No Children or Living Alone: The Unique “Solo Aging” Challenges

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome to all of our listeners tuning in to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. This is Joe Casciani, your host for this program. I'm very happy to welcome each of our listeners. As many of you know, these podcasts are recorded and are available within a week on the club website, livingto100.club. We focus on successful aging, longevity, and making it over the hurdles. And one of the best parts about hosting these conversations is bringing in guests to share valuable information with our listeners, information that makes us more informed helps us to live longer and healthier, and inspires us to do better. Today is no exception. Sarah Zeff Geber has spoken and written about the concerns and opportunities that we encounter as we age. We'll be talking about what it means to get older and the many ways that people are approaching this bonus phase of life that most of our parents never had. Let me tell you a little about Sarah's background. Dr. Sarah Zeff Geber, the 2018 recipient of the Influencers in Aging designation by PBS Next Avenue, has developed a niche specialty working with solo agers, people who have no children or who are aging alone. Dr. Geber is the author of Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers: A Retirement and Aging Roadmap. For Single and Childless Adults. This was selected that year as the best book on aging well by the Wall Street Journal. Sarah is a regular contributor to Forbes.com on the topics of aging and retirement. She was recently invited to join the advisory team for Nexus Insights, a think tank and incubator for revolutionary concepts in senior living and aging. Sarah is a sought-after speaker at conferences on retirement and aging, and she's active in the Retirement Coaches Association, the American Society on Aging, the Life Planning Network, the Transition Network, the Sonoma County Section on Aging, and the Gerontological Society of America. Though married, Sarah considers herself a solo ager. She has no children. She lives with her husband and pooch in Santa Rosa, California. Sarah, I'm very excited to have you as our guest today. Welcome.

Thanks, Joe. I'm happy to be here.

Great, great. Well, I always like to begin by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Sure, I'd be happy to do that. I started out doing management consulting, um, did that for about, gosh, almost 25 years. And then a funny thing happened. I was doing tremendous amounts of executive coaching back in the early 2000s, and I began to notice with my baby boomer clients that they were starting to talk more about their retirement plans than their succession plans or their strategic plans. So I thought to myself, you know, there's sort of a sea change happening with boomers. And I think I want to explore that. So I got out on the— mostly got out on the internet, I would say, and, and looked for what was available to people who were in that transition mode. Was there any help available for them? Was there any— were there any resources? And I didn't find very much at that time. And I decided I was going to start to transition my own coaching to retirement coaching rather than continue on with the business coaching. And over about a 5-year period, I did that and finally made the transition myself in about 2015. Before I transitioned out of my business environment, I also began to look at what was going on in the personal world of many of my colleagues and also my clients and my friends and neighbors. Those who were, again, baby boomers were starting to spend a tremendous amount of time taking care of their aging parents. They were doing a huge amount of things for them. If they lived locally, they were buying groceries for them, taking care of their house on the weekends. They were spending as much time with their parents as they were with their own families at that point. And then when those parents were old enough to think about senior living, some of them were able to convince them to move into senior living accommodations. And when they did that, they were the ones that had to help with the move, sell the home, find the community to begin with. So again, it didn't stop there. The upshot is that I asked myself, who is going to do that for us, those of us that don't have children? Of course, the answer, as they say these days, was crickets. There wasn't any answer. And that's what got me interested in solo aging. So I began to do more research on it, discovered there hadn't been anything written about it. Either in the social science literature or the anthropology literature. There really just wasn't anything. And I saw that deficit as an opportunity and started to do my own research, both by talking with people and looking at what was happening in the senior living community. And that turned into my book in 2018.

Mm-hmm. Sure.

That's my journey.

Sure. Yeah, so a lot of pieces kind of fit together over the years and new insights and new observations, and you dug into this particular niche of solo aging. Well, can you tell me what it is, or how do you define solo aging? I mean, obviously people without children who are living alone, but what are the— what's the concept? What's the context of solo agers?

That is the main context, and that was my original concept, was that people without children were solo agers. That's how I saw it, because that's where, that's where I saw myself at that point too. Then I got a lot of feedback and suggestions from people when I began talking about it. People would tell me in the presentations that I was making, well, you know, you're talking about people who don't have kids. What about those of us who are living alone now and don't see any change to that in the future, were divorced or never been married, never had kids, or had kids, but those kids are estranged, or they live 3,000 miles away, or in this day and age, maybe 9,000 miles away. And I started to expand my definition of solo ager. To include people who are really aging without some kind of familial support system locally. Whoever fell into that boat, I considered a solo ager now. So, of course, that expanded the pool. Initially, what I found was that just under 20% of baby boomer women didn't have children. So that was a big number just in itself. But then when you add into that those who are aging without family support for other reasons, then you, you're climbing up to 30-something percent, then that's huge.

Between the two groups, a total of 30.

Yeah, total, total. 30-something percent of people today, I believe, would call themselves solo agers.

Yes, that's a lot. One out of three. Sure.

Yeah, and when you consider how large the baby boom population cohort is, It's many millions of people.

Yeah. And it's probably increasing, of course, not just for the demographics, but this particular subgroup or subcategory is probably increasing. So if a couple is living, you know, an older couple living together, they're not considered solo agers, or is that a soft definition?

I believe they are solo agers. My husband and I not having kids, consider ourselves solo agers. We don't have any family in the immediate area, and we are going to have to figure it out for ourselves and have definitely started down that path. Who's going to care for us? Who's going to make decisions in a medical crisis? We don't know which one of us is going to predecease the other. If we had a crystal ball, that would be wonderful. We could plan more specifically, but we don't.

Yeah, we don't know. We never know. Yeah, so that's helpful. So it's not a hard and fast definition where the person is physically alone. It's the notion that there may not be a lot of others around to support or, you know, be the caregivers down the road. So that's the quality there. So I know in your book you've delved into this pretty deeply. So you're talking about a lot of the challenges that solo agers face. What are some of the main challenges that this group will face currently and down the road?

I think the first challenge that most solo agers will tackle is the challenge of naming people in their estate documents, in their advanced directive, and their— for their power of attorney. Who are you going to put? Who are you going to put in those blanks? Most people put their kids. Although some don't. But if you're a solo ager, you kind of come up with a dilemma there. And there are answers that range from naming nieces and nephews, which is probably the most popular. Many solo agers are close to nieces or nephews. Maybe they're close even with younger siblings. That works if you've got a sibling that's 10 or 12 years younger than you. That probably works. And nieces and nephews are a good one. I have on my own estate documents, I have named the son of one of my dear friends, someone I've known almost all my life and knew their kids growing up. Their son is a— has a power of attorney, kind of second or third in line on my finance documents. And those two things have to be considered separately. Who is going to speak for you if you are unable in a medical situation, in a medical medical crisis and who you want to handle your finances if you are at some point incapable of doing that.

Is this the executor of the estate, or is that—

I mean, it's beyond executor. I mean, executor is— that's after you're gone. And many solo agers say, who cares, I'm gone. But the, the real rub comes before, because many of us 70% of the population needs care and at some point in their lives, and a fair percentage of those people are going to need someone to make decisions for them while they are recuperating from an illness or surgery. Now, for those people who are married, it might be the still-living spouse. It's probably the number one person that's going to go in that blank in the paperwork. But beyond that, it's always wise to have backups for those people. Backups hopefully are people who live fairly close to you. It's not a great idea to name a niece or nephew that lives on the opposite coast in a medical situation because the hospital wants someone right there.

Yeah.

That they can talk to, that they can help make the decisions for your care. And so it's an important thing if you care about what happens to you while you're still alive, and most people do. And then the, the other one is, who's going to pay your bills? So that's the other consideration. And you have bills while you're still alive. You may not be able to— you may not be not responsive for some period of time after a medical incident or a stay in the hospital.

This happens all the time.

We don't want to face these things. But they happen all the time.

Sure.

Someone will need to take over your financial arrangements, your— the management of your money for that period of time. Might not be forever, but there are, there are organizations that do that, and of course there are people that you can name— friends, relatives— that may be willing to do that for you. And of course you have to have a conversation with those people about it. You can't just put them in the document.

So the POA and the advanced directives, those are two of the critical pieces to have in place while we're still alive, because at some point we're going to need help. Somebody's going to need to step in, make decisions, or, you know, absolutely part of that process. Yeah, so that's the legal challenge. That's, uh, that's the big one. What else? Well, any other recommendations on who to, who to locate if we don't have those family parties around and There are professional patient advocates in most states.

They're in a couple of states— I live in California, and we have professional fiduciaries, people who are licensed by the state to take care of other people's financial resources if they're unable to, and so we can name professional fiduciaries. We can even name professional fiduciaries on our advanced directives for healthcare for making those decisions if there are absolutely no relatives around that you, that you trust and that you want to have making decisions for you. Beyond that, there are trust departments at almost every bank. That's not an ideal idea that particularly appeals to me, but it does to some people.

Sure.

So there are options out there. The best option is to get together with a group of your friends and start talking about this. Start discussing what kinds of options you all have, and there may be ways in which you can help each other, at least as backups.

Sure. That's great information. The professional fiduciaries, having the discussion with your closest friends and maybe somewhat distant relatives, but having started that discussion and give and take and maybe sharing and maybe offering to help each other. That's great information. Any other challenges for this group?

Yes. I think actually the, one of the biggest challenge that this group faces is where are you going to live? Where are you going to spend those years of your life when you are not as active, when you are not as able to do the things that you can do today? And again, most baby boomers don't want to think that's going to happen. Most people want to believe, and I won't just lay it at the feet of the boomers, I think this has been true throughout history, But we're living longer these days. So baby boomers probably are the first generation to really give it more consideration, if they'll even think or talk about it. Most baby boomers expect they're going to live this happy, long, healthy life and then just die one day on the golf course.

Sure.

And that would be lovely for all of us. But that's just not the reality for a lot of people. So thinking about where you're going to live is an important, important job. And of course, most people these days are drinking the Kool-Aid about aging in place. I'm not a fan of aging in place if that means that you're going to age alone in your 2 or 3-story suburban home without transportation nearby and not knowing many of your neighbors. It's just really a recipe for isolation, loneliness, and any kind of disaster. So what options does that leave? Most people think immediately, "Well, then I have to go into some kind of institution." Well, not necessarily. There are lots of options, uh, of which senior living is one consideration, and many people are quite happy doing that in an independent community or a continuing care community. There are 55+ communities that you might move into. They're now called Active Adult, and they don't have any health services on site. There's no, there's no help for you if you have a medical emergency, but at least you have people who live close to you because most of these communities are either condominium complexes or very close-knit homes, even mobile homes. Very, very popular in the Southwest for 55+ communities. People get to know one another in these communities. They support one another. They help one another. It just seems to be part of, part of the recipe for what makes these communities work.

Sure.

It's also home sharing.

I was just going to ask about home sharing. That's another option that we had a guest on our podcast a while back, and she's, you know, very vital to her community and helps to put together these groups of people that have spare rooms and people that are looking for spare rooms.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple of websites that will help you even find, um, help— homemates, I call them.

Yeah, sure. Can you think of any websites offhand, or—

Yeah, Silvernest is probably my favorite. There are others and some of them are more local. So, you may find in your own community that there is a kind of a roommate matching service. But I love Silvernest and they are operational in most metropolitan areas now and some more rural areas.

Yeah. Yeah. So, the notion of living indefinitely as an independent, healthy, vital senior is great, but That doesn't necessarily always happen, so we have to have— take some precautions or manage some of those risks that could come along. So this is an important one. Where do we want to live when we can't manage our own home or own apartment anymore? We need maybe a little bit of help. So these different settings— and I know there's a whole wide range of settings available. So that's important. That's an important piece to the planning, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's— there are so many other options out there between aging in your own 3-story home and the nursing home, which of course is what most people think of when they think of senior living. They don't know that there's anything other than what Grandma died in called a nursing home, and there are just so many, so many other options today.

Yeah, so it's important to keep getting this message out. There are many options. Yeah. Any other challenges for the solo ager?

Those are the main ones: the health, the finance, and the environment, or where you're going to live. Those are the three key elements of solo aging that I encourage people to think about, talk to your friends about. You If you're a solo ager, you probably have a cadre of other solo ager friends around you. You may be a solo ager who, by virtue of the fact you don't have children, but you may have other family that lives close to you. I have one friend who was the youngest of 5 women, girls when I knew them, because I've known them all since junior high. And 4 of the 5 of them got married, had kids. And the fifth, who was actually my close friend, did not do that. She decided not to get married, not to have kids. She became a scientist and actually spent 13 years of her life in the Galápagos Islands. So when she came back to live in an area of California, she lives fairly close to her sisters, and she knows her nieces and nephews very well. So I tease her about being a solo ager who really is isn't because she will always have that fam— those family resources of lots of different generations that many of us just don't have.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. Let me ask you about how this opportunity compares with what our parents had. Obviously, you know, when we talked on the phone that we knew that our parents didn't even know about a lot of these options. They may not have been available, let alone being able to plan for them. So any thoughts on that and how, how we can kind of take advantage of what we had today compared to what our parents—

Well, let me start by saying that of the thousands of people that I talked to over the course of a year, the people who are most willing to hear what I have to say and to start thinking about this are those that had to take care of their own parents. And that takes many different appearances. Some actually had to go live with those parents in order to take care of them. Some had parents that absolutely refused to move out of their own homes. So they set up elaborate communication systems with them involving Skype calls once a day and viewing their bank accounts together, paying their bills together by phone or by Skype, really elaborate systems. So they're really in tune with what, what they need to do to set things up for themselves. Those people who haven't experienced any of that are less in tune with it. Now, our parents' generation had many more kids. Um, I think that 10% is about the rate of infertility, and that was Those were people who truly weren't able to have kids and there was no in vitro fertilization back when our parents were wanting to have children. So some adopted and some became parents by fostering. So there were other kinds of ways that people became parents, but you just didn't think about or hear much about people who didn't have kids. There just weren't that many of them in our parents' generation. Plus, we are living longer. So many people in our parents' generation and our grandparents' generation died in their 70s and 80s. Now people routinely live well into their 90s and even into their hundreds. So to some extent, that can be pretty much of a mixed blessing. We are living with a lot of different conditions that we're managing. And sometimes managing those conditions becomes very, very difficult and often dangerous for people in their 80s and 90s. And I'm talking about conditions like diabetes and Parkinson's, lots of different conditions.

Sure. Yeah, we are vulnerable to more of these chronic conditions, even acute conditions, the longer we live, of course. So yeah, that's valuable information too, that The people who already experience some level of caregiving for their parents may be a little bit more motivated to take some of these actions for themselves. And of course, the important part is to continue to offer this information about action and what kind of steps people can take, which is, which is why your book is so important. So, I'm curious about the risk of being a solo ager. Aside from all this planning for the days ahead, what about COVID and isolation and a lot of these other challenges that anybody, everybody has had to go through? Is it more difficult? It's been more difficult, obviously, for solo aikido—

Oh gosh, yes. The people who live alone, have been living alone for years. I have many friends who live alone. And they were, for the most part, my professional female colleagues who are divorced or never married. And COVID was very, very tough for them. It was tough for everybody. But for people who live alone, it was especially tough. We all got a taste of loneliness, isolation, trying to figure out how to be with people somehow. Hence all the Zoom calls and Zoom fatigue and all of that. So, but I think it was especially difficult. And that wasn't limited to solo agers because people who had kids couldn't see those kids. And that was extremely difficult. So, I don't know that solo agers were in much worse shape, particularly during COVID I would say probably It's a toss-up.

Sure, sure. Of course, it depends on how much access they had to a lot of these other services or systems or technologies. Yeah, you're right. But I can see where the solo agers were maybe especially vulnerable to the forced isolation, can't go out. I mean, you think about the big cities that were really locked down and people could barely get out to get groceries. So The opportunity to talk with friends or maybe face-to-face is out of the question, so limited phone calls. Yeah.

Yeah. I actually did a couple of different monthly online discussion groups with solo agers and we talked about a lot of different ways that they were able to have some kind of social life and most of it was online.

Yeah. Well, we can be resourceful when we want, right? We can find ways. Yeah. Sometimes we need the tools or the guidance or suggestions, but there are ways. There are ways. There are. There are.

And people found them.

Well, this is great information. I mean, I love the notion of planning and all of these extra factors that we need to wrestle with as we, as we prepare for our safe and secure future. Let me ask you, Sarah, what kind of steps can we start taking today? What kind of things do you recommend for the solo ager? The immediate steps today, tomorrow, next week?

Sure. Well, it goes back to my proverbial three-legged stool of health, finance, and living situation. If you have not done an estate plan, now's the time to get busy with that. We all need to have that. Anybody over 40 should have an an initial estate plan, and then if you've got one that's sitting on a back shelf somewhere, not even in digital form, time to have another look at it with an attorney if you want. That'll differ depending on what your resources are financially, but I like the idea of working with an attorney. They know how to put things in the kind of language that hospitals understand and court courts understand. But you can do it on your own. There are some help aids online. Nolo Press has one for sure.

Nolo Press? Mm-hmm.

So number 1, tackle that estate plan and your care plan, and then begin to take a look at where you're going to be living later in life. And is your home safe to stay in even in your 60s and 70s, let alone getting beyond that? I always encourage people to look at the full range of living opportunities.

Take—

make a visit to some of these active adult communities or some of the continuing care communities. If you don't know what they look like and have never been to one, they're always welcome to have this— they welcome having visitors and showing people around. And the more you do it, the more you visit some of these potential places to live later in life, um, the more you'll be able to kind of compare and contrast and find the ones that really appeal to you. Or start doing your own research on what's around you in terms of co-living, co-housing. Co-housing is another concept that's gotten much bigger in the United States. There are several hundred co-housing communities around the country. I'm a huge fan of cohousing. You really have a community. And you know what's interesting, Joe, that's a word I haven't used yet, and I usually use it all the time. It's really all about building a community.

Yes.

Having and maintaining a community around you throughout your life.

Sharing resources, building on our own strengths, and helping people where we're stronger, where other people may not be so strong. That kind of community give and take. I love that too. So the co-housing concept is another important step, sure.

Yeah, you can learn more about that at cohousing.org or cohousing.com. Those are great resources if you don't know anything about co-housing and want to learn more. It comes under the heading of intentional community, and these are communities that are together because they want to be. They've chosen one another to a great extent. They choose how they're going to run the community, the upkeep of the community. Most of them get together for 2 or 3 meals a week. But everybody is not like the old hippie communes. Everybody has their own life and their own house, whether that looks like a condominium or a little cottage on the grounds of the co-housing community. But much of your space is part of the community resources. There's often large community dining room and entertainment room and just lots of multi-purpose rooms for people to work out in or have discussions in or all kinds of things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great information. It occurs to me also as talking about different types of living facilities, senior living facilities, many of them even offer the virtual tours, right? So if you have access to a computer, you can go to their website and click on virtual tour and they can, you know, give you a nice demonstration of all of their services and amenities. Yeah. Of course, the question of cost always comes up. I mean, a lot of these tend to be pricey. And maybe people don't have access to those kind of funds. I mean, Social Security benefits probably are not going to cover costs, pay the cost there. So any, any tips there or any—

you know, I answer that question all the time, both live and online like this, and there are several answers that I have for that. One is if you know you are are really without financial resources at all, you have very small Social Security or for whatever reason none at all, and you have no savings, it's time to visit your county department on aging and find out what's available in the way of subsidized housing for older adults. And if you're at that point in your life where you're really ready to seriously look at it, get on a list. Because those things are in very high demand. The other option for people, and I'm here, I'm mostly talking to people in their 60s, maybe early 70s or before, think about moving out of the country. You can retire and live a very good life outside of the United States. There are many places in Mexico and Central America that are very attractive to American and Canadian expatriates and have huge communities of them. Down in Ajijic, which is around Lake Chapala, there is an expatriate community of 50,000.

Wow.

And this is not new. Lake Chapala communities have been forming and attracting Canadians and Americans and some Europeans since the '60s. So, and there are, that's the biggest one I know of, but there are many, many more. And it's amazing how much less expensively you can live. If this is piquing your interest, then the resource for you is called internationalliving.com. They put out a lovely magazine, comes to my house every month. And you can also find out all of their information online, very rich, very deep website like AARP has. So International Living is a great, great resource. They, they do a ton of research into what are the— what are safe, secure, reasonable cost areas every year, and they put out a list.

That's a great resource. I love that. I love that. And you know, the idea of— that's really starting a new chapter. Think about moving out of our home and Chicago and going to, you know, another country. That's really opening new doors, literally. Yeah, I love that. So, a lot of what we talked about today is in your book, Sara, and I mentioned it at the outset, Essential Retirement Planning for Solo Agers. How can people get a copy of your book?

Best way is on Amazon. Yeah, Amazon usually has it for somewhere around $13 or $14. So won't break the bank, not a hardcover, it's a softcover book.

Yeah, okay.

Lots of worksheets and, and checklists and things like that in there.

Sure. So we only touched on part of it, I'm sure, today in our brief talk. So there's a lot more, I'm sure, a wealth of information in the book. So I would recommend it. I have a copy here that you kindly sent me already, and it looks like a great book, so I'd recommend it. So, uh, just lastly, what would you hope our listeners take away from our conversation today?

A little motivation to get started with their own plans. Again, starting with that estate plan. One thing estate planning really gets you doing is thinking about these things. And the other thing that I would hope it motivates you to do is to talk to your friends, to your family, to the people that around you, especially those that you believe will, that are younger than you, that will be around when you may be much older and maybe frail, maybe have difficulty making decisions for yourself. We just, again, we don't have a crystal ball. We don't know what's going to happen to our bodies, to our minds. And those are very, very real. I hate to call them threats. That sounds so ominous. But But these are— this is reality. We're not going to be the healthy, vibrant people today that we are today when we're in our 90s. And many of us may live well into our 90s and even 100s. I have a cousin, actually she's my husband's cousin, who's 98. And she's been in an assisted living community for about 12 years now. Her daughter also lives in the area, and she and I both go to see her regularly. And she doesn't really have anything wrong with her. She's just— her body is just wearing out. She can't really see anymore. She can't hear much anymore. Her feet— she can't feel her feet underneath her. So she has recently gone from a walker to a wheelchair. And these are the kinds of things that happen to people like you and me.

Sure. Yeah, there is some physical decline. So what you're talking about is exploring these options, looking at all the different considerations, and I call it informed decision-making. I mean, get more information so when we do need to make those decisions, we have a lot of the data already. We don't have to make some quick, hasty, impulsive decisions.

Absolutely.

Makes a difference. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Well, thanks very much, Sarah. Uh, before we close, I just want to mention to our listeners, I want to remind them about a few items. Pleased to announce a new co-sponsor for our podcast, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. A Mighty Good Time is a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over, free to search and free to post, amightygoodtime.com. Also, there's a new offering on my website where individuals can arrange one-on-one calls with Dr. Joe, that's me, to discuss bouncing back from setbacks. How can we tap into our resilient self? How can we find ways to make it over those hurdles we face on our different journeys? Take a look at the Work with Dr. Joe tab on the website, livingto100.club. Be sure to subscribe to our email list, receive our newsletter and other announcements. And finally, pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age we're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book and something that I think our guests would agree with. So Sarah, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. If people might want to contact you, how can they do that?

They can contact me at my website, which is— well, you can get there in two ways. You can get there with my name, sarahzefgeber.com, or you can get there through my company name, lifeencore.com. Some of the worksheets and checklists and all from the book are actually available for free on my website.

Great. Okay. So Sarah's fgeber.com and lifeoncore.com, right? That's great. Thanks so much for being a guest on our program, and I'm sure our listeners have benefited tremendously. And thanks again for being here, and thank you, Joe. And thanks to everyone for tuning in to this episode. Hope to see you next time. Hey everybody, Jared Sebaste here, host of Retire Repurposed. This podcast is dedicated to help people transition into fulfilling and purposeful retirements. Retirement is a big life change. In fact, the two most dangerous years of a person's life are the year they were born and the year they retire. Few people could just flip the switch from working a career 30 or 40+ years, retiring on Friday, without methodical steps to living what we call a repurposed retirement. To listen now, search Retire Repurpose on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.