Senior Living and the Need for a New Narrative About Aging

“They don’t have a friggin’ clue.”

That’s how Dr. Joe Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, described Baby Boomers and Gen Xers during our joint session at the 2025 NIC Spring Conference.

To be fair, it wasn’t a blanket condemnation of the two generations that are so important to senior housing and aging services providers. No, Joe was speaking about older adults’ expectations and desires for their later years — a period that is, thanks to increased longevity, becoming a new stage of life.

There’s no roadmap and no narrative for this stage. It’s a problem for Boomers and Xers, but an opportunity for aging services providers.

As Joe said during our session, the industry is at a crossroads. Longevity has opened up new possibilities, but older adults are unsure of how to think about a new stage of life — or how to prepare for it.

So most simply seek to avoid or delay “becoming old” as long as possible.

To them, getting “old” means the end of independent agency, of purpose and passions, of meaningful contributions to the world. They fear it’s an interminable period of decline.

Senior living falls into the same category as getting old in their minds: Something to be avoided or delayed to the very last moment.

Obviously, that’s not where we want to be as an industry.

To transform from an avoidance setting to one that can excite and delight, we’ll have to create a new narrative about this stage of life and our role in it.

As Joe says, this transformation is not optional, it is essential.

In our session, Joe outlined several steps senior living can take to shape the aging narrative. He encourages the industry to reframe its language, integrate with the community and build “aspirational positioning,” among other smart suggestions.

To me, Joe’s proposals are part of a necessary move from being a provider to being a curator of experiences. And perhaps more importantly, moving from a focus on what is done for and to older adults, to what is done by and with them.

We have to present a vision of something people can aspire to as they get older, with messaging that:

👉 Starts early

We need to reach older adults well before they move in as residents, meeting them where they are — in their single-family homes, apartment communities and membership clubs — and establishing our ability to excite and delight in this new stage of life.

👉 Shows support

We must show that we will support their efforts to get more life out of their years and prioritize extending their healthspan, not just their lifespan.

👉 Emphasizes growth

Let’s demonstrate how residents continue to find purpose and pursue passions with us — instead of simply managing decline.

There’s an additional piece of the puzzle, too: the responsibility of the resident to take advantage of the independent agency that we encourage.  I wrote about that in a March 2025 LinkedIn post.