Grandparents
can take heart in the growing clout of one the world’s most powerful
clubs — that of global grandparents who run economies, captain
industries and wield political power across the world from Ireland to
Iceland.
Bill and Hillary Clinton are the
latest to join the club even as the former US secretary of state eyes a
presidential bid, while here in Ireland grandmother Mary Robinson is
busy playing a global peace role and German Chancellor and grandmother
Angela Merkel is Europe’s most powerful leader.
Such examples of grandparent power
should inspire the older generation, said Eamon Timmins of Age Action
Ireland, the organisation behind Positive Ageing Week.
*www.ageaction.ie & www.alone.ie
*www.ageaction.ie & www.alone.ie
“What those examples of Mary
Robinson, Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel and others show is that older
people have a key contribution to make in bringing to the table
experience and knowledge.
“There is an element of age
discrimination that associates old age with less activity and less
influence and less importance but I think older people are playing a key
role. What we’re doing in Positive Ageing week is focusing on the fact
that we are all growing older and ageing is something to be celebrated
rather than feared.
“We are trying to highlight the
contribution that older people have made and are continuing to make to
their communities and their families. Much of their contribution in many
cases is not paid for; therefore it’s not valued because unfortunately
we’re a society that doesn’t value what we don’t pay for.
“This afternoon, if you go out to
any national school gates, the number of older people collecting
grandchildren, as carers or as neighbours or as friends, are playing a
very, very important role in the economy. Those children’s parents in
many cases are both working, so grandparents are enabling families to
get through the recession and pay big mortgages while knowing their
children are being well cared for.”
Ireland could make greater strides
by tapping the skills and experience of older people to a much greater
extent and this would also help to boost the nascent recovery, Mr
Timmins said. He cited the approach to older workers of German carmaker
BMW.
“In Ireland older people tend to
take the brunt of early redundancies so we are losing a lot of
experience. By contrast, BMW have adapted one of their production lines
in Germany to cater to older people. About 18% or 19% of the German
population is over 65; ours is about 12%, so they are desperately trying
to hang on to their older workers.”
Older BMW workers now sit on
specially designed ergonomic seats and the plant has enhanced lighting,
while mobile trolleys make accessing tools easier. Germany knows it
desperately needs its older workers and BMW is painfully aware that the
number of its employees over the age of 50 will increase to 40% in the
next decade from 25% today.
And the approach has worked out
well. Workers on the newly adapted production line have been
outperforming the younger workers on other lines, producing as many
parts but with fewer faults than those produced by the younger workers.
This pattern was borne out in a study by the Max Planck
Institute for
Human Development in Berlin that found workers aged 65 and over are more
productive and more reliable than their much younger colleagues.
“Older workers do have a key value
and as a society in Ireland we are slowly coming round to that but there
is still quite a lot of age discrimination in Irish society,” according
to Mr Timmins. “We are also moving the retirement age out much faster
than other European countries, so there is also going to be a need for
older workers to continue working.”
No doubt to the amusement of many
grandparents, some US commentators have wondered how Hillary Clinton
would be able to juggle the roles of president and grandmother if she
were to run for the White House in 2016. But they needn’t have lost
sleep over it. The first President Bush, for example, had 14
grandchildren.
“Hillary Clinton would be a role
model if she runs [for the White House] and being a grandmother she
would bring extra talents like wisdom and expertise,” says Third Age
founder Mary Nally, whose organisation designs programmes and services
for the elderly. “Age should never be a barrier for older people.”
Certainly, it was never a barrier
to statesmen like the late Nelson Mandela. While he was busy shaping a
democratic South Africa, he was both a grandfather and a
great-grandfather. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, now a great-grandmother,
at 88, is often seen as the glue holding this often turbulent family
together.
Former Icelandic prime minister
Jóhanna Sigurardóttir, who resigned last year after steering the country
towards economic stability, was grandmother to six grandchildren when
she came to power in 2009, the same year that Forbes magazine listed her
among the 100 most powerful women in the world. Some world leaders have
also been raised by their grandparents, most notably Barack Obama, and
their world view has been profoundly influenced by the older generation.
The elder set has also blazed a
trail in the media and entertainment industries in the person of such
figures as Rupert Murdoch and, closer to home, Gay Byrne. In the world
of literature, some of Ireland’s best works have come from writers like
Brendan Kennelly as they moved into their later years, while some of
Seamus Heaney’s most moving poems were inspired by his grandfather.
Grandfather Michael Smurfit remains
a driving force in Irish industry, while in the United States Warren
Buffett, dubbed “America’s grandpa investor,” continues at the age of 84
to make his clients billionaires. But, at the other end of the scale,
ageing for large numbers of people in Ireland can be a nightmare.
After a lifetime of working hard
and raising families they face grinding poverty in their later years and
sometimes even the horror of elder abuse. Their choices are often as
bleak as deciding between eating and keeping warm and if they end up in
hospital they must wait for hours on cold, uncomfortable trolleys.
“None of these conditions should be acceptable in a wealthy country like Ireland in 2014,” says Age Action CEO Robin Webster.
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