The Measure of Our Age

Navigating Care, Safety, Money, and Meaning Later in Life

By: M.T. Connolly

Narrated by: Tracie Frank

Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

An expert on elder justice maps the challenges of aging, how things go wrong, and presents powerful tools we can use to forge better long lives for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

As tens of millions of Americans are living longer lives, longevity is creating challenges that cut across race, class, and gender. Caregivers help older relatives for “free,” but with high costs to themselves in time, money, jobs, and health. Scammers target countless seniors. The institutions built to protect older people—like nursing homes and guardianship—too often harm them instead. And epidemics of isolation and loneliness make older people vulnerable to all sorts of harm.

In The Measure of Our Age, elder justice expert and MacArthur “genius” grant recipient M.T. Connolly investigates the systems we count on to protect us as we age. Weaving first-person accounts, her own experience, and shocking investigative reporting, she exposes a reality that has long been hidden and sometimes actively covered up. But her investigation also reveals reasons for hope within everyone’s grasp.

Connolly’s strategies and action plans for navigating the many challenges of aging will appeal to a wide range of listeners—adult children caring for aging parents; policymakers trying to do the right thing; and, should we be so lucky as to live to old age, all of us. This book transforms how we think about aging.

©2023 M.T. Connolly (P)2023 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

“A book that deserves wide attention and discussion among aging readers and those who care for them.”—Kirkus

“This is a brilliant, urgent, and much-needed book that will occupy a special place on my bookshelves. In a rapidly aging country, the clear-eyed wisdom alone of The Measure of Our Age would make it exceptional, but M.T. Connolly also happens to be the rare expert who can write movingly and beautifully. I learned from this book, I loved it, and I’m sure I’ll be reaching for it again and again.”—David Finkel, Pulitzer Prize-winner, and author of Thank You for Your Service

“Our current systems are failing older people and their caregivers. This book reveals the new realities and challenges of aging today with invaluable insights to help us live both long and well. The Measure of Our Age is a humane and hopeful guide for anyone navigating the complexities of aging and care—who, in time, will include all of us.”—Ai-jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance & Executive Director of Caring Across Generations

Good review of legal aspects & challenges of protecting aging people

This book provided good details & statistics related to the aging population in the U.S. and legal rules/guidelines related to care of the elderly. I appreciate the author's candid presentation about what she has observed & learned in her professional career & also personal experience with her family. As someone who works in the healthcare industry, I felt she provided a honest opinion of the intense challenges that exist in the US system.

A “must read” (or listen)

We are all aging if we are living. This book poignantly describes some of the challenges and blessings of a long life, exploring the critical need for better public policy as well as revealing its disheartening limitations.