes immediately after the youth because a person immediately after their youth days does not go to old age.
This time generally comes when the life lead by the people are near the death’s door or in another terms near the end of the human life cycle. Even here no specific years are mentioned. It just says about a long period of time that may or may not be the old age.
Characteristics of an Old Age person
It is a little difficult to say that a person has become old. But there are certain characteristics by which someone can say that the person has become old. Some of those characteristics are as follows –
- When a person becomes old, they start to have problem with their hearing capability and with their eye sight.
- They get wrinkles all over there body including their face.
- Old age people have white hair as with age, the hair starts to turn white.
- They start to fall sick easily as their immune system weakens with age.
- They usually have grandchildren around them.
- They start to get irritated with little things and start to lose patience easily.
- When they turned extremely old or near their death bed, they start to behave like a little kid. After all old age is also called as second childhood. This time generally comes at the later period of old age.
Problems faced by the old people
When a person goes near to the end of life he displays certain characteristics, as mentioned above. At this time dealing with them gets difficult but not impossible.
During this time the best way to deal with these people is by letting them have their way and caring for them like people care for their child and giving them the love which they deserves. If people do these then dealing with the old people will not be a big problem.
However, that is not how it happens. In this generation, adults consider their parents who have become old, as burdens. No matter how much unethical it sounds, it is the cold truth of reality. These old people never expected that when they will become old, they will be a burden for their children.
The adults of our generations, does not want this burden so they try to get rid of their parents by sending them to the old age home. Old age home is a place where many old people lives and stay there till they die while occasionally getting visits from their children.
In some cases, after the adults send their parents to the old age home, they hardly ever come to visit them. These old people at this age have to start over their life. The only consolation for them is that, they are not the only ones who have this fate.
So, starting over their life becomes a little easier for them as they are around people who face the same problem as them and can find solace in each other. They after getting over the fact that an old age home is the place where they will spend the rest of their lives, start to open up more to the others and enjoy themselves as much as they can.
In an old age home, old people are taken care of and love by the caretakers of that place but all the love in the world cannot come close to the happiness that they would have felt if they were to remain on their homes and were taken care of by their children and grand children.
At an old age home, the old people create a new family who may not be related to them by blood but are related to them by the pain that they felt when they came to an old age home.
Spending the rest of their lives in an old age home does not happen to every parent. There are many old people who live in their home only under the care of their children.
This people are lucky that they do not share the same fate as other unfortunate people of their age who has to spend the last days of their lives in an old age home where they are taken care of and loved by some other people who are not their blood related family.
Conclusion
A person becomes old when they give up on their life and thinks that they have turned old. Old people have the most experiences in their life and are the wisest. But after they become old, their characteristics changes quite a bit as it become their time to take rest and to be taken care of.
Sometimes they feel that their opinion does not matter in the family which may not be the case. This is why this old people need the love and care that parents give to their new born kids. However, some old people are unfortunate enough that after they become old, they are sent to spend the rest of their life in an old age home.
In an old age home they do get love and are taken care of but this does not compensate the hurt that they felt when they realized that the old age home has become their new home.
No person deserves that. The old people should get all the love and care that they deserve from their family. They are at the last stage of their life. They should leave this world with a smile on their face and not with an aching heart.
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