assigment homework
Changing American Family
Chapters 9 -11 Assignment
Chapter 9
1. Read this from the Children’s Defense Fund’s State of
Children 2014
http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/state-of-a…
Give me a synopsis and tell me why children in poverty are not being well-served and if you think this situation may be getting worse and how with the economy as it is right now. How might the increasing numbers of young women having children without being married affect this?
2. Next, read these statistics about child care. Why is child care such a big issue for families and children. Please include comments about cost and quality. Why is good child care vital to the families in this country?
http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/data/child…
Chapter 10
1. The main website we will be working with is
https://agingstats.gov/
Pages 2-12
Look at the following questions and answer them
⦁ What changes can you see in the composition of the elderly population?
⦁ Observe the differences in marital status and living arrangements between men and women. Why do you think these differences occur? Which elderly are more likely to end up or be in nursing homes?
⦁ Observe also the geographical distribution of the elderly population. Why is it so imbalanced?
⦁ Collectively what do these statistics say about the ‘average’ person over 65 year of age?
2. Read the introduction on ageism below from Lasell College. The article is found below Chapter 11 questions. With baby boomers beginning to age (the first of them turn 71 this year) ageism may become a bigger issue than it already is. Please write a brief synopsis of how this article makes you think about ageism in America. Are you guilty of ageism ? How do you feel about older people– what is your perception of them? Does this article change your perception?
3. This last question will look at the elderly in your life. If you do not have grandparents, think of family friends or neighbors. Who is providing assistance to these people? Who are they providing assistance to? How does the family interact with this generation- are they close, distant, or what. What I want is a paragraph or two on how these elderly relate to this chapter—are they typical or atypical?
Chapter 11
I want you to focus on all the materials we have had, especially the websites that are within your lecture notes. These need to be looked at carefully in order to do justice to this assignment. You will have longer to do it because we are spending two weeks doing this chapter.
Please write a short essay on two of the three following subjects (1 page each essay) on what you learned about:
1) domestic violence
2) child abuse
3) date rape
End each essay with a paragraph of what you think should be done to prevent this from further occurring.
Read the article below for Chapter 10 #2
Combating Ageism: A Matter of Human and Civil Rights
Robert N. Butler, M.D.
The world is experiencing an unprecedented increase in average life expectancy and population aging, described as a revolution in longevity. In the twentieth century, the industrialized world gained some 30 additional years of life, greater than had been attained during the preceding 5,000 years of human history and transforming what was once the experience of the few to the destiny of many.
In primitive societies, old age was frequently valued. Older persons often provided knowledge, experience, and institutional memory that was of adaptive—even survival—value to their societies. Although nomadic groups in various parts of the world abandoned the old and disabled when safety and security were at stake, overall older people were venerated. However, as the number and percentage of older persons, especially the frail and demented, increased, the perception grew that they were burdens to their families and society. It became widespread as societies shifted from agrarian economies, where older men had traditionally owned the land, to industrialized economies, when work was no longer centered in the home and older persons lost authority.
However, it must be noted that the status of older persons and our attitudes toward them are not only rooted in historic and economic circumstances. They also derive from deeply held human concerns and fears about the vulnerability inherent in the later years of life. Such feelings can translate into contempt and neglect.
What Raskolnikov overheard
In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, we read a blunt example of ageism and the clash of the generations overheard by Raskolnikov, who becomes a philosophical murderer. Raskolnikov hears:
“I could kill that damn old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. “I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case.
“On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money which will be buried in a monastery!”
Nearly 150 years later, in twenty-first-century America, older people are still being rendered invisible. Instances of this invisibility occurred in the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when a person’s class (impoverished) and race (black) were dominating factors in survival. Older persons in their own homes and in nursing homes were often abandoned.
Older women, in particular, experience the impact of ageism. Living longer and alone and making up some 80 percent of the residents of nursing homes, they are more vulnerable than men to abuse and poverty. But there are other ramifications. Through a series of experiments, psychologist Becca Levy demonstrated the adverse physiological effects of ageism, showing that older individuals who are presented with negative stereotypes of aging over time experience detrimental changes, such as a decline in memory performance and a heightened cardiovascular response to stress.
Perpetuating ageism
Ageism thrives in cultures and societies:
1. In the absence of comprehensive national health insurance and pension systems, employers confront high costs that increase as workers grow older, discouraging employers from hiring and retaining older workers.
2. In the absence of adequate lifelong continuing education that encourages and supports enhancement of job skills and development of new skills that keep pace with the job market, it is difficult for older workers to acquire the skills employers seek.
3. In the absence of an effective national health promotion and disease prevention program, and a modest investment in biomedical and behavioral research, conditions such as frailty and dementia among older people result in avoidance and uneasiness about old age, reinforcing stereotypes.
However, ageism can be seen not only in these specific areas but also in making scapegoats of older men and women and in stereotyping them. It is seen in the deferral or denial of the realities of aging. Our language is replete with negative references, such as “dirty old man” and “greedy geezer,” that would never be acceptable if applied to any other group. Graphic pictorial images that denigrate old age often appear in our media.
The cost of ageism
This country learned that prejudice against women (sexism) and against race (racism) was costly to society. Productivity suffered. Cultural sensibility was offended. Likewise, the impact of ageism is considerable, for older people can and do play a major role in social and economic development. Yet we fail to maximize the potential of older persons on either a paid or voluntary basis and deny them the opportunity to play a significant role in our cultural life. Recognizing that age discrimination exists both advertently and inadvertently in personal and institutional form, and that economic and psychological factors play a major part in ageism as well, the International Longevity Center has set out to examine the problem of age prejudice, also known as ageism.
A transformative generation
Baby boomers, the largest generation in U.S. history, have now reached the age of 70. They will probably be a transforming generation in part because of their numbers, with one out of five Americans projected to be over 65 in 2025, and in part because of their unique position in society. Baby boomers are more educated than the generations that preceded them and have a history of social activism and a sense of entitlement. Hopefully, they will utilize their numerical and educational advantages to promote an agenda for action, characterized by decisive efforts to transform the culture and experience of aging in America, to enrich the everyday lives of all who would grow old, and strengthen the social context in which people grow old. To achieve this requires immediate attention to various forms of discrimination. This is a matter of human and civil rights. We believe that for humanitarian reasons it is also vital that we build upon the foundations of Social Security, Medicare, and age discrimination laws to protect old persons affected by dementia and frailty.
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