Fear of growing old

My 5-10/12 year old is getting a little bud of a permanent tooth behind his baby front tooth.  Hubby and I both reacted, "our son is growing up." and I added "there is nothing like your child growing up to remind you that your are growing old."

Some days, I feel like that is the most important thing.  Watching my son grow up and making sure he gets the best mommy that I can be.  Maybe that is the only thing I feel can be in my control anymore.  It is not fair, because in doing so, I am also focused on the time limit we have together.  I am reminded day after day that I am not growing any younger.  I would rather be looking forward to something in the shorter term.  I don't want to be reminded about growing old as my son grows up.  But these are two sides of the same coin, aren't they?

There was an article that talked about a boy wanting to disguise his voice and height because of a fear of  growing up.  Experts think that the boy ultimate fears growing old and the inevitability of death.  It is a sad story.  We all fear growing old.  Perhaps not as much dying as somehow becoming less than what we are and having to depend on help, being a burden to someone, or worse, living when there is no one left to care.  I think most people simply learn to put it out of their mind, because worrying doesn't help anything in this case.

I remember being depressed about the inevitability of the end of humanity as a teenager.  I cited the Sun's explosion as an ultimate end of the Earth.  Some might argue that humans will have emigrated from Earth long before that.  I now fear that we, in our greed to consume, has put our planet on a course to become less able to sustain the human population in a short century or two.  Some might also argue that we still have time.  But with a lack of consensus and a lack of action, it is hard for me to be optimistic.  Thank goodness I won't see the worst of it.  I will be long gone.  But I will go with the regret that it is my generation who failed.  Being one who have recognized the problem, it was my failure not to be able to rally my peers to do something, anything about it.  Am I resigned to that already?  How can I help?????

While the world at large is turning a blind eye, we can make sure that our offspring can adapt.  We can make sure that he has the financial ability to move or to procure energy and water that may no longer come cheap in the future.  I feel bad that I cannot prepare my son to have no empathy for the suffering of the masses - I cannot compromise my own principles, but he might be happier if he can ignore the suffering of those who have no access to clean water or abundant food.  I cannot solve those problems.  What can I do???

We all fear growing old.  Many adults go under the knife to preserve their beauty.  Some ladies preserve their fertility.  What I fear is not going old.  I fear being helpless.  Babies are helpless too but they don't know it.  So maybe I associate growing old as a sense of acceptance of the helplessness.  It is much like when Susan Hobb wrote that suicide is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice.  If there is nothing more I can do to be useful in this world, won't I be better off somewhere else.  It is not fair to my family if they are my only raison d'etre.  I need to do something...

P.S.  I don't intend for anyone to see these not-so-positive thoughts.  But to my family, if you ever read this, I love you.  Always.