Another specialization of the "professional friend": elder life coaches

Time Goes By refers to the concept of an "elder life coach", which is an occupation where someone receives money to help people approaching retirement or who are of an elderly age to deal with retiring or becoming/being elderly.

I find it hard to say whether or not there's a need for such an occupation in the world. I suppose the free market will provide us with the answer over time. Frankly, I find it difficult to accept that a lot of elderly people have a need for something like this, and it's a bit obscene that they'd have to pay for it. This kind of thing should be provided for free by volunteers that live in the same communities as the people needing a friendly visit once in awhile. In fact, as TGB's post suggests, there should be no profit involved in an endeavour like this because of the inherent vulnerability of those on the receiving end of a service like this.

On the other hand, I have absolute faith that plenty of boomers would actively think that they require something like this, and these are the people in the other half of the market who are "approaching retirement". So, you have a market of mixed generations. As my other posts sometimes indicate, I don't feel sorry for boomers.

I sometimes get a bit tired of our habit of segregating our communities into age groups, interconnected only by "professionals" who all have similar "expert" approaches to dealing with problems. Professional relationships aren't human, and human relationships are what people in need of services like these are ultimately looking for. What happened to the integration of ages within communities? Why do high school students only interact with high school students when they're at school? We then, of course, ask why they're not interested in the community and have no appreciation of the past. Why aren't teenagers in high school being asked to help out or just spend time with the elderly? There's value in having the past and the future of a given community in communication with each other, sharing stories and life experiences.

In the end, the "life coach" occupation is just another specialization of the "professional friend" occupation. In the absence of an appropriately intimate relationship with a friend, you pay someone else to listen to your problems, and they talk it through with you until you reach some agreeable conclusion. Psychiatrists, grief counsellors, and psychics are other specializations of this occupation. The specialization comes in the type of knowledge that each needs in order to guide you to your own conclusion, depending on your area of need. But, make no mistake that the most important aspect of each of these occupations is the willingness to take money in exchange for sitting with someone and listening to them talk: that is their main contribution.

Technorati: professional friend, psychiatrist, elderly, retirement, life coach

Canada's positive move toward spousal income splitting (and effects on child rearing)

Once in awhile, this new federal government of ours makes some moves that I genuinely support. Most recently, it was the harnessing of income trusts, and now today we have another such proposed move: one that will allow income splitting between spouses so that single-income families are no longer at a disadvantage versus two-income families. Under this proposal, a family that chooses to operate with a single income of, say, $80,000 would be no worse off financially than a family that chooses to operate with two incomes of $40,000 each.

This move is a corollary to their earlier childcare benefit for children under six years of age: it clearly promotes the idea of choice in child rearing and makes it easier, financially, for parents who would prefer to raise their children by themselves to do so.

This, of course, will not benefit single parents, nor will it benefit single people with no children. Although I have a problem with the lack of benefit to single parents, I have no problem with the effect on single people. Life should be made easier for parents raising children before it's made easier for other people, and I'm willing to pay for that. Yes, it's social engineering, but I'm OK with it.

Feminists have their usual say. They don't like the fact that women may be discouraged from entering the workforce due to income splitting making it more attractive to stay at home with the children. I think some of these feminists have forgotten that their agenda used to be about choice. They rightfully wanted women to have the choice to choose how they live their lives, but many of them are now about forcing a view of how women should behave on women in general. So, why isn't it good enough if a woman wants to stay at home with her children while they're young? Such a decision represents a recognition of the special relationship that a mother has with her child -- a truly feminine characteristic, and one that I'd have thought feminists would want to promote: the unique nature of mother's relationship with her children that is quite distinct from that of the father's.

I suppose we have different agendas. I think mine's better.

Technorati: income splitting, Canada, family, children, daycare