Seniors and self esteem

Few of us think about our own self-esteem.  But how we feel about ourselves, our work, our relationship to family and the community and our place in the world is the cornerstone not only of our ability to function and be productive in life but of our mental and physical health as well.  That is a basic concept of human psychology for everyone and that need for self-esteem doesn’t go away when you become older. This post is for those who are caring for senior parents or older loved ones.

When you think about it, this episode of being a caregiver for your ageing parent is not your first crack at caregiving.  You were the caregiver and to some extent still are for your children as they were growing up.  You took care of their every need including their emotional and psychological needs.  And any good parent learns early on that a child’s self-esteem if vital to their success in school and in life.

Now you are in that relationship with your mom and/or dad and while you are not “raising them”, you have taken on the caregiver role which means in addition to worrying about their finances, their physical health, their diet and their living arrangements, their mental health and self-esteem are things for you to consider as well.

Because it’s not us going through those losses, it is hard for us to empathize with the huge changes going on in the life of your mom and dad and the massive impact those changes have on their self-esteem.  For a parent, your sense of self-worth comes from your independence, your ability to take care of your kids, do your job and be useful to others in society.

In the senior years, all of that could disappear in what seems like an instant.  In the eyes of some seniors, they go from being the hero to their kids to being a pitiful old man or woman being taken care of like they were the child.  Their feeling of being useful vanishes and is replaced by a feeling of being unnecessary and a nuisance.  The “things” that they invested themselves in that are symbols of their success which includes their house, their ability to drive and their work all go away in rapid succession one after the other.

Small wonder senior citizens undergo a tremendous drop in self-esteem.  And when you go from thinking highly of yourself to not liking who you are at all, that is a formula for disaster.  It’s a dangerous mental condition to stay in because, without self-esteem, the natural response is to turn to unhealthy thoughts of alcohol or drug abuse or in the most extreme cases, suicide.

As a caregiver, be aware of the self-esteem of your ageing parent and the huge impact moving out of their home and losing their spouse and ability to drive is having on them.  The symptoms of poor self esteem is your parent doesn’t take care of himself like he used to, repeats stories over and over because those stories remind him of a time when he liked himself and seem to launch on desperate adventures to try things he really should not take on just to get a feeling of being someone again.

You can do a lot to build that self-esteem back up in your ageing parent.  Help him get in touch with family and old friends.  Encourage him to talk about the old times and pour praise on him about those days.  And above all, let him have lots of time with the grandkids.  Grandchildren could love anyone into liking themselves.  So let them use a little of that magic on your parents so they can like themselves again. 

Healing Your Past with Meditation

As we move into retirement, we realize it is not possible to roll back time or undo or change bad decisions we made in the past. However, using meditation, we can change the way we feel about the bad decisions we made in the past so that they will stop tormenting us in the present. We all carry a lot of baggage from the past, such things as maybe a broken heart, hurt feelings, or bad memories of friends or loved ones that have lied, cheated, or betrayed us, events that may have brought us pain, or we may torment ourselves over opportunities we may have missed out on or even wrong choices we made in our lives.

We absolutely cannot allow ourselves to let things in the past change or take over our present lives. Meditation is simply collecting our thoughts in a relaxing atmosphere. If you take the time to learn how to heal your past it will enable you to be happy in the present. You may ask how can you heal the past? You can look at past situations you cannot change in a brighter light with a new understanding on the events in the past have hurt you. When your by yourself in a quiet place start your meditation.

Think about how whatever may have happened to you in the past may even be a benefit to you. You know how bad you felt when something or somebody said or did something to you that you felt that you had no purpose in life or was not good enough to associate with others. Meditating about how those things in the past made you feel helps you to understand how others who are now in the same situation you were in then feel about themselves.

You know how they feel so you maybe can tell them your experience back then and how you turned it around and made a life for yourself. So, many of us just need someone to take the time to just say hello or nice day isn't it? Just a kind word to someone who has had a bad day can make all the difference in the world. My mother told me that you can kill more flies with honey. Meditation can make you feel so much more positive and give you a different outlook on life in general, it is something very positive you can do to help yourself.

What I understand my mother meant was if you have been around someone that wasn't pleasant or had a bad attitude don't act like that person does, instead just turn the other cheek and it may rub off on the person who has a bad attitude. Meditation could be the key to this happening. So, you see meditation can be used to turn bad situations into something good or even good situations into something great. Shining the light of the new understanding on those events that happened in the past will help you have a feeling of acceptance, peace, and happiness.

Retirement Investment funds and social issues

I recently read an article that complained about how public pension investment funds were underfunded and were also investing in underperforming stocks that were being used to fund social issues. Members wanted their funds to perform. According to the story, I read, “Ultimately, members reiterated that they want the performance of their funds to be financially driven, strongly preferring to maintain personal control over any charitable donations or socially motivated investments. That focus on financial performance is the biggest and most important takeaway from the Spectrum research – pension members simply don’t see their funds as a political tool to advance social issues and causes.

Sadly, large funds are increasingly being used for activism, with members' retirement treated as a subordinate concern. For example, CalPERS and NYCERS have both embarked on strategies investing heavily in alternative energies at the expense of more traditional energy resources, despite the fact that many renewable energy stocks continue to underperform”

How are public pension plans performing and what percentage of their asset allocation is being used to fund social issues and causes around the world. First, let’s address the performance of the funds. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the following countries funds did well between 2010 and 2015

Is the risk of investing in renewable energy a problem for pension funds worldwide? According to the OECD, nine funds (worldwide) reported exposure to renewable energy, with Denmark’s Pension reporting the largest allocation (through unlisted equity), followed by two Netherlands Funds. Denmark Pension has increased the share of renewable energy companies in their energy portfolio from 11% to 41% from 2010 to 2014, and expect this trend to continue. As part of its new investment policy adopted at the end of 2015, Denmark plans to invest an additional EUR 4 billion in renewable energy generation. While the changing regulatory landscape in the energy sector brings challenges, it can also give rise to investment opportunities, specifically in renewable assets. Québec Pension Plan, Argentina’s Sustainability Guarantee Fund, all had significant allocations to social infrastructure. 

Looking at the funds above you can see the investment in social causes is not affecting the rate of return of these funds, with the Netherlands leading the world at 7.4% and Denmark in the top ten at 4.1%.

Source: Pension Markets in Focus (pdf file)

Women and Pension Planning.

Women are not saving enough for pensions. This is an issue that I have raised before and talked about the reasons for this. Women receive on average about 79% of what a man makes for doing the same job, which means that women may not have money to put into retirement savings. Company pensions and government pensions are based on income—the more you earn the more you can put away for retirement, which puts women at a disadvantage. Women have a different outlook on financial matters, which means they need a different approach from Financial Advisors—and financial advisors who cater to women are few and far between.

A new survey out of Ireland found that just over one in three women own a pension (36%) compared with 55% of men. It also found that the vast majority of women (71%) don’t know how to start a pension, while the average woman with a pension saves just €140 a month. Depending on her age, she should be saving at least double that.

According to the Journal, the average woman in Ireland wants to retire on about €600 per week but, even when the state pension of €239 is factored in, women are saving at best half of this.

Further questions put to the 1,000 adults over the age of 18 from a variety of socio-economic groups showed that three in four women (76%) who don’t have a pension are worried about not owning one. A vast majority of women (89%) also said they’d like help with their retirement planning.

The issue and a solution that works is being considered by the Irish government. The government hopes to introduce an auto-enrolment pension system by 2021, too late for thousands of women but good news for young women in Ireland.

The problem is that this issue is a world-wide issue and will cause major problems for economics and governments very soon. Senior women will be finishing work and will not have adequate pensions, and this will cause a huge strain on our welfare systems. Women not only are receiving inadequate pay when they work, they will receive inadequate pensions when they retire. Women also live longer than men by an average of about 8 years worldwide, which means that older women will be living in poverty for longer.

The problem can be fixed if there is government will. Providing education about financial issues and pensions that are easily understood; provide automatic enrollment in company and government pension plans, provide information that addresses the issue and keep it simple. Finally, start to pay women equal pay for equal work.