Good-bye to The New Old Age Blog

Read Paula Span’s Final Post at The New Old Age Blog

For years now The New Old Age blog at The New York Times has been a must-read for people with aging parents as well as for people who blog about aging and caregiving issues. Started in 2008 by Jane Gross and later presided over by Paula Span, The New Old Age always had its finger on the latest aging research, the best ways for people to approach growing older, and of course, caregiving for aging parents.

Now the blog is closing up shop, though the years and years of amazing blog posts will continue to be available to readers. Paula Span will write new columns two times a month for another part of the Times, but these will not be added to the blog.

The New Old Age blog made a huge impression on me, and after reading it for several years, I decided, in October 2009, to add my voice to the aging and caregiving conversation. That’s when I started writing here at AsOurParentsAge.net. Only occasionally would I share a story that I found at The New Old Age, but I sure learned a lot. Once in a while I’d be thrilled to discover and write about a topic and then find Paula Span highlighting it on her New York Times’ aging blog a few days or a week later.

Over the years a great community grew up around The New Old Age, and most of the time the comments were thoughtful and compelling, unlike so many other places in the blogging world. It was not uncommon to chat with a colleague or another acquaintance with parents who needed support or caregiving, discover that we had both read a recent post at The New Old Age, and spend more than a few minutes sharing our perceptions about the piece.

Many of us will miss the regular posts.Two times a month is nowhere near often enough to address New Old Age topics, but at least it’s something for us to follow and still get to read a bit of Paula Span’s perspective.