In defence of dropping dead: the burden of extended care for aged parents is a heavy new phenomenon | Lucinda Holdforth

2026-03-27 - 14:20

At 59, I was at last an orphan. I woke up with the most complete feeling of liberty and personhood I’d ever experienced Looked at one way, the modern longevity narrative is an inspirational story of human scientific and social progress. Looked at another you could say that we are now condemned to longevity – our own and other people’s. It’s placing a massive economic, social and psychological burden on us as individuals and as a society. There are now so many old people that new categories of demographic definition have been created to describe them. Those considered the “young old” are aged between 55 and 65. That’s me: At 63 years of age, I’m a young old. By all the rules of human history, I should have been dead for years. Instead, when I look 20 years into the future, I foresee an even older me who will need to plan for the outside possibility that I may have another 20 years to go. This is not necessarily, in my view, a glorious prospect. Continue reading...