Hi, My name is Skylar Chastain. I graduated Athens Technical College with my Associate degree and now I am pursuing to get my Bachelor degree. One thing i would like to share is i recently just got married in april and now we have a wild new Lab puppy who keeps us on our toes. Working with the older population when i did my internship was something i did not want to do and i got placed in with a hospice company and then finishing my degree i got a job at a skilled nursing facility as a social services director and have been there two years so, professionally i have worked with the older population for a while now which i once said i never wanted to because, growing up my mom took care of my grant grandma until she passed on her 81st birthday which was a very traumatic experience for me. Personally, it is hard to work with the older population because you get emotional attached and wish there was more you could do. I can gain from this class is a better perspective of aging.
What Does Older Adulthood or Later Life Mean to Me?
When I think about the term older adult or later life, I picture beginning around my 60s. To me, older adulthood is a time when you should hopefully be able to enjoy the things you worked so hard for throughout your life. I imagine being retired, spending more time with my husband, our dog, and hopefully our grandchildren. I would love to travel, see the world, and have the freedom to enjoy life without having to worry about going to work every day. I also imagine being able to help my family when I can and being able to enjoy having grandchildren to love and spoil.
When I picture myself as an older adult, I honestly think I will look mostly the same, just with a lot more wrinkles—especially since I am not very good about wearing sunscreen during the summer! I hope that I will still be healthy and active, although I know some of my health may be affected by the food choices I make now. More than anything, I hope my later years are filled with good health, financial stability, family, travel, and independence. I want to be able to enjoy retirement without constantly worrying about whether I can afford my next meal or whether Social Security will be enough to survive from week to week.
One of my biggest fears about getting older is losing my independence. I never want to reach a point where I cannot take care of myself, communicate my own wishes, or make decisions about my life and healthcare. I especially fear losing my ability to think clearly, speak, or move. I do not want to feel like I am a burden on my family.
Working as a Social Services Director in a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility has greatly influenced how I view aging. I see older adults and their families struggle with these issues every day. I see how difficult healthcare and long-term care can become when someone no longer has the ability to care for themselves. I also see families trying to figure out how they are going to provide care at home when home healthcare can be extremely expensive and community resources can take months to get started. Assisted living can cost thousands of dollars a month, and not every older adult has retirement savings or a pension that can cover those expenses.
I also worry about the financial side of aging. Many older adults depend heavily on Social Security, and I think about what happens when that income is not enough to cover housing, food, medications, and healthcare. Medicaid and long-term care rules can also be complicated and frightening for families who are trying to understand how their loved one’s home, savings, and other assets may be affected. Seeing these struggles firsthand has made me realize that growing older is not only about health—it is also about financial security, access to healthcare, family support, and having someone who can advocate for you when you can no longer advocate for yourself.
Ultimately, I hope my later years look very different from some of the situations I see at work. I hope I have planned enough financially that I am not living paycheck to paycheck. I hope I am healthy enough to travel, spend time with my husband, enjoy our family and grandchildren, and continue doing the things that bring me happiness. I also hope I have a strong advocate who knows my wishes and can help me navigate healthcare if I ever reach a point where I cannot do it myself.
For me, getting older is something I look forward to in some ways, but it also comes with a lot of uncertainty. I want to enjoy the rewards of all the years I have spent working, but I also want to make sure I prepare for the possibility that things may not go exactly as planned. My biggest goal for later life is to remain independent, have a good quality of life, and be surrounded by the people and animals I love without feeling like a burden to them.
Hi Skylar! Congratulations on your recent marriage and new puppy! I enjoyed reading about how your perspective on working with older adults changed after your hospice internship and your current work in a skilled nursing facility. I especially agree with your point that aging involves more than physical health. Financial stability, access to care, family support, and maintaining independence can greatly affect a person’s quality of life. Your experience also shows how important social workers are in helping older adults and their families navigate these challenges. I look forward to learning with you this semester!
Thank you Skylar on what you are already doing with the aging population despite how you felt in the beginning! Sometime we are put in situations to face certain fears and pass little tests to see just how strong we really are. Congratulations on the marriage and I definitely wish and yours the happiest of days ahead! I look forward to learning more from your perspective since you are already working in that field. I believe we all have the same fears about aging but like I told a friend of mine, I can’t do anything about that right now. I just got to keep the main thing the main thing! I try to eat right, stay active and treat others like I want to be treated so I expect me to be okay as grow older. I am learning to practice some acceptance about many things at my age and to be honest, I’m more grateful now that I get a chance to see things from an “older” view. Keep sharing your truths and be the voice you would want for yourself in the facility you currently work in.
Hi Skylar,
First, I want to say congratulations to you and your partner on getting married recently; that’s extremely exciting to hear about! Back to your post, you and I share the experience of watching a loved one go through caring for another older loved one. Watching that can be incredibly traumatic; you see the exhaustion, the pain of losing their parent or other guardian. For you to get voluntold by the universe seems like a cruel fate after your experience, but you spun gold from the cards you were dealt. After being a part-time caregiver for my paternal grandfather, it actually pushed me in the direction of hospice social work. I share the same fear of not being financially stable in my older age. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Skylar,
First, congratulations! You are going through a lot of changes in your life right now. And I’m not sure if marriage or a Lab puppy is the most significant! I have had several Lab puppies, and recently rescued a 7-year-old yellow Lab named Bailey. She is definitely running my life, so I think that addition might just be as significant as the marriage.
I am impressed with the work you have done with older adults, even though it came to you somewhat unexpectedly. I understand your initial resistance to working with this population because of your own lived experience. Working first in hospice care and then in nursing care, you are getting a personal view of the later chapter of aging – one we don’t talk about enough. You are also dealing with the realities of aging in our culture when you don’t have many resources.
You have experience with the realities older adults and families face when the only option is at-home care because nothing else is affordable. The public program – namely Medicare – has intentionally left out at-home or nursing care, which is the most expensive stage of aging. And then again, some families chose that option because of their beliefs and commitments. It’s not simple. There are several podcasts where wer will talk with professionals about these choices.
Losing your independence is a major concern. I think you might enjoy reading Cruikshank’s first and second chapters, as she talks specifically about that challenge as we age. We’ll talk about all of this over the course of the semester. I think you will enjoy it and I will look forward to hearing your thoughts and perspective.
As an FYI, you’re expected to include a featured image in your blog posts. If you watch the video on the blog or read my latest email, I explain how to upload your featured image. If you scroll down to the bottom on the right side of your post window, you will find “Set Featured Image.” I walk you through this in my video on using the blog. This information is about halfway through. You might find it helpful, and it will place your image right at the top of the blog post. The video link is below.
https://gastate.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/lessons/3694485/topics/77644126
Looking forward to the conversations.
Dr P