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Senior Citizens Highlighted

This special issue of Your City is focused on Senior issues, Senior safety concerns and City programs for Seniors. The issue is also providing really important safety tips for all Beaverton citizens which should be useful and help prevent becoming a victim of some newer common crime schemes.

The US Census Bureau defines “Senior citizens” as persons who are 65 years of age and older. Though I am in my 50’s, I have always thought of myself as being younger. I suppose we all feel that way. Nationally, Seniors comprise 12.1% of the population. The oldest American is 114 years old and our median age in the United States is 35 years old.

Today’s Seniors are very different from their predecessors, living longer, having lower rates of disability, achieving higher levels of education and less often living in poverty. Seniors in America’s workforce have declined dramatically over the past decades, but many continue to work part-time primarily because they enjoy the work. Almost 14 million Senior citizens have online access out of a total 172 million American adults online. Today’s Senior citizens are also the most pessimistic about our children and their future. As opposed to the past, today our elders believe that the newer generation will not grow up to be better off than the one that preceded it.

Much of this newer behavior and trend in Senior citizens is in contrast to my parents’ generation. Today, many of them are in their 80’s. They were part of what NBC’s Tom Brokaw wrote in his noteworthy book The Greatest Generation, focusing on a group of wonderful Americans who brought us through the trials of World War II and the post-war rebuilding era. They came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. Brokaw wrote that they were united by a common purpose, but also by common values—duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself.

Brokaw wrote his book as a result of his originally preparing an NBC documentary in 1984 on the fortieth anniversary of the World War II Allied D-Day invasion of Europe. He was “deeply moved and profoundly grateful” for all the sacrifice Americans had endured leading up to and including the fighting during World War II. After the war, Brokaw notes they continued efforts in rebuilding their lives and gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in history. He notes too that as this generation reaches the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. This generation of Senior citizens is very special and we owe them a great amount of gratitude.

Many of these fine qualities of my parents’ generation are shared by multiple generations of Americans. These are among the reasons why we continue to be a world leader in so many ways. As each successive generation takes the reins of leadership we have an outstanding role model to follow in The Greatest Generation that Tom Brokaw so well recognized.

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