I was reading a letter that was a bit critical of Jill Lepore's essay on loneliness and went to find my April 6 issue to read it again, because the letter writer echoed my own views that solitude need not always be a curse.
I only skimmed part of Lepore's essay, but I have written on this topic and gotten the same response -- people feeling my thesis is incorrect because they themselves don't feel lonely. That's understandable, because it's an individual taste. But as a group, research has shown that older people are more socially isolated and more unhappy because of it.
At least, that was the case in the Before Times. Now isolated young people may be suffering as much if not more.
There was an author who wrote about a year ago about the rise in persons living alone. He viewed this as a recent phenomenon, as older people tended to move in with their children's families in the past and become a kind of servant/governess/etc. Either that or they would join in group living arrangements such as boarding houses, retirement homes, etc. Other options have sprung up; older people could move in to subsidized housing, patio homes, condos, or the dreaded trailer park. They could take in boarders who could help maintain the home or just be close by if needed. Until recently, few older people had the option of staying in their prime-years home or maintaining their own autonomy and privacy.
I think in the past older people remained closer to their families, whether in the same house or the same street or town. If they were physically capable of living on their own, they often did. If not, moving in with their children was often an option.
Now young people move farther away (a phenomenon that has been reversing, however). If older people can't live in their own homes anymore, there are various multi-unit options. Many of them have movie nights and birthday parties and shopping trips, etc., where residents can socialize, but it's not always one big happy family. My mom rarely left her room in assisted living. My aunt, who is very gregarious, was in a nursing home and actually preferred to stay there rather than move to an assisted living place because at the nursing home people went around and socialized with each other, where as in the assisted living they mostly stayed in their own units all day.
My grandmother-in-law lived to 105, living alone in her own (duplex with renter) home until she was in her 90s. Her son, my ex-FIL, lived close enough that he could check on her, do chores, take her to the doctor, and eventually she went to live with my in-laws. She was not a servant or governess -- if anything, it was the other way around. I think it was a happy way for her to live her last years.
Oddly, young people don't seem to be interested in the small post-war houses that still exist, preferring lofts, multi-story condos, or co-housing arrangements. Young people often try to seek solitude in Nature, at least in my area, but are thwarted by hordes of other young people seeking the same thing.
Young people are definitely more in favor of social, walkable neighborhoods with restaurants, stores, bars, coffee shops and multi-unit housing. Boomers often favor those environments, too. Or at least they did -- how the onslaught of a contagious illness that's harder to avoid in close quarters will affect that preference for density has yet to be seen.
I have given myself a precious gift, a home where I feel safe and at home by myself. I don't know if I am an outlier, but I do know that people stare at me when they see me mowing or on my roof turning on my swamp cooler. It gives them an uneasy feeling, I can tell, but it gives me an immense sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
Why would they feel uneasy, I wonder? Do they worry about your, or ...?
I have the same arrangement as you (sans the tenants) except that my son is still living with me. I have never totally minded having him around because I actually don't particularly like living alone. But for both of our sakes, it was getting time for him to get a place of his own or with friends. Then COVID hit, and I'm really glad to have him here -- we get along better now and he's been good company.
Topic: In the New Yorker... (Read 2404061 times)