Aging Better: Intergenerational Learning and the Aging Brain Intergenerational learning benefits our legacy, well-being, and longevity. Updated October 4, 2026 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
Key points
- * The current understanding of aging can be expanded.
- *Accepting uncertainty allows for mutual growth between older and younger generations.
- * Participating in intergenerational sharing benefits physical and emotional well-being for all ages.
“If you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter, and cynical… you got it half-licked.” –Henry Miller
“Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the water’s flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.” –Bertrand Russell
We all know the media’s demographic description of growing old. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, adults age 65 and older now make up close to 19% of our population, about 65 million older Americans.
Solutions to the ups and downs of aging are basically from one template that supposedly fits all. The need to increase geriatric physicians, more over-the-counter brain stimulation, how to ward off scammers, and even certain podcasts questioning the value of our older population. Most well-intentioned advice emphasizes staying fit, being active, and eating healthy foods, including beets.
These ideas are stuck in models masked as the end-of-all means to longevity. They don’t suit everyone and, in many cases, are profit-driven. Practical strategies are generalized without regard for the many cultural constraints and contexts that can encourage our senior population to take charge of their well-being beyond being told not to fall.
What Do Seniors and the Broader Population Think About Aging?
The Pew Research Report (Nov. 11, 2025) cites that when asked what age senior citizens would like to live to if they had the choice, 76% said they want to live to at least 80, while about 29% said they want to make it to 100.
On average, Americans in general say they would like to live to be 90-plus years old. When adults of all ages are asked what they think about aging, 73% say they will age well, 67% think about what it will be like to be a senior, and 67% say they are worried and have concerns, especially about mental health, loneliness, and family relations.
Regardless, aging is a multifactorial process with an infinite number of determinants, including class, genetics, stress management, exposure to environmental context, etc. But beyond advice based on self-management models, little addresses intergenerational relations and how they affect mental and emotional issues, as well as physical needs. In other words, once you remove the many different factors from the whole system that includes aging in our society, you are left with fragmented perceptions and continued vulnerability.
This, however, is where demographics hint at an amazing opportunity to use the existing interdependence within our society. For instance, seniors 65 and older, as indicated in the above-mentioned Pew study, now outnumber teenagers, a shift driven by the baby-boomer generation and declining birth rates. In fact, it is now projected that all children under 18 will be outnumbered by seniors by 2029.
Read more: Aging Better: Intergenerational Learning and the Aging Brain – Psychology Today South AfricaContinue/Read Original Article: Aging Better: Intergenerational Learning and the Aging Brain | Psychology Today South Africa
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