Life and love in old age
Whenever I put up my own comments on this blog it is almost always in the form of comments on something somebody else has written. But this time I am going to put up some thoughts that do not respond to something somebody else has written. And that in a sense is the story.
Stories about personal relationships are very frequent in the media. And if the mainstream media are not source enough for such stories, there is always medium.com which offers tales about relationship difficulties at least daily.
But the odd thing about what I see written on the matter is that all the stories are about people in their reproductive years. Stories about people older than that are pretty much restricted to Hollywood and other celebrities. And articles that purport to HELP and guide older people with relationship difficulties seem to be quite absent. Yet there are a lot of old people about. They are an increasingly large segment of the population. Do none of them have relationship problems that could be helped by experienced advice?
Older people do in fact often have relationship difficulties, with the death of a partner being a major cause of that. So for one reason or another there are a lot of older people wanting a new partner. And if that search is difficult for young people, it's even more difficult for older people. Older people are more set in their ways and so find it difficult to make the changes and adjustments that a new relationship inevitably requires.
So accounts of how relationship difficulties have been overcome in peoples' later years would undoubtedly be helpful if not urgent. Many old people die alone. They have usually once had a partner but have failed to repartner after losing the one they once had
So I hope that I will help to get the ball rolling on discussions of partnering in later life by offering a brief account of my own experience. Most of what I have to tell is particular to me but I think there are some wider lessons.
I am 80 but was fortunate to find a new girlfrend only a bit younger than myself a couple of years ago. And we are pretty firmly glued to one another. We have had our storms but the relationship has survived them. So what challenges were there and what was needed to make the relationhip survive?
We do have large incompatibilities. We have radically different opinions on matters political, historical and medical for starters. They are differences greater than what most young people would tolerate. So how and why have we coped with that?
Basically we have just looked past the negatives and enjoyed the positive. And at the base of that is that we simply like one another. Cupid's arrow has struck with all its usual unpredictability.
And a great help is that we both have small needs for physical intimacy. We do have such needs but our needs are similar. So that is a major source of satisfaction for us. It is for instance an objectively small thing but we enjoy having an afternoon nap in one-another's arms. At all ages, mismatched physical needs can be a problem but we satisfy one another's small needs in that department. I doubt that we would still be together except for that important satisfaction that we give one another. So even in old age the physical can be important
So if there is a lesson I can offer it is a very old one: The importance of focusing on the positive and a recognition that tolerance may often be required at least as often in old age as it is in earlier years. My girlfriend never stops trying to convert me to her view of matters important to her but I amiably refuse to be converted and she tolerates my refusal to convert. So large amounts of tolerance can be needed. But when I look into her bright eyes amid a smiling face it is all worthwhile: "Bright eyes Burning like fire"
JR
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Generation Z has serious problems. It has serious advantages, too
by Jeff Jacoby
Generation Z was the first in history to experience a childhood and adolescence focused more on screens than on unstructured play with other kids.
THERE ARE an estimated 2 billion people in Generation Z. As it happens, two of them are my children, which is probably why I am drawn to reading (and sometimes to writing) about how their cohort is doing.
A flood of words have been devoted to the topic, and many of the reports are discouraging.
Two landmark studies of the generation born after 1995 — Jean Twenge's iGen, published in 2017, and Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, which appeared in March — are replete with data documenting that members of Gen Z are much more likely than their predecessors to be unhappy, mentally fragile, lonely, withdrawn, or depressed. The two psychologists (Twenge teaches at San Diego State University, Haidt at New York University) argue that what fundamentally distinguishes Zoomers from the generations that came before them is technology: They were the first to grow up on smartphones and social media, and therefore the first not to spend most of their formative years playing in the company of other children or engaging in unstructured and unsupervised exploration. Screens became central to their daily routines and social connections.
The result was what Haidt has called the "Great Rewiring" — a shift from "play-based childhood" to "phone-based childhood." It turned out to have ominous consequences. Study after study confirmed, in Twenge's words, that "all screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness." Beginning around 2012, as the first Gen-Zers were reaching their mid-teens, a mental health crisis was underway. Reports of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among the young began to soar. Most alarming of all, suicide rates for adolescents spiked, rising 91 percent for boys and 167 percent for girls.
Like countless other parents with kids in Gen Z, I know only too well how addicting screens are to teens — and how hard it is to impose limits on their use. But I also know that societies adapt to transformative technologies. Smartphones and social-media apps will not escape being regulated, either through legislation or through litigation. Public attitudes will change, too. It wasn't that long ago that much of mainstream America smoked cigarettes. At the turn of this century, 35 percent of young adults used tobacco, according to Gallup; today the rate of smoking among the young is just 12 percent — and only 7 percent among college students. Before the youngest Gen-Zers (born in 2012) are out of their teens, we may similarly see a marked easing of the mental health crisis.
In any case, mental health is only part of the Gen Z picture. By other measures, especially those related to wealth and work, their age group is doing pretty well.
Many Zoomers themselves, of course, are prone to lament that they face vastly greater economic hurdles than their parents did at their age. Online, it is easy to find videos of solipsistic and self-entitled young people bewailing their financial circumstances or the expectations placed on them in the workplace by their Gen X or millennial bosses. (In surveys, those bosses concur that Gen Z employees can be exceptionally difficult to work with.)
And yet, as The Economist observed last month, "Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich."
Worldwide, Gen-Zers are entering a workforce bursting with historic job opportunities. Unemployment among the young is lower than it has been in more than 30 years. In the United States, hourly wages for workers younger than 25 jumped by 13 percent last year; for those between 25 and 54, by contrast, the year-over-year increase was just 6 percent. "This was the highest 'young person premium' since reliable data began," noted The Economist. In other countries, too, Generation Z workers enjoy a similar advantage.
When compared with the cohorts that preceded them into the workplace, Gen Z is much more likely to have a four-year college degree and much more likely to have money in the bank. Citing research by the American Enterprise Institute and Federal Reserve, The Economist reports that the average 25-year-old today earns an annual income of more than $40,000, outstripping (in inflation-adjusted dollars) members of every previous generation — millennials, Gen-Xers, baby boomers, and the silent generation — when they were the same age.
Boomers like me had a 35- to 40-year head start on Gen Z, so naturally we are more likely to have more substantial life savings, to own property, and to be less in need of a side hustle for money. But that will change as the Zoomers supplant us — which they are already on the point of doing in the workplace. Time and the power of compound interest are as ineluctable as they have always been. Today's teens and twentysomethings may be waiting longer than my generation did to move on to the responsibilities (and the pleasures) of adulthood, but so did Gen X and millennials. One encouraging marker: Gen-Zers, despite, or perhaps because of, the greater levels of loneliness they grew up with, overwhelmingly say that serious relationships are important to them. Newsweek points to survey research in which 93 percent of Gen Z respondents say they are interested in marriage. If true, that is a deeply hopeful development.
Generation Z will come through these anxious years, and then they will catch up with and surpass their parents. Every generation does. Twenty years down the road, how astonished they will be when the cohort that they raise grouses about not having it as easy as their parents did. To those of us waiting patiently to become grandparents, what a pleasure it will be to hear our grandchildren voice that complaint.
https://jeffjacoby.com/27807/generation-z-has-serious-problems-it-has-serious
********************************************Tesco apologises as Black magazine publisher ‘racially profiled’ and offered bananas
LOL
Tesco has apologised after a Black publisher says she was “racially profiled” while shopping and then offered a bunch of bananas after she complained.
Serlina Boyd, 42, was with her two children at a branch in Hampshire when she says was followed by two security guards for no apparent reason. When she challenged them and asked to see the manager, she says he then offered her the fruit.
Ms Boyd sent a formal complaint to Tesco, questioning whether the supermarket’s staff members undergo adequate diversity training.
She received an apology, but was told the only action was “where appropriate they have refreshed their relevant training”, which she condemned as “not good enough”.
Describing her ordeal, she told The Independent: “I actually avoid going into the local supermarkets as much as possible because I don’t want to be profiled.
“It’s as though Tesco needs a handbook about how to deal with Black people in their stores.”
“I was racially profiled. Tesco - and all supermarkets - need to look at how they treat Black people when they come into the store, that the system has to change.
“Black people should not automatically be treated as though we are criminals. I do want to see Black people treated fairly when they go into a supermarket.”
In 2020, Ms Boyd launched the UK’s first major magazines to celebrate Black children, Cocoa Girl and later launched Cocoa Boy, a few months later. Copies of her magazines used to be stocked in the store where she was approached.
She added: “This needs to be told because so many people are saying that they’re experiencing similar treatment and Black people have the right to go shopping without being treated in this way”.
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Rising number of men ignore domestic violence orders
I am not going to be popular for saying this but we need to recognize what lies behind attacks by men on ex-partners, murder-suicides in particular. It the man's sense of loss. Usually the pair have had a relationship that the man is pleased and proud about, accompanied by a probably realistic feeling that if he loses that relationship he will never be able to get another such relationship. So when a woman takes that away, he is hugely angered by the loss. And anger does often motivate violent and revengeful behaviour.
So that does point the way towards a possible solution to the problem. In brief, the man's needs should be recognized and all possible steps taken to minimize his sense of loss. I am not going to say exactly what steps should be taken as that will vary with the individual circumstances but one simple thing that could work well in some cases would be for an ADVO to trigger a visit by a social worker to talk to the man in a supportive way. That should be automatic and urgent immediately an ADVO is granted. Ever since Freud, psychiatrists have recognized the curative power of talk and that may be all that is needed to save the woman's life in some cases
I hasten to add that what I have just said does not in any way reflect my own experience. My four marriages all ended amicably and even now at age 80, I still have an attractive girlfriend
Domestic violence offenders are increasingly disregarding ADVOs at alarming rates in NSW, new analysis shows. The first three months of the order are the most dangerous period for victims.
The Herald’s analysis of ADVOs over a five-year period has found a rise in the number of offenders breaching ADVOs even amid a police crackdown, while punishments are becoming less severe.
The number of orders breached was up 35 per cent from 17,057 to 22,969 in the five years to 2023.
The proportion of offenders being sent to jail for breaching an ADVO, when that was their principal charge, also showed a decline, according to NSW Criminal Courts Statistics from July 2018 to June 2023.
Over the same period, fine penalties increased as a proportion of court outcomes from 12 per cent to 21 per cent from 523 to 1412.
However, this data fails to capture every ADVO breach in NSW, as it counts only those defendants who have been found guilty of and sentenced for breaching an ADVO if that is their main offence.
The danger period for victims, the analysis found, was the three months after an ADVO was issued. The rate of ADVO breaches or domestic violence reoffending was highest in these three months.
Last year, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found that extending the length of an ADVO from 12 to 24 months was linked to a decrease in the probability of further DV offending. However, longer ADVOs were associated with significantly higher breach rates.
Experts say the increase in breaches is concerning and that it could be reflecting a combination of more actual breaches, a rise in breach reporting, as well as a targeted police crackdown on domestic violence, including the formation of a squad targeting the worst offenders.
Domestic Violence NSW senior policy officer Dr Bridget Mottram said the perpetrators of violence were often at their most angry and vengeful in the immediate aftermath of an ADVO being taken out. She said the rise in reporting of breaches to police and more proactive policing also would have resulted in the number of offences increasing.
“It’s also an element of boundary testing – the perpetrator seeing what they can get away with, which a breach charge reasserts the boundaries for,” she said.
“It’s significant to note, as well, that the NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team have found that most women who are murdered by a previous partner had ended their relationship within three months of the homicide. This is an exceptionally dangerous time and where it’s imperative that we have systems in place to keep victim-survivors safe.”
Man raped ex-wife as children slept next door
In another disturbing example of an ADVO failing to protect a woman, one offender broke into his ex-wife’s home several months after being handed the order and raped her for hours as their children slept in the next bedroom. Sentencing documents released by the NSW Supreme Court detail how the offender, who had recently separated from his wife, had been barred from going near the victim or finding out where she lived.
His breaches started with texts asking if he could visit her house to pick up a scooter for their child. On another date, he asked to collect a beach towel. The mother declined both requests.
On October 25, 2021, he asked the young child where his mother lived, and after hours of drinking, he broke into the house and walked into his ex-wife’s bedroom.
The sentencing remarks read: “She came face to face with the offender, who grabbed her by the throat and said, ‘hello [woman’s name]’.
“It caused the victim pain. The offender pushed the victim towards the bedroom, leading her by holding her throat, and said, ‘guess I’m really going through with this after all … My heart is racing’.”
He was sentenced last month to a maximum of 12 years in jail.
Women’s Legal Service NSW principal solicitor Philippa Davis said police and courts must take all breaches seriously.
“If victim-survivors are not believed, or they are told it is just a ‘minor’ or ‘technical breach’, the seriousness of the ADVO is downplayed, and this can lead to perpetrators continuing to disregard the ADVO,” Davis said.
While Davis was pleased to see an increase in the number of ADVO applications being made by police, she said the legal service consistently heard from clients who felt police failed to respond appropriately to their reports of violence.
“[This data] doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t capture those circumstances where police don’t take action,” she said.
Davis said a combination of factors might cause repeat offending within the first few months of an order being issued.
“For some, it could be a lack of understanding as to the particular orders and the restrictions placed on what they can do and where they can go,” she said.
“For others, though, it will be a blatant disregard for the AVO as they continue to assert power and control over a victim-survivor and ensure she continues to fear for her safety and that of her children.”
The Herald recently joined police on a four-day domestic violence blitz as they arrested 226 people for serious offences.
At the time, Superintendent Danielle Emerton, commander of the domestic and family violence registry, said police treated all ADVO breaches seriously.
She said her team used criminal profiling to detect “dangerous offenders” who posed an elevated threat of causing serious harm to victims and they performed regular compliance checks on offenders serving out ADVOs.
The Herald also recently revealed Lismore man James Harrison had been served an ADVO to protect his ex-partner, doctor Sophie Roome, three months before he allegedly killed himself and their two-year-old son.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See