The Open University

What is the impact of life transitions on members of the oldest generation? How do such changes affect inter-generational relations? How, as older people, do we make sense of such changes and their effect upon our lives? What are the key events that mark the passage of time in later life?

In this paper we report on The Oldest Generation, a project that is part of Timescapes, a multi-centre, multi-disciplinary, ESRC-funded programme of qualitative longitudinal research. In particular we describe our fieldwork and provide an example of how we are approaching the analysis of the resulting data.

Organised around the three temporalities of biographical, generational and historical time (Adam, 2008) and spanning the life course, Timescapes includes seven projects that are tracking individuals over time. It will illuminate life experiences such as growing up, forming and sustaining relationships, bearing and rearing children, living in families and growing older.

The project

The Oldest Generation project will address the following questions:

1. How are the living arrangements, household practices, needs and resources of the oldest generation, affected by (and how do they affect) their intergenerational relationships and identities?

How older people interact with family, friends and others is changing in the UK as a result of demographic and labour market trends: the growing complexity and fluidity of family and kin ties, increased geographical mobility, changing patterns of labour market participation, and the ageing of the population. Traditional understandings about the care and support expected of family, friends, neighbours, professionals and the State are being re-negotiated. Rights and responsibilities and the intrinsic nature of intergenerational ties are shifting and subject to new practices and forms of expression.

2. How significant are annual routines of family celebration and commemoration, and events associated with key life transitions?

Events such as birthdays, anniversaries, religious festivities, births, marriages and deaths mark the passage of biographical and generational time; they reflect continuities and changes in familial and non-familial relationships. Major life transitions precipitate changes in the composition or routines of households, and these may have a distinctive impact on the lives of the oldest generation.

Methods

The fieldwork for our project began in July 2007 and involves tracking twelve families over the course of 18 months. We are recording the biographies, past and present, of their oldest members and setting these in the context of unfolding family histories. A sample has been recruited purposively through the UK-wide Open University network. The twelve families were selected from approximately 40 volunteers using minimal criteria based on the standard background variables of sex, age, living arrangements, class, ethnicity and geographical location. We claim it to be a diverse but not statistically representative sample.

We have recruited one member of the oldest generation to be ‘the senior’ and one person to act as ‘the recorder’. In all but three cases the recorder is a daughter or son; the three exceptions are a niece, a husband and the senior himself. Repeat life history interviews with the senior enable us to collect retrospective as well as prospective data. A first interview with each of the twelve seniors has been undertaken between July and December 2007. It focused on the family's history and heritage, retrospective accounts of key life events, and current patterns of family and non-family contact. The second interview will update the first with accounts of events and changes that have occurred during the intervening 18 months.

During this period, the recorder is keeping and posting us a monthly diary, and taking photographs at celebrations and other family events. By having diaries returned routinely every month we are maintaining regular contact with the twelve families.

Recognising the complexity of individual lives and family relationships, we have not sought to obtain systematic data. To a large extent we have allowed the participants to dictate the content of the interviews and diaries. In our view, the serendipitous nature of the information gathered will, through both symbolic and literal references, indicate how and why certain family relationships are sustained or change, and what the consequences are for contact and support between the generations.

Collating diaries and interviews

In this paper we consider how the diaries and interviews interrogate each other. Each provides a different perspective on the senior’s life and his/her family relationships. Comparing the two sources of data there are several points of difference: spoken versus written; dialogical versus sole-authored; spontaneous versus scripted; one-off versus continuing; autobiographical versus biographical; and fixed in space versus changing locations. We have been struck, following the first phase of our data analysis, by how both interviews and diaries have uncovered two key aspects of everyday later life: generational identity and embodiment. To illustrate these points we consider one particular family.

Alice, the senior, is 83 and lives on her own in a modern terraced house near the centre of Sutton, a village in the north of England. She’s lived in the same area all her life. Her two sons and daughter live locally with their partners. She has five grandchildren. Her husband died in 1995. She had two brothers. John, her surviving brother, aged 72, is physically and mentally disabled. He lives not far from her, where he is cared for by an adult foster-carer.

Alice was interviewed on 4th September 2007. Brian, one of her sons, is the recorder and, since 10th July 2007, has kept a daily diary based on visits and phone calls to Alice.

Intergenerational identity

In her interview, Alice recounted the following story from her childhood in the early 1930s. At that time the family lived in Updale, a more rural village about thirty miles from Sutton:

“I can then remember my mother saying … that I was to take these flowers. ‘Go up and see Grandma and take these nice flowers’. And so I went and I think two aunts were there. There seemed to be more people around. And they said ‘Oh now’. They took the flowers you see, and they said ‘Well, take them up’. And I said ‘No, no’. I said ‘You take them up’. You see? So they took them up and I don’t know why, but I sat in the chair and I would not move. They said ‘Come on, come up and see Grandma’, and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t , I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I knew she was dying. Why couldn’t I go and see her?”

Consolidating the personal significance of the story she then went on to describe how she and a friend had recently returned to Updale:

“And I went a few weeks ago with my friend and we sat at the house opposite, and I said, ‘That ’s where my Grandma was’, I said, ‘and my Grandma died you know upstairs there’, I said. ‘ Do you know, Margaret,’ I said, ‘I sat,’ I said, ‘and I would not go and see her’. I said ‘ Do you know, if that were me today’, I said, ‘ and I was in bed and I knew my granddaughter was downstairs and wasn ’t coming up’, I said, ‘ do you know?’ I said, ‘I know now how I feel’. But I could not.”

This extract illustrates some of the life-long inter-generational tensions that surround the deaths of members of the oldest generation. It illustrates how stories which may have significance as autobiographical reference points may also be used as a form of confessional, re-used over time as a basis for acquired insight. In Alice’s case, now a grandmother herself, she is critical of her younger self, yet unable to explain why she could not do what was expected of her, despite the pressure being exerted by her mother and her aunts.

Brian makes no mention of this visit to Updale, presumably because Alice went there before he started his diary. However, he does record another visit in November and he includes the same story in his diary:

As the weather is mild and pleasant Mother took a bus to [Updale]. Mother reported [Updale] as quiet 'not many visitors around', just the locals going about their business. Mother took a photograph of her grandmother's cottage. Mother remembers having to take flowers when grandmother was poorly but refused to go upstairs and sat downstairs until it was time to go home. She was ill at the time and now feels a little ashamed of herself. (November 27th)

It would appear that this time Alice had gone to Updale unaccompanied and that, upon her return, she had told Brian about the visit.

There are significant differences between these two accounts. In the interview, Alice says that she knew her grandmother was dying at the time; Brian describes her as no more than ‘poorly’. And whereas he excuses his mother, claiming she was ill, Alice herself makes no mention of this. Brian first focuses our attention on the weather and Alice’s comments on people in the village, whereas in the interview Alice described how she pointed out the cottage to her friend. Brian makes no mention of the pressure that Alice says her mother and aunts had placed upon her. Though the diary indicates that the story still seemed to trouble her, it would appear that Alice on her own wanted to fix the place visually with a photograph. Whereas Alice’s autobiographical account includes her reflections on both sides of the grandmother/granddaughter relationship, the biographical account from the diary, only mentions her memory of feeling shame as a granddaughter.

Methodologically the comparison is awkward. There is no way of knowing how Alice’s description of her November visit might have differed in the original telling from the account Brian entered in his diary. It may be that he has heard this story many times before and is including a standard version in the diary. Nevertheless, in its third-party telling, the story has fewer narrative qualities, for example the direct speech is lost, and her reflections on being a grandmother herself are also missing.

The interview is an example of performance developed through collaborative practice. It is also an opportunity for personal, often quite private, feelings and emotions to be expressed and discussed (Gubrium and Holstein, 1998). For example, the telling of the story of her grandmother’s death might be Alice’s way of thinking about the future, and her own death (1). She uses the story to reflect upon the contrasting generational perspectives of the oldest and youngest generations. A diary in contrast is potentially more public in form: the diarist is describing experiences and reactions in writing, and this leaves stories open to re-presentation (Alaszewski, 2006). However, the diary also shows how stories persist and live on after their telling. As Tonkin points out in an African context, and as other researchers into the function of reminiscence have also highlighted, speaking of the past is an aspect of ‘bearing witness’, of generativity: the passing on of ‘life lessons’ (Webster, 2002, p. 150). Brian’s diary provides powerful evidence of this and how Alice’s pre-war childhood experience can resonate down the generations. Despite the differences in method between interview and diary, these extracts illustrate the experiencing of inter-generational tensions over time, and in the present.

Embodiment in analytical comparisons

The interview with Alice on 4 th September provided many examples of how she has experienced and managed health events. In the past, she has had to face up to death - not just that of her grandmother but also of her parents, brother and husband – and through John she has a lifetime of observing and coping with the challenges of physical impairment. Now, in later life, she is increasingly learning how to manage her own ageing body. This is an increasing preoccupation, not just as a result of ill-health, sensory loss and physical impairment, but also in the accomplishment of everyday routines and the avoidance of accidental injury. Many of her narratives are illustrative and contrastive, both looking back to past experiences and forward to what is in prospect. Here are two short illustrative extracts from the interview. First, in regard to help, she expresses the familiar ‘fiercely independent’ stance adopted by many older people:

Joanna (Int) “Does anyone come in to help you with your house at all?”

Alice “What! No thank you. The day I can’t do my …”

Joanna (Int) (laughs) “I had to ask you.”

Alice “I’ve got it all planned.”

She then went on to describe how she had ‘got it all planned’: by learning from a neighbour who had managed to continue to live on her own for some time before dying of cancer. So, for example, Alice has planned to bring her bed downstairs when this becomes necessary, and already she has had a toilet installed by her front door. Having detailed all these arrangements, she then referred to a second role model:

“That is my plan I hope. I hope it may work. After seeing that ninety-four-year-old-aunt who lived on her own … Never had anyone in to do any help, no, and even though she was crippled with arthritis, she was bent double, but she managed to walk out with a stick as I do. I follow her. I think ‘Walk, you’ve got to walk, you’ve got to keep … do your exercise’.”

So here, in the interview, Alice claims to have adopted a strategy of maintaining independence through exercise and by planning ahead. There is a positive tone, exuding defiance of offers of help and competence in the routines of daily living.

In her son’s diary, a rather different tone emerges however. For example, through the autumn he recorded her growing concern over the weather and the threat of winter:

Mother at home for gas boiler and central heating service. With the weather 'turning' this is an important event and all fingers are crossed that it will not be an expensive event. (November 7 th)

‘I have come to life slowly today’. Mother feeling change in the weather. Mother reports a very cold and wet day. Some snow on the hilltops. 'I am not going out'. Mother at home – inside – cleaning, tidying and making-and-mending. Activity exercises Mother – keeping her joints moving! (November 19 th)

What Brian had observed was Alice’s anxiety about the efficacy of the boiler and her vulnerability to the deteriorating weather. Rather than exercising her body through walking out, she was limited - on poor days - to indoor activities, preparing for the long haul of winter. Rather than having planned ahead in the summer, she is now crossing her fingers in November.

On New Year’s Eve, he records Alice’s own summary of the year:

Here we are then another year gone by. I have not anything spectacular to remember but plenty of nice events and am thankful that my health has remained steady. Apart from all the pills I have to take and the ointments to rub on my joints I really cannot complain about life. I can get around to the shops, enjoy having a bus ride […] when the weather is kind. Also up the Dales as and when I wish. My new gas fire is a great improvement – no creaking knee joints to work the controls any more. So I am grateful for so much and so many pleasant meetings with so many people. ( December 31 st 2007)

Here her positive spirit is laced with a sense of vulnerability: her reliance upon pills and ointments, and the new gas fire. With these aids and comforts her health remains ‘steady’ and, for the present, she is able to ward off the aches and pains of an ageing body.

The interviews and diaries we are collecting provide evidence of the extent to which later life is an embodied experience. The literature has been divided on this topic. Typically, research looks on rather than experiences late life and, as a consequence, it is often concluded from interviews and contacts with older people, that to be old is more a question of the spirit than the body. Thompson et al are typical:

Feeling old is feeling exhausted in spirit, lacking the energy to find new responses as life changes. It is giving up . (1990, p. 250)

Others have suggested that older people deal with ageing by using language which positions them at a distance from others whom they describe as having the attributes of an older person, being physically or mentally impaired (Coupland et al, 1991; Lund and Engelsrud, 2008).

What these arguments overlook is the daily experience of living with a body which has, incontrovertibly, changed over time and which has become the defence, the front-line, against frailty. Öberg and Tornstam conclude that, whilst the body is a point of mediation between individual and social identities, ‘the resistance of the “ageing flesh” places limits on the degree to which the body can be reconstructed in line with the self-identity of the owner’ (1999: 632 ). With data from a study in which people over 80 were re-interviewed several years later and asked to reflect on their experience of ageing, Heikkinen takes this argument further. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's notion of 'bodiliness', she argues that in late life the body becomes more dominant as 'age and illness bring along a whole host of annoying companions that are "part" of us'. These ailments change people's experiences and their 'meaning horizon' and bodies became objects of concern (Heikkinen, 2000: 479).

Woodward similarly suggests that the aged and immobile body is 'a companion' to the self, to be tended 'like a baby' as an 'other body’ (her emphasis) with 'touch' both literally and metaphorically having special significance (Woodward, 1991: 174-6).

Conclusion

Our fieldwork is still in hand. This provisional analysis suggests that collated databases that reflect different perspectives on the same lives, uncover some of the rich complexity of changes in later life. We have found that there are similarities and continuities as well as contrasts in the narrating of lives through life history interviews and through diaries. We have also found that some stories have multiple uses, providing opportunities for reflection, transmission of values and knowledge, and to express conflicting emotions. This preliminary analysis has revealed the significance of generational time and how late life is very much an embodied experience. Connecting with other projects in Timescapes we will be tracking how identities change and are experienced across the life course, and how past events are remembered as differentiating and distancing, living on in different forms of telling and re-telling.

References

Adam, B. (2008) ‘ The Timescapes challenge: engagement with the invisible temporal’, in Researching Lives Through Time: Time, Generation and Life Stories , Timescapes Working Paper Series No. 1, University of Leeds.

Alaszewski, A. (2006) Using diaries for Social Research, London: Sage Publications.

Coupland, J., Coupland, N. and Grainger, K. (1991) ‘Intergenerational discourse: contextual versions of ageing and elderliness’, Ageing and Society, 11: 189-208.

Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J.A. (1998) ‘Narrative practice and the coherence of personal stories’, The Sociological Quarterly, 39, 1: 163-187.

Heikkinen, R. (2000) 'Ageing in an autobiographical context', Ageing and Society, 20, 4: 467-483.

Lund , A. and Engelsrud, G. (2008) ‘”I am not that old”: inter-personal experiences of thriving and threats at a senior centre’, Ageing and Society, 28, 5: 675-691.

Öberg P. and Tornstam, L. (1999) 'Body images among men and women of different ages', Ageing and Society, 19, 5: 629-644.

Thompson, P., Itzin, C. and Abendstern, M. (1990) ‘I don’t feel old’: the Experience of Later Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tonkin , E. (1991) Narrating Our Pasts: the Social Construction of Oral History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Webster, J. D. (2002) ‘Reminiscence functions in adulthood: age, race and family dynamics correlates, in J. D. Webster and B. K. Haight (eds) Critical Advances in Reminiscence Work: from theory to application, Springer, New York, pp. 140-152.

Woodward, K. (1991) Aging and its Discontents: Freud and other fictions, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

 

1) We are grateful to Caroline Nicholson for this suggestion.