The term “tweener” is used to describe a person who falls in between two recognized categories – most commonly, childhood and teen-hood. This week while visiting my 87-year-old mom I discovered a new category of “tweener,” i.e. elderly people who can still take care of their daily lives and responsibilities but may have lost some of their “executive” capacity to make decisions, keep track of calendars and schedules, and manage complex social and medical relationships.
While watching my mom move through her daily routine, I was shocked and surprised at how complicated her healthcare life has become. She must manage multiple doctors who have conflicting agendas and even conflicting prescriptions sometimes. The doctors’ offices have embraced customer management systems that do a good job of tracking notes and data, but follow-ups can be slow and incomplete if you don’t constantly prod the system.
In addition, as she has gotten older, her relationships in the senior community she loves have changed. She can’t continue to do all of the social and organizational tasks for her community that she used to enjoy, and that gave her a strong sense of identity. As recently as two years ago, she was shuttling her friends to doctor appointments and organizing outings. Now she is no longer driving and finds it harder to be “out and about” without some help. How can she move into a new role of “beloved elder statesman” without feeling shuttled to the side and forgotten, or patronized?
All of this makes me think about my own aging process, of course, as well as that of my clients. Planning for retirement and aging usually focuses on “living our best lives” during the early years, and of course making sure the money will last and that we’ve prepared for some of the worst case scenarios. But I’m going to add another element to my planning – seriously thinking about what life should/will look like during my late “tweener years.”
Serendipitously, while I was visiting my mom, I came across a reference to MIT Age Lab founder, Joseph Coughlin’s thoughts on planning for aging. As he writes, “Life is made of … little moments—not punctuation points like Christmas dinner and a trip to Italy—but the little moments: getting a newspaper, getting a cup of coffee. You have to understand when you’re doing retirement planning, what are those little moments, those little things that only you, not even your spouse, know that will make you smile? And from a transportation point of view: Do you have access to it?”
He suggests that we ask three simple but oddly profound questions which really focus on the challenges posed for tweeners:
- Who will change your light bulbs?
- How will you get an ice cream cone?
- Who will you eat lunch with?
Answering these questions, in turn, raises serious financial questions regarding home layout and maintenance, accessing in-home care, perhaps moving to assisted living, and identifying trusted, competent helpers. But more importantly, I feel like they help me focus on quality of life issues that can be hard to visualize in our younger years. Preserving social contacts, seeing people that are important to me, figuring out transportation options, and living where some of my favorite things are accessible have taken on larger roles in my thought process. I encourage you to think about how these factors could impact your financial future.
