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Elder Law Prof Blog
Katherine C. Pearson, Editor, and a Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network on LexBlog.com

Let’s Reimagine Aging Advocacy

As I get closer to my own retirement from formal academia, I cannot help but focus more on questions about the future. One of my persistent concerns is about why it is so hard to plan in advance for our individual futures as "older" people. Similarly, it is almost impossible to get governments to consider the collective need for such planning.
By Katherine C. Pearson

My interest is piqued by a new feature article in The New York Times, titled “The Pain of Caring for a Parent Who Abused You,” by Katie Engelhart. I’m quoted in the article on the narrow topic of how filial support laws work — or more often “don’t” work. There is much to unpack in this article, as demonstrated by the almost 1,000 detailed comments from readers submitted in the first 20 hours of the article appearing online. The article is also scheduled to appear in the The New York Times‘ magazine section on Sunday, June 21.

While the strongest scenes from Ms. Englehart’s article are examples of how adult children have dealt with personal and moral choices about whether (and how) to care for frail parents, the article also shines a light on unrecognized dynamics between spouses and siblings as care needs arise, especially when physical frailty is accompanied by neurological changes. One clinical psychologist comments on the “pretense of choice,” where a reluctant adult child is told that it was her voluntary choice (and yes, in the article it is usually a “her”) to provide personal assistance to a difficult parent. Voluntary? Not always….

I am thinking about using this article for a seminar in the upcoming academic year. The NYT’s published comments from readers further expand the relevant themes to explore.

I’m also looking forward to a program planned for August 2026 to explore a modernized, proactive, social approach to aging in Northern Ireland, whereby families and older individuals may receive specific guidance and support in planning for the years ahead. The concept of a “support visitor,” an appropriately trained professional, becoming available at a specific age (perhaps “75?”), will be the focus of training sessions in Belfast. There is an existing model for preventative planning in Denmark. I was part of an early team of researchers, headed by Dr. Joe Duffy from Queen’s University Belfast that proposed the project in NI. Rome isn’t built in a day, and neither is any new public program. Here are a set of slides the research team used early-on (in 2017).

I’m a hopeful person by nature, and I see the fact that new articles and new trainings are focusing on under-addressed concerns as positive signs for the future. Let’s see what more emerges over this next year as we “reimagine” the future of health care, social care, and “aging advocacy.”