By Elizabeth Hurwitz
When I was a kid, my grandparents appeared to be permanently ancient in my eyes. Grandma smelled like cookies and mince pies. Grandpa (retired from working on the line at Chrysler at age 65) smelled of gardens and woodworking. The oldest person on TV in 1963 was Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. She was portrayed as a cross between a beloved spry old chicken and your slightly demented next-door neighbor for whom you shovel the sidewalk each winter. Although this show presented a few progressive plot lines about class conflict, you still could not have made an episode about seniors and bathrooms 30 years ago for TV. Only when us baby boomers began to ride the cultural wave of aging in America did perceptions of what it meant to be an elder start to change.
The plot of season six of Grace and Frankie—the comedic vehicle starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin on Netflix—centers on an improved toilet product. Frankie is inspired to create this wonderful machine so she can help Grace stand up after she’s used the bathroom. Prior to inventing this gadget, Frankie has been on 24/7 call to help Grace (who has a bad hip) return to a vertical position and walk away from the toilet. Frankie’s invention will ostensibly allow Grace to go back to using the bathroom in complete privacy.
Honestly, I was a little embarrassed the first time I saw this episode. Jane Fonda sitting on the throne? But getting old in Western culture (and needing physical assistance) has been viewed as a private experience for a long time. But we are asking different questions today. What does it mean to become an older person? What does it mean to be a person who might live many more years than either his/her mother or father did? How do I regard my mind, my body, my belongings as I age? The cultural shift in values regarding aging has already been immense, and we’re just at the beginning stages of this great change.
What do these changes have to do with Elder Law? Well, in the big picture, quite a lot.
Baby Boomer Elders are defined as those individuals born between 1946 and 1964. When I first began practicing Elder Law in the mid-1990s, it was not a particularly well-known specialty. I had previously practiced civil rights, entertainment, and business law after graduating from University of Detroit Law School in 1979. I came to Elder Law because of several disability and aging situations that unexpectedly arose within my immediate family. These situations required me to learn about disability and elder law as quickly as possible.
A random marketing fact, we—the perpetual consumer—tend to be more comfortable with images we have grown accustomed to seeing regularly. In the 1980s and 1990s folks in the business of selling something rarely used an image of an individual over 50 in their ad campaigns. But that’s changed today. Why? Well, the sheer number of folks over 50, with purchasing power, accounts for the big uptake of elder images in medical device ads, life insurance ads, supplements ads, and ads for vacation spots appealing to seniors. Does this increase in images of older folks in our daily life affect the responsibilities of an elder law attorney? I’ve found it has—both in context and in content.
The needs of the typical client who seeks advice from an elder law attorney continue to fall into predictable categories—estate planning (wills, powers of attorney, trusts), estate administration and distribution (following the death of the person who did the estate planning), and certain common issues with Social Security Disability, veterans’ benefits, Medicare/Medicaid and taxation. The perimeters of an elder law practice haven’t changed much, but the content has expanded, in part, because today an older person expects to actively participate in planning the last third of her/his life. The context has changed, too. We now live in a society with a significantly increasing number of older individuals coupled with a cultural shift in perception of what it means to be an older person. An elder law attorney now serves the client in a true holistic sense, being mindful of these irrevocable shifts in both content and context.
Read related article: The Autumn of our Lives
Estate planning can now encompass assisting the client with difficult non-legal (on their face) issues such as, “Can we afford to have our elder person age in place?” Can we care for an elder with a diagnosis of memory loss (dementia or Alzheimers) at home? How do we handle the possibility of the elder needing to apply for Medicaid in the future? We know that certain family members don’t get along. How can we avoid a fight over the elder’s assets after the elder has passed away?”
Folks are much more involved with end of life care as well. Providing hospice care for a loved one at home is a huge undertaking. Planning so that family and friends have sufficient resources (time, energy, financial security) to fulfill the wishes of an elder who wants to die at home is part of an elder law practice. It’s also become more common for an elder law attorney to hear questions about “natural burials” and the Hemlock Society. Folks want to discuss home remedies, alternative healing sources, and locating a death doula. I’ve found that many non-legal issues boil down to one set of concerns: “How can I control the atmosphere surrounding my death and how can I control the disbursement of my worldly goods? I don’t want to be dependent upon my children, or my friends for assistance if I live to be past what I think will be my life expectancy. I don’t want to be a burden, but I am nervous because friends my age are starting to die off. How will I live in the future?” These conversations weren’t happening very often 30 years ago. Today they are not uncommon discussions.
It’s a shock the first time you hear a stranger (while conversing with another person) describe you as “that old lady over there.” Sometimes it’s just the moment when you realize you are supremely qualified for that senior discount at a restaurant or a movie theater. Or one day you notice that absolutely no one—including the young person behind the register at Kroger’s—is going to card you for the vodka you’re purchasing. Or you land awkwardly on your knee while wrestling with your dog, and suddenly, it’s a big deal because you’re not healing up as quickly as you did in your 30s and 40s. Or you realize that what you thought was your occasional waking up in the middle of the night to pee has been a nightly event for months now. Hey! We are back to Grace and Frankie bathroom issues again!
Elizabeth Hurwitz is an elder law attorney practicing in Ann Arbor, where she addresses the needs of the whole person and the whole family. Please visit her website for information about legal services at hurwitzlawoffices.com. Hurwitz’s book, Growing Older, Getting Better is scheduled for publication in May 2020.
Related content:
Though Boo wasn’t my “real” grandfather I could not miss the realness of his final days. Despite the sticky doorknob, the smell of last week’s lunch, dead flowers, and the junk pile obstacle course, I made my way to his bedside. The clutter used to spark an uncomfortable itch throughout my body, but I’d accepted it. His 98-year-old body was tired, but his spirit was very much alive as he pondered the end.