death or total disability. The radical concept of
“retirement” started to take shape.
Lifeexpectancy,whichwasunderfiftyin1900,climbed
to more than sixty by the 1930s, as improvements in
nutrition,sanitation,andmedicalcaretookhold.Family
sizes fell from an average of seven children in the
mid-1800stojustoverthreeafter1900.Theaverageage
at which a mother had her last child fell too—from
menopausetothirtyoryounger.Asaresult,vastlymore
peoplelivedtoseetheirchildrenreachadulthood.Inthe
earlytwentiethcentury,awomanwouldhavebeenfifty
whenherlastchildturnedtwenty-one,insteadofinher
sixtiesacenturybefore.Parentshadmanyyears,easilya
decadeormore,beforetheyortheirchildrenhadtoworry
about old age.
Sowhattheydidwasmoveon,justliketheirchildren.
Given the opportunity, both parents and children saw
separationas aformof freedom.Whenevertheelderly
have had the financial means, they havechosen what
social scientists have called “intimacy at a distance.”
Whereasin early-twentieth-century America 60 percent
ofthoseoveragesixty-fiveresidedwithachild,bythe
1960stheproportionhaddroppedto 25 percent.By 1975
itwasbelow 15 percent.Thepatternisaworldwideone.
Just 10 percentofEuropeansoverageeightylivewith
their children, and almost half live completely alone,
withouta spouse.InAsia,wheretheideaofanelderly
parent being left to live alone has traditionally been
regarded as shameful—theway my father saw it—the
sameradicalshift istakingplace.InChina,Japan, and