Like wine

Getting old in this country means retiring, whether you are ready or not. Retirement does not simply mean a complete reversal of one’s pattern of behaviour and of being in the world. It also signifies a complete transformation in how we are seen.

You are suddenly old. Remember the shock of meeting up with people you knew 50 years ago? It goes beyond that. At the word “retirement”, the world suddenly sees you as feeble, if not feeble-minded.

Add to this the terror of having (you think) nothing to do. For busy people and in particular workaholics, retirement is a frightening scenario.

What does one do when there is nothing urgent to do, and there is no reason to do it? In Trinidad and Tobago where governments and institutions have not as yet copped on to the fact of a fast growing older population of men and women who are living longer and healthier lives, this can be a daunting circumstance.

But it goes beyond this. TT society is inherently ageist. There is an inbuilt attitude that says “move over and make place for the young.” This is part of our culture of “historylessness” where we quickly forget the past. We do this in politics and in particular in relation to things like commissioned reports. Once done, it is done. Move on.

So what of old wisdom and that thing called experience? Are we doomed forever to reinvent the wheel? Youth is a wonderful thing and should be given every opportunity for advancement. But there is something called institutional memory and wisdom that comes with experience.

Think how much wisdom and institutional memory we lose every day by pushing our over-sixties out of the retirement door.

It is perhaps ironic that our present Prime Minister is an old age pensioner, as is the head of the Catholic Church both in Trinidad and Tobago and world-wide, and many of our community leaders are likewise beyond the age of official retirement.

That they are able to judge and lead is beyond question. Yet we have done nothing to adjust the age of retirement in this country, despite international precedence.

In the United Kingdom there is no longer a default retirement age and an employer must provide a reason why an individual can no longer work. In America there is for many no retirement age. However, and paradoxically, in a Europe that is gradually moving towards a retirement age of 67, Germany in 2014 lowered its retirement threshold to 63 amidst much debate.

Trinidad has really not as yet begun the discussion, and as usual lags far behind in its social conscience.

While Europe for the most part has recognised that it is far cheaper and more productive to delay retirement, we are stuck in a rut.

The question arises whether on the one hand giving jobs and promotion to young eager workers offsets the disadvantage of losing tried and knowledgeable staff in all walks of life. Perhaps a greater fluidity needs to be introduced whereby both sides can be managed equitably, in particular in areas where expertise is needed.

But there is also a responsibility to provide services for those who have not perhaps planned carefully enough for their retirement. There is too in this matter of planning a significant fact that in the past decade at the least institutions have favoured short-term contracts as opposed to pensionable and tenured jobs.

This leaves a new scenario. Is the State prepared to top up the incomes of those many people over 65, who are without adequate funds, so that they can continue to enjoy a reasonable standard of living after they have ceased gainful employment, and for longer periods than hitherto? Or do the elderly slip into poverty as the cost of living escalates? Perhaps we need to give more careful thought to our attitude to the older generation. One of the interesting contrasts of living in Ireland is the attitude to the past. This is nowhere more evident than on Cemetery Sunday, celebrated in every Irish Catholic parish during the summer months.

On this Sunday, families come together from far afield to stand at the pristine gravesides of their dead ancestors.

Our cemeteries in Trinidad are often places of abandonment.

What does this lack of respect for those who have made us what we are say of us in TT ? But all this talk of endings is morbid.

Growing older is after all a bit like making wine. My mother’s bottle of homemade wine tastes sweeter now that it is aged. For those in the arts and in sports or with extended families or who have projects and plans, I imagine getting on with life beyond 65 is indeed sweet and intoxicating.

For others, it may be a bitter business.