“...we’re suffering from an image of aging that comes from a different time. An image that was never anything but propaganda.” Barbara Sher, It’s Only Too Late if You Don’t Start Now
My grandmother and my mother were my models of aging women. It was inconceivable to me that I would ever be as old as they seemed to be. We aren’t aging in the same way our mothers and grandmothers did. Once again we boomers are defining the times. We can be fit, fabulous and over fifty. Although some of the physical changes of mid-life and beyond will occur around the same time as our mothers experienced them, our perception (and experience) of age has changed. Just about nothing in our lives is what it would have been in the lives of women our age even twenty years ago. For the most part, women are healthier, they expect to live longer and they are taking time to re-evaluate their priorities.
We live in a wondrous age. Studies show that most people who reach age 100 do so in surprisingly robust health. Genes may be responsible for about 30% of the physiological changes that occur in advanced age, but according to Harvard Medical School, the majority of changes are the result of environment, diet, exercise, utilization of available medical care and mental outlook. With science providing miracle cures for once-fatal conditions, aging experts even believe that the human lifespan will someday be increased to 150 years or more.
I love what Susan Sarandon once said in a More Magazine article---”It’s thrilling to know that around the world, women everywhere are working, thinking, daring, creating, making change. I don’t know if our mothers ever felt this way about their counterparts---but I have the feeling our daughters will”.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
ENJOYING LONGEVITY
“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy, sorrow,
one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration
if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity,
interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”
Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance, Scribner (c) 1934
The attitude that surrounds us is that ‘age’ in its most problematic sense, starts at 50 or 60. Why is this? I think it’s because we still buy into some outdated rule that midlife is the beginning of decline. This fallacy is based on the equally outdated life expectancy of 47 years or so, which was an average life span at the beginning of the last century! As we all know, the average life expectancy has changed drastically, but our cultural attitudes have not.
I have no doubt at all that the degenerative aspects of the aging process can be substantially retarded by a combination of factors that include attitude, opportunities for service, continuing intellectual stimulation and good health habits.
A Yale University professor found that people who think positively about aging tend to live almost eight years longer than those who think negatively. In fact, thinking positively is a more significant life extender than low blood pressure, low cholesterol, exercising regularly or not smoking. The Journal of Gerontology once reported that feistiness makes aging easier---that personal determination to stay independent can help overcome physical frailty. Another study I read found that an optimistic attitude has a measurable effect on preventing heart disease for instance.
Living and aging are one and the same. I find it interesting that many people who embrace living still hold on to negative impressions or myths about aging. Living does not stop at a certain year in one’s life followed by the process of aging. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can explore and enjoy our longevity.
one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration
if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity,
interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”
Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance, Scribner (c) 1934
The attitude that surrounds us is that ‘age’ in its most problematic sense, starts at 50 or 60. Why is this? I think it’s because we still buy into some outdated rule that midlife is the beginning of decline. This fallacy is based on the equally outdated life expectancy of 47 years or so, which was an average life span at the beginning of the last century! As we all know, the average life expectancy has changed drastically, but our cultural attitudes have not.
I have no doubt at all that the degenerative aspects of the aging process can be substantially retarded by a combination of factors that include attitude, opportunities for service, continuing intellectual stimulation and good health habits.
A Yale University professor found that people who think positively about aging tend to live almost eight years longer than those who think negatively. In fact, thinking positively is a more significant life extender than low blood pressure, low cholesterol, exercising regularly or not smoking. The Journal of Gerontology once reported that feistiness makes aging easier---that personal determination to stay independent can help overcome physical frailty. Another study I read found that an optimistic attitude has a measurable effect on preventing heart disease for instance.
Living and aging are one and the same. I find it interesting that many people who embrace living still hold on to negative impressions or myths about aging. Living does not stop at a certain year in one’s life followed by the process of aging. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can explore and enjoy our longevity.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
WE ARE PIONEERS
We surely live in a paradoxical time. In history respect for the elders of the community was a central tenet of human societies. The elders were the keepers of the cultures’ knowledge and traditions. But today, at least in this country, respect has faded into tolerance. Our media is partially at fault as we expect older women to act and look young. As the baby boomers have become a force to reckon with, that view is slowly beginning to change. Eventually, aging as we have defined it in the past will no longer be seen as just a time of diminished energy, mental decline, and disability. Many of us will continue to remain active and alert well passed the 50 year mark.
Our families and social institutions will be boggled by a social revolution. I don’t want to overload you with more statistics but listen to this: About every seven seconds, a baby boomer turns 50. Retirement is becoming passé, just another word for career change, 80-year-olds are dating and 90-year-olds are getting college degrees. Thanks to the miracles of medical science, we are experiencing an extension of the human life span. People age 100 or older are surprisingly healthy. We are beginning to see more and more educated, healthy people in our society.
Before the 19th century, most people didn’t age, they died. Just 100 years ago, few reached age 65. Now there are about 35 million Americans who are 65 and older. By 2030, more than 70 million Americans will be over the age of 65. The number of people over 65 has grown tenfold since 1900. The scientists, with their current gene therapies and longevity studies, are predicting a life span beyond the age of 125.
Aging continues to be redefined and we need new words to define it. In my book, The Next Fifty Years, I struggled to find a single word for age 50+ women that wasn’t negative. Authorities on aging describe us as being “young” until we’re 40, “middle-aged” between 40 and 80, and “old” from 80-120. But those terms are broad and we need better ones which embody the spirit of the woman over 50. Some suggest using the crone archetype but when I mention it, many women bristle at the word. “Sounds too much like being a withered witch,” one woman said.
I find the term “wise woman” appealing. Helen Hayes, first lady of the American theater who died in 1993 at the age of 93, thought we should be called “maturians”. For her the word implied there was “still a bit of fight in us”. I like the word “elder”. Some Native Americans use the term “Grandmother Moon” to honor the elderwoman of the tribe. Perhaps we could settle on the term “elderwoman”. Instead of the clinical designation of “post-menopausal”, we might use the term “opal” coined by Frances Lear, publisher of Lear’s Magazine. Opals are “Older People with an Active Lifestyle”. I like the idea of being opalescent---a gem emitting fire! I also like the idea of changing the word “aging” to “evolving”, or as my 78-year-old friend Alma says, “I’m ripening!” I haven’t pinned down one word that fits perfectly yet, and I’m still exploring possibilities.
If the world turns in your favor, you could potentially live out all the hidden aspects of your personality, explore your yearnings to see the world or change the world, express your unused talents, serve others, continue your search for love and knowledge---lots of possibilities lie in wait.
I had my grandmother and my sister Marilyn to look to for inspiration, but I wanted more. I’ve searched for other stories, experiences, and advice written by women that could inform and inspire me as I entered the next fifty years of my life. What I found interesting is that the majority of books written for women on aging contained quotes and literary images from the writings of men. However, a woman’s experience of aging is different than a man’s. In the blog postings that follow you will find heartfelt excerpts, quotes and stories, fun ideas and serious philosophies written by women---women authors and poets and wonderful folks of all kinds that will enrich and inform your aging experience. I hope the results of my personal search will enhance the lives of many of you entering the years of mid-life and “beyond”---that you will be inspired in your eldering and your evolving.
We are pioneers of a new age and we are the foremothers of millions of women. For the sake of our daughters and generations of women still unborn, we have an assignment to make clear our role in society: to inscribe the possibilities of age on the guideposts to the future. What we create in our mature lives will be our gift to them. Join me in blazing a trail, in creating a legacy of wisdom and strength that can be passed on to the next generation of pioneer women in a new world.
Our families and social institutions will be boggled by a social revolution. I don’t want to overload you with more statistics but listen to this: About every seven seconds, a baby boomer turns 50. Retirement is becoming passé, just another word for career change, 80-year-olds are dating and 90-year-olds are getting college degrees. Thanks to the miracles of medical science, we are experiencing an extension of the human life span. People age 100 or older are surprisingly healthy. We are beginning to see more and more educated, healthy people in our society.
Before the 19th century, most people didn’t age, they died. Just 100 years ago, few reached age 65. Now there are about 35 million Americans who are 65 and older. By 2030, more than 70 million Americans will be over the age of 65. The number of people over 65 has grown tenfold since 1900. The scientists, with their current gene therapies and longevity studies, are predicting a life span beyond the age of 125.
Aging continues to be redefined and we need new words to define it. In my book, The Next Fifty Years, I struggled to find a single word for age 50+ women that wasn’t negative. Authorities on aging describe us as being “young” until we’re 40, “middle-aged” between 40 and 80, and “old” from 80-120. But those terms are broad and we need better ones which embody the spirit of the woman over 50. Some suggest using the crone archetype but when I mention it, many women bristle at the word. “Sounds too much like being a withered witch,” one woman said.
I find the term “wise woman” appealing. Helen Hayes, first lady of the American theater who died in 1993 at the age of 93, thought we should be called “maturians”. For her the word implied there was “still a bit of fight in us”. I like the word “elder”. Some Native Americans use the term “Grandmother Moon” to honor the elderwoman of the tribe. Perhaps we could settle on the term “elderwoman”. Instead of the clinical designation of “post-menopausal”, we might use the term “opal” coined by Frances Lear, publisher of Lear’s Magazine. Opals are “Older People with an Active Lifestyle”. I like the idea of being opalescent---a gem emitting fire! I also like the idea of changing the word “aging” to “evolving”, or as my 78-year-old friend Alma says, “I’m ripening!” I haven’t pinned down one word that fits perfectly yet, and I’m still exploring possibilities.
If the world turns in your favor, you could potentially live out all the hidden aspects of your personality, explore your yearnings to see the world or change the world, express your unused talents, serve others, continue your search for love and knowledge---lots of possibilities lie in wait.
I had my grandmother and my sister Marilyn to look to for inspiration, but I wanted more. I’ve searched for other stories, experiences, and advice written by women that could inform and inspire me as I entered the next fifty years of my life. What I found interesting is that the majority of books written for women on aging contained quotes and literary images from the writings of men. However, a woman’s experience of aging is different than a man’s. In the blog postings that follow you will find heartfelt excerpts, quotes and stories, fun ideas and serious philosophies written by women---women authors and poets and wonderful folks of all kinds that will enrich and inform your aging experience. I hope the results of my personal search will enhance the lives of many of you entering the years of mid-life and “beyond”---that you will be inspired in your eldering and your evolving.
We are pioneers of a new age and we are the foremothers of millions of women. For the sake of our daughters and generations of women still unborn, we have an assignment to make clear our role in society: to inscribe the possibilities of age on the guideposts to the future. What we create in our mature lives will be our gift to them. Join me in blazing a trail, in creating a legacy of wisdom and strength that can be passed on to the next generation of pioneer women in a new world.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE
Here’s what I know for sure. We have an opportunity like never before to live longer lives and to feel better than our parents did when they were over 50. As there is no turning back the clock, the goal as I see it is how best can we live these “golden years,” maintaining our quality of life and independence for as long as possible.
Women over 50 are the new pioneers. Colette Dowling in Red Hot Mamas, says: “Because no previous generation of midlife women had the luxury of seeing decades of productive time roll out before them, we who came of age with the women’s movement are in the position, once again, of having to do it for the first time.”
According to a New York Times article a few years ago, the strong likelihood that Baby Boomers will reach 100+ years of age is becoming a reality. Medical advances coupled with technological research will extend our life expectancies so much that many of us will easily reach 120. We might become the first generation of women to live 60 or so years beyond menopause! The length of time humans spend in adulthood has more than doubled since the early part of the 20th century making it possible for women to have 50 more years with their mates (or without them), 50 more years of watching their children grow old, of career choices, leisure time, physical challenges, opportunities to learn and 50 more years of trying to fund it all.
In an MSNBC article posted on the Internet entitled “Aging in America” writer Julie Winokur tells us: “The 20th century has given us the gift of longevity. In the past hundred years, life expectancy has increased by three decades, a phenomenon that is reshaping our families, attitudes, work lives and institutions. The proportion of older people in the United States also is growing---by mid-century old people will outnumber young people for the first time in history.”
Reaching age 100 is still considered news. However, in the next 50 years, as science, medicine, and bio-engineering extend the span of human life, 100th birthdays will lose their mystique. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by about 2050, the number of centenarians in the U.S. could number close to 850,000 (from just 63,000 in 1900). Then again, if large numbers of Baby Boomers reach mid-life and beyond in good health, that number could explode to something like 4 million by 2050.
Women over 50 are the new pioneers. Colette Dowling in Red Hot Mamas, says: “Because no previous generation of midlife women had the luxury of seeing decades of productive time roll out before them, we who came of age with the women’s movement are in the position, once again, of having to do it for the first time.”
According to a New York Times article a few years ago, the strong likelihood that Baby Boomers will reach 100+ years of age is becoming a reality. Medical advances coupled with technological research will extend our life expectancies so much that many of us will easily reach 120. We might become the first generation of women to live 60 or so years beyond menopause! The length of time humans spend in adulthood has more than doubled since the early part of the 20th century making it possible for women to have 50 more years with their mates (or without them), 50 more years of watching their children grow old, of career choices, leisure time, physical challenges, opportunities to learn and 50 more years of trying to fund it all.
In an MSNBC article posted on the Internet entitled “Aging in America” writer Julie Winokur tells us: “The 20th century has given us the gift of longevity. In the past hundred years, life expectancy has increased by three decades, a phenomenon that is reshaping our families, attitudes, work lives and institutions. The proportion of older people in the United States also is growing---by mid-century old people will outnumber young people for the first time in history.”
Reaching age 100 is still considered news. However, in the next 50 years, as science, medicine, and bio-engineering extend the span of human life, 100th birthdays will lose their mystique. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by about 2050, the number of centenarians in the U.S. could number close to 850,000 (from just 63,000 in 1900). Then again, if large numbers of Baby Boomers reach mid-life and beyond in good health, that number could explode to something like 4 million by 2050.
Monday, December 7, 2009
GRANDMA'S BIRTHDAY
I’m thinking about my grandmother today. It’s her birthday and although she passed away over 16 years ago at 102, I still have vivid memories of her. She was what you might call a pioneer in a new world. She was tough and had to be. A nineteen-year old Swedish immigrant who came to the U.S. in the early 1900s, and worked as a domestic for a family in Canada. Who then came to New York, married and was widowed at age 35, the mother of a five-year-old daughter. As I faced some of my own challenges (two divorces, a husband who died, raising children on my own) I drew strength from her story. As she aged, I watched her seek ways to grow intellectually (she loved U.S. history, listening to books on tape when she could no longer see well enough to read), and socially (in her seventies she had a boyfriend who was in his sixties!). She walked everywhere and dressed with class. She enjoyed politics, creative pursuits, saving money to buy quality items, teaching and playing with her grandchildren. With grandma as an example I had a solid, healthy vision of aging in my mind.
My sister, Marilyn who is five years older than me has also has been an exemplar and she’s given me glimpses into what I might expect as I age. As mentor and pathfinder for me she’s been an efficient snowplow clearing and sanding the road ahead for safe travel. As grateful as I have been to her, the five-year glimpses she offers weren’t quite enough. I wanted to know more.
As I age I want to continue to aspire to greater things, feel some measure of control and feel a part of an evolving community of women. Author, May Sarton called them “great exemplars of old age” and had them all her life. I realized after entering the second half of my life that other than Grandma and my sister, Marilyn, I lacked, as Sarton mused in her journal, “marvelous models to contemplate.” The book I wrote (The Next Fifty Years) was born out of a search for more role models --- and I found them in a variety of places! At some point I'll write more about them here.
My sister, Marilyn who is five years older than me has also has been an exemplar and she’s given me glimpses into what I might expect as I age. As mentor and pathfinder for me she’s been an efficient snowplow clearing and sanding the road ahead for safe travel. As grateful as I have been to her, the five-year glimpses she offers weren’t quite enough. I wanted to know more.
As I age I want to continue to aspire to greater things, feel some measure of control and feel a part of an evolving community of women. Author, May Sarton called them “great exemplars of old age” and had them all her life. I realized after entering the second half of my life that other than Grandma and my sister, Marilyn, I lacked, as Sarton mused in her journal, “marvelous models to contemplate.” The book I wrote (The Next Fifty Years) was born out of a search for more role models --- and I found them in a variety of places! At some point I'll write more about them here.
STARTING TO BLOG!
Hi Everyone! I thought this blogging thing was going to be difficult to do. But guess what, even I (who can't figure out the digital programming on my new stove) was able to set this up.
My intention is to share my writing with you and to have you respond with your own ideas. I've got several books out there (see my website at pamblair.com). I'm the co-author of I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye (Sourcebooks, Inc.) and I'm working a novel as well as a follow-on to The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Midlife and Beyond (Hampton Roads Publishing) entitled, An Evolving Woman.
Part of aging well for me (I'm currently 61) is to keep on writing and using the creative part of my brain. I host a monthly meeting for women writers in Westchester County, New York and we keep each other engaged and accountable. We set goals each month --- mine is to finish Chapter Five of my novel. I also got inspired and encouraged by the group to set up this blog! We call ourselves a "force of nature".
I've got a private practice as a psychotherapist and life coach (in Wilton, CT and Hawthorne, NY) and I've got a busy day today. So I'll say goodbye for now...and I'll be back with some thoughts on making the most of the next best years of your life!
My intention is to share my writing with you and to have you respond with your own ideas. I've got several books out there (see my website at pamblair.com). I'm the co-author of I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye (Sourcebooks, Inc.) and I'm working a novel as well as a follow-on to The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Midlife and Beyond (Hampton Roads Publishing) entitled, An Evolving Woman.
Part of aging well for me (I'm currently 61) is to keep on writing and using the creative part of my brain. I host a monthly meeting for women writers in Westchester County, New York and we keep each other engaged and accountable. We set goals each month --- mine is to finish Chapter Five of my novel. I also got inspired and encouraged by the group to set up this blog! We call ourselves a "force of nature".
I've got a private practice as a psychotherapist and life coach (in Wilton, CT and Hawthorne, NY) and I've got a busy day today. So I'll say goodbye for now...and I'll be back with some thoughts on making the most of the next best years of your life!
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