%Only when necessaryand then with an attemptto exclude the children 14%As though it were a taboosubject 2%Never recall any discussion 26%TOTAL 439For nearly one-half of these students the first personal involvement with death was the loss of a grandparent; for one out of five, it was the death of a pet. Consider how different these lessons received by children of America's upper-middle class vary from those from the lower rungs of society's stratification order. For the former, death typically comes to the old--to those who have lived full and completed lives. For the latter, death too often comes prematurely due to violence or accident. Consider, for instance, the following table derived from the 1988-90 NORC General Social Surveys (n=4194), summarizing Americans' responses to the question "Within the past 12 months, how many people have you known personally who were victims of homicide?" PERCENT OF AMERICANS KNOWING ONE OR MORE HOMICIDE VICTIMS AGE WHITE AMERICANS AFRICAN AMERICANS18-25 11.6% 41.8%26-35 9.5% 30.6%36-45 8.4% 22.9%46-55 7.4% 11.9%56-65 8.0% 23.7%66+ 3.8% 6.6%TOTAL 8.0% 24.0%In addition to individuals' social class, death socialization also vary across the lifespan. Late adolescence and early adulthood are periods when individuals are drunk with future time. Senses of immortality are lost during the middle years, when those of one's parents' generation routinely die (and one realizes that one is next up to bat with the Grim Reaper) and when the first of one's friendship circle dies of "natural causes." In old age, individuals' futurity dissolves as their time runs out.Is there a life-cycle pattern of death fears? To find out, consider the responses to the statement "Thinking about dying doesn't bother me much," which was asked to 1,201 randomly-selected Americans in the 1994 AARP "Images of Aging in America" survey. In total, 31 percent of Americans disagreed somewhat or strongly, females (33%) more than males (27%). Tho...
