Age DOES affect how tragic death is

[Bumpitybumper]

In the current climate and for obvious reasons, I see a lot of discussion about the average age of people dying from Coronavirus and how it is skewed significantly towards the elderly. Inevitably, this will lead to some claiming that this fact is irrelevant and a life is a life and any death is equally tragic. Talk of amending our approach towards the virus because of the average age of the people dying is shot down quickly. The implication being that any acknowledgement that the loss of an elderly person's life is less significant or tragic than a young person is implying that the elderly are expendable or don't matter.

To be clear, I don't think either of those things BUT I do think most people tend to find death more tragic and significant the younger the victim. My theory is that death is an inevitability for all of us, but there is a presumed "normal" lifespan and therefore young people that have died are viewed to have had less opportunity/experience and lost more years.

The ultimate test I believe is that if there was an emergency (e.g. burning building) most people would opt to save the younger person over an elderly person if only one could be saved. I think if children are involved then again most people would rescue them as a priority over adults.

So AIBU to think age does affect how we perceive death?

Who is suggesting that everyone over 80 should be bumped off?

If we are to say that children's lives are not particularly valuable to humans as a species then that sets us apart from other mammals I think?

It's an interesting approach and maybe it will wash. Children are seen as lesser than around the world a lot -especially female children. So maybe it will work to change the mindset around the place.

@IrmaFayLear

Obviously you would save your own relatives (I hope!) before strangers of whatever age, but the scenarios here involve people you don't know , so would you save a child or an old person who you have never met, but just sitting next to on a plane, say.

I can only think it would be a very odd person who - given that there is no one else to help - would choose the 90-year-old over the 4-year-old.

I'd take the one most likely to fit under my arm or over my shoulder, personally. Not because they are more valuable, but because I'd have no desire to get burned to a crisp or succumb to smoke inhalation because somebody was too heavy to hoy out the door or decided to grab at me in panic.

Hypothetical four year olds tend to come as a conveniently transportable package, even if they are as prone to panic as little old ladies.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

I think it's all relative really. When my Mum died that to me personally was far more tragic than the death of a younger person I don't know. Yes she was old, but she was my Mum.

Agreed. So many other comments are comparing apples and oranges, someone that is personally close to you is always going to feel as though they 'matter' (for lack of a better word) than a stranger no matter what their age

That's a really interesting point.

May feed into other things in society and around the world.

Different types of people being more. I don't know. Me and mine centered. And other sorts of people being sort of different.

There's genuinely no criticism of either way there it's just an observation.

Human nature is what it is. And different people have different levels of. Not sure how to put it. Like the explorers who go off into the wilderness are seen as brave. I see them as people who need quite extreme circs to feel alive and also are quite cavalier about their own lives.

Everyone brings their own personality, background and sense of worth.

I'm one of those who rushes in when it's a really stupid thing to do. I don't attach much value to my own life. But I understand that in general children, young people are important. That's a sort of basic animal instinct thing surely?

But I read here that no. There's an idea that feeling our young, as mammals, are not particularly important. Maybe this is a consequence of our success? And certainly around the world children and young people are in a variety of, well. Shit situations.

Don't know what is best really.

I do know that fucking the world economy completely, screwing education. Is not trivial. At all.

I think children and young people are just expected to suck it up and get on with it though.

There was concern about increases in DV, CSA. Not reported on so much now.

I don't know what the balance is. But there must be one. It's hard for governments.

It's not right though for people to be cut off though. We're social animals. And especially for children and teens.

These threads that say omg older people are being cast aside and no one cares. It's not true, is it. Look at how we have changed society and so fast.

The care homes situation was/ is disgraceful. That's the fault of the govt and relevant authorities though, not young people.

Overall I think if someone is very elderly, going downhill health wise, and has had a great life, then I am sad but a funeral should be a celebration of their life. My grandparents all reached their 80s bar one who died of stomach cancer in his 30s.one gran had a ‘Perfect’ death, if you mean what you would hope for yourself one day. 84, still lived three floors up (no lift), still physically fit and socially active, still had her wits about her, died in her sleep.

My dad is 68 and will be lucky to see another two years, his life is pretty awful as he has stage 4 heart failure. We are mentally prepared for his passing when it comes. My brother died a few months ago aged 34. It was a waste, avoidable and tragic, but not unexpected...and a small relief due to years of drug abuse which meant we were always fearful.

However, the heartbreaking deaths have been family and friends who commit suicide, leaving small children, or those who fight and fail to overcome addiction. They leave terrible ripples among friends and family.

It will be a relief for her when she dies, and a release for her family and friends.

@Ffsffsffsffsffs thank you for being refreshingly honest about death of parents. My father's death was a release from the terrible cancer that ravaged him. My granddad's from the dementia that made him a danger to himself. If I could die peacefully in my sleep when the time comes, I would count that as a blessing for me and my family.

YANBU. My grandmother's death at 88 - even though she left behind my completely bereft grandfather - was much less tragic than when my best friend died aged 23. No one smiled at that funeral or wake. Or when a close friends' baby passed away at just a few weeks old.

No. Sorry, but ageism cannot be neatly dodged with a platitude. Yes, some deaths are welcome at any age. A two year old in agony and with no possible useful treatment should not be forced to stay alive an extra day or two.

But a woman we first met on holiday lived to over 100, with reduced mobility only in the last eighteen months. She was effectively bonded labour to the family business. Her childhood, early years, and even her 70s and 80s, were full of nothing but hard work. In her early 90's, able at last to get rid of the business, and still with gusto and good health, she began to enjoy herself.

She danced, drank and smoked, played a clever hand of cards, enjoyed her new freedom to have a social life, flirted, and took holidays, and spent her money on herself, and did all she could to make up for the pleasures of the childhood and teenage life she never really had. In every way, the only part of her life worth having was the years between 90 and 100 while she still had the full mobility.

The family business had depended on her. Her ageing parents had depended on her. Her feckless siblings had depended on her. As long as the last brother lived, they needed the business with the accommodation that went with it. It couldn't be sold. She couldn't earn money for them any other way. She couldn't house them any other way. We admired her.

I think some of the most age-hating people tend to tell themselves young=useful to themselves and others, and over 50=over and done with, no good to anyone and must be longing for their miserable existence to be ended. If they met people like 'our' old woman, surely they could see that it's possible she deserved and earned those years in her 90's, and she was entitled to every moment of enjoyment, after waiting so long for any pleasure of her own?

By the way, being selfless and doing something worthwhile is possible at any age. A Russian (hard working) scientist/doctor got Covid at age nearly 80. Being healthy, he survived without much treatment. So he voluntarily used himself as a guinea pig by infecting himself a second time. The second infection was worse, and nearly killed him, but he had proved something important. Infection once doesn't mean immunity, and the second infection is liable to be worse, not minor. (And, 80 isn't an age when a person is useless, or not strong.)