Last month, in the entertaining blog, Linda's Backroads Musings, Blogger Linda, a "rural mail carrier" on the Kansas prairies, wrote an entry about an NPR story on aging:

Talk of the Nation on NPR had a show entitled, “Teaching the Young to Empathize with the Old.” The guests were Jason Wilson, editor of The Smart Set, an independent magazine published at Drexel University; author of the article "Old Like Me" and Peg Gordon, intergenerational coordinator at the Macklin Intergenerational Institute and teacher of the class "Xtreme Aging."

Jason Wilson told his experiences simulating being old. This involved corn in his shoes, Vaseline on his glasses, earplugs and bandages tied tightly around knees and elbows. He almost gleefully told of his difficulties going to the bathroom and other daily activities.

Wilson's description of the aging simulation exercise in his article from The Smart Set:

My feet hurt. My knees are so stiff that walking has become a chore. When I climb stairs, I’m out of breath by the time I reach the top. It takes a special effort just to tie my shoes. My vision is so poor that I require a caregiver to accompany me on my morning stroll. I can barely hear when she asks what I’d like for a snack. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Food just doesn’t taste the same as it once did.

After I’m told I’ve been eating an oatmeal cookie, I face an even worse indignity: shuffling and feeling my way, alone, into the men’s room — or at least I hope it is the men’s room. After fumbling with my zipper, I can barely make out the urinal. It is my sincere hope that my aim is true. As I exit, I’m nearly knocked backward by a couple of young guys barreling through the door. “Damn kids!” is what I want to shout.

This, apparently, is what they call aging. I’m told that my tribulations are common, and I’ll likely be labeled a complainer around the senior center. Aging is not for sissies, I’m told. But here’s the big difference. Twenty-five minutes ago I was a relatively fit 37-year-old. Not a triathlete, but certainly someone who didn’t need help opening a pill bottle. Now I am suddenly old and feeble. Allow me to be perfectly candid: It really sucks.

I’m undergoing an aging simulation administered by Monika Deppen Wood, a sociology professor at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. Wood teaches an undergraduate course called the Sociology of Aging, in which she requires all of her students to undergo the same simulation. “Reading about aging is not the same as experiencing it,” Wood says.

Such classes offer a new twist on sensitivity training - "aging sensitivity training".

Again, from Jason Wilson:

Aging simulation exercises like the ones I underwent at Rutgers and several other locations around the country lie at the heart of so-called “aging sensitivity training” that’s been practiced now for at least two decades. Originally, these exercises were designed for nurses, physicians, therapists, social workers, and others who work with elderly patients.

For instance, at Valparaiso University’s College of Nursing — highly regarded nationwide for its emphasis on gerontology — every student must take a junior-level course called The Aging Process, regardless of what field of nursing they intend to enter. One of the first assignments in that course is an aging simulation.

“Even some of the nursing students, when they first get here, will tell you, ‘I hate old people. I’d never want to work with old people.’ They want to work with babies, or in the ICU,” says Kristen Mauk, a nursing professor at Valparaiso and one of the nation’s leading experts in gerontological nursing.

“We have to prepare our students, because there are going to be so many more older people in years to come,” Mauk says. “We’re preparing our students to be nurses in the future.

The Macklin Intergenerational Institute, founded by philanthropists Marilyn and Gordon Macklin, has been in the forefront of such formal training. This is reflected in the Institute's mission statement: "To continually improve lives of all ages through multi-age programming, care, community relationships, and creative communication."

One of the Macklin Institute's program is "The FamilyRoom Approach™":

Daily, children and senior adults come together in a home-like setting referred to as the FamilyRoom Approach™. In this relaxed environment that emulates the family home, interaction is emphasized and multi-age relationships are built. It is not all uncommon to find a grandpa feeding a baby, a grandma rocking a toddler, or several preschool children folding clothes with the participants from the...Adult Day Center. It's all a part of the spontaneity of everyday life that occurs naturally within the center. Through observational research, the Macklin Intergenerational Institute identified that the FamilyRoom Approach™ is the best environment in which to cultivate meaningful age-integrated experiences because learning through routine and ordinary experiences provides more opportunities for children to discover the world and for senior adults to rediscover it.

While I applaud these sophisticated and creative courses and certainly the admirable intentions and efforts, I find it disheartening that we have come to a point in contemporary life where our interactions with elders are so rare and infrequent, we have to learn about the aging experience in a workshop, rather than in a multigenerational home.

However, there may be a return to the multigenerational household, as their numbers in this country have grown by 38% from 1990 to 2000.

Writer and broadcaster Anita Garner who blogs at The Aging of Aquarius hopes that this trend continues. In her blog post, "What is lost", Garner describes a talk with a friend about the advantages of living with grandparents in the home:

Adam, always a thoughtful and well-spoken advocate for his beliefs, introduced the topic often taught by Margaret Mead, about the value of generations living close together the way we once did, and how much the youngers can learn from the elders. We...stood there on a beautiful autumn day and sighed about how we’ve never had that experience and how wonderful it must be.

... is there a chance that one day our society can take a few steps backward and embrace this idea again? That might be a huge step forward.

It would also be a step in assisting seniors and their adult children on many practical levels. Marilyn Mobley, market researcher and blogger at Baby Boomer Insights, grew up in a multi-generational home, with her "Grandma Jeanie", who was the centerpoint of their family life:

Grandma Jeanne (an apt name... she was an absolute genie in the kitchen and with "Old Bessie," her treadle sewing machine) was as close as my hard-working career mom ever got to having a wife. Not once were any of the five children in my family ever left in the hands of a babysitter. Thank goodness. I can't imagine anyone else being able to impart as much wisdom or command a child to behave simply by arching a single eyebrow like Grandma did.

Mobley sees a return to the multi-generational household "more out of necessity" for Baby Boomer parents:

We boomers now have parents who need care and we want to do it ourselves. According to...USA Today, 41% of boomers who have a living parent are helping to care for them, either financially or by providing personal care. Some 8% of boomers have parents living with them. Of those who are not currently caring for their parents, 37% expect to do so in the future.

Perhaps more than anything, the resurgence of the multi-generational household will deepen our family ties. Wendy Spiegel of Gen Plus, who lives with her mother and daughter, sees "a great opportunity in this big, big village to recapture the wisdom of the elders."

From her post, Multi-generational living. Bring it on.:

When I grew up in the 60's and 70's, it never, ever occurred to me (perhaps naively?) that I might some day live in a city far away from my parents. As an adult, I came across country and settled in Los Angeles. My mother eventually moved in with me. In our case, it felt very right. I now have a multi-generational household. My daughter benefits from the wisdom of my mother. My mother feels useful and I gain a perspective I might never have gained on my own.

...I find my mother wise. She considers herself a "young old". I enjoy our political discussions, her views on books and films, her take on the world at large and in microcosm.

She also hopes that her daughter will be just as willing to take her on when she becomes "old old":

If I cannot afford to support myself when I become an "old old", then I sure as heck hope that my years of wisdom will come in handy in securing me that extra bedroom in my career-oriented kid's house while I watch over her seven-year old, just as my mom does for me.

Grace Davis, Contributing Editor Life/Elders, also blogs at State of Grace