Many of us who are aging into the last third of our lives are trying to age well.
In some recent research, I ran across an interesting study, known as the Harvard Grant Study. This is the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken. Begun in 1938, it has looked at the emotional and physical growth of more than 700 men, some in their undergraduate days at Harvard.
Researchers assessed the early childhoods of 268 Harvard sophomores and separately, 465 disadvantaged, inner-city youths. Most of these men have died, so we get the data from their whole life span. The subjects were asked about their childhoods, and parents were interviewed, also. The raters were blind as to the men’s identities, so the reliability of the study was excellent. The goal was to understand how both groups adjusted to old age.
The results are interesting:
Childhoods that were warm, loving and intimate correlated to successful aging, rather than wealth and status in early years.
High military rank in World War II matched more highly with warm childhoods than social class, athletic success or intelligence.
Warm childhoods and friendships were the best predictors of high income.
Neither strict nor liberal toilet training exerted any significant effect on future personality.
Alcoholism was connected more with heredity than with difficult childhoods.
Lack of mental illness was correlated more to men coming from loving homes, while a much greater percentage of men from the “loveless” homes had at one time been diagnosed with serious depression, drug or alcohol abuse, or extended psychiatric care.
The men who had bleak childhoods took more prescription drugs and were more pessimistic and self-doubting.
Bleak childhoods were connected to friendlessness at the end of life.
Positive boyhood relationships with mothers were associated with effectiveness at work, high maximum income, continuing to work until age 70 and mental competence at 80.
The men who had poor relationships with their mothers had significantly more dementia at the end of life.
The men’s relationships with their fathers was not even suggestively associated with any of the above (mother) outcomes.
Warm relationships with fathers did enhance the men’s capacities to play (enjoy vacations, humor, contentment with life after retirement), resulted in less anxiety and fewer physical and mental symptoms under stress.
Men with poor fathering reported lower life satisfaction at age 75 and were more likely to have unhappy marriages.
Another study that included women (yeah!) found that prudence, forethought, willpower and perseverance in junior high school were the best predictors of success in aging. These seem to be precisely the traits people need to find ways around failures and to capitalize on successes when they come along.
Also, the health of the mother greatly determined the health of the child as an adult and into old age.
These studies show many things. Of most importance is that children who fail to learn basic love and trust at home early in their lives are handicapped later in mastering the social skills, mental competence and contentment necessary for successful aging.
Those of us who are “seniors” can look at these studies and see how our childhoods have affected our lives now, but to parents of young children: You can’t love those kids enough!
Martha McClellan has been an early care child educator, director and administrator for 36 years. She currently has an early childhood consulting business, supporting child care centers and families. Reach her at mmm@bresnan.net.
