Vegan Fox* & The Life, Retired

A bit dodgy way to get your attention.  I want to talk about retired, the word.  First, my credentials.

By choice, retirement occurred in 1995 for two reasons.  At 62, I was ready to close my 20-year psychotherapy practice, and we'd found a bargain apartment in New York City.  Moving back to where we began leads Ron, my spouse, to note, "We're like spawning salmon who return to their birthplace."

Eleven years have passed.  What have I learned?  Retirement is not for kids; it's hard work.  It definitely has been for me--challenged to establish a new dailyness in a new place.  People I'd known back when I last lived here, had mostly left town.  Went to art classes, workshops.  Was a docent for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a place you must visit if you care about 19th century immigration.  Doing that once a week kept me in shape:  5 flights of stairs, up and down.  I loved the variety of people from all over the country and world who came--some with memories of grandparents who started out in America in crowded apartments in the neighborhood.

Beside that performing, I developed Composting in Manhattan on living in an apartment with red wiggler worms.  As many early retirees do, we traveled-- Mexico, China, Canada.  Once our first grandchild was born in Portland, Oregon, more trips there.  The challenge of retirement in the 21st century--even when it is by choice--is to find an on-goingness to the days without a work schedule.

At the same time, Ron continued to do workshops around the country and in the City.  That was familiar to me, but I'd tell him that he was not really retired until there was nothing on the calendar for the following month.    But even he noticed people not responding as when he was working fulltime.   Socially, I found a resonance between identifying myself as retired and the time I was a youngish mother at home.  Another form of what Betty Freidan spoke of in The Feminine Mystique.  We become invisible without a paid work role. 

Writing today about the current "problem with no name," Ronni Bennett's blog takes a curious turn in "Choking on Being Retired."  She justifiably expresses her anger with how prospective employers respond to older applicants--just the way some do to me at parties--if they even notice the white-haired woman in their presence.  But then she stops!  As one of her commenters notes, Ronni herself has been a force in getting attention toward elders and their issues.

I've noticed since I've joined the Elderblog ranks that you out there, hardly show me your face.  Every now and then someone boldly steps forward.  Golden Lucy D, full of beans at 85, revealed herself in glam dress-up for a family wedding.  That was different.  When Claude from Blogging in Paris met up in Boston with Millie Garfield we saw a photo on Millie's blog of two women of a certain age having a great time.  No red hats required.

Please tell me you're okay with being more visible-- on your blog, in the public square.  To paraphrase ACT UP, "We're here, get used to us!"

[*Everything you need to know about knitting your own Vegan Fox is online.]

Comments

[Ronni Bennett]

I appreciate your and M Sinclair's noting that I've been a force for bringing attention to elders, but it's been mostly by other elders and not younger generations. I haven't made any progress in defeating our invisibility in the culture at large however much I bitch about it on TGB.

On the other hand, when I started my blog, the point was not to dent the culture, but to create a forum for discussion of what getting old is really like. I didn't have any thought then about the turns and branching out it's taken in the following three years.

I think you make an important point quoting Friedan about paid work. As she was discussing, that phenomenon applies to unemployed people of any age.

In my mid-thirties, I took some time off for six or eight months to mostly work on my country house and its gardens. It was shocking then how less interested people became in me and equally shocking that when I returned to work, I returned to the world in the eyes of others - even some of the same ones who ignored me when I was (by choice) unemployed.

[donna]

I'm sort of the other way. I stop noticing most other people when I'm not working, and couldn't care less if they notice me or not. ;^)

One thing that is fun is to take extra time to notice the other invisible people in society - service people, grocery clerks, waiters, older people, kids, moms with kids, etc - and watch how their eyes light up when you take the time for them.

As to those who only choose to notice the working - too bad for them. There's a lot more to the world out there than a workplace.

[Alison]

Hi Naomi. Such an interesting parallel you point out between retiring and staying home with the wee ones. Yes, quite. I know exactly what you mean. I have also noticed that mothers are often reluctant to join mother groups because then they'd have to talk to mothers... ? Very odd to see prejudice from within.
And just the other day, a colleague of Tim's (a woman) started brainstorming (quite unsolicited I might add) what I could do again when Josh goes to pre-school. Ummm. No thanks. There are many more things out there than the workplace... Composting in Manhattan, eh?

[MotherPie]

Naomi... our society sets as goals individualism and consumerism, both which create isolation and lonliness. Non-monetary constributors -- old, young, either sex -- experience isolation. STudies show that people now say they have fewer intimate friends.

The popularity of blogs as a (virtual) link to a community is probably very closely related to the social isolation that Robert Putnam wrote about in Bowling Alone. I think it is.

[Virginia DeBolt]

The Annenberg Center just released a study about online communities as sources for interaction and activism. The press release summarizes the main points at http://annenberg.usc.edu/AboutUs/PublicAffairs/AbergNews/061129Center.aspx. It certainly reflects the trend we all see happening in elderblogging. Stories like your about online friends meeting in real life are part of the trend. I feel very connected to the elderbloggers I read and would be delighted to meet some in real life.

[Virginia DeBolt]

Oops, the long link in my previous post got truncated. Start here http://annenberg.usc.edu/ and look for the link to USC Annenberg Internet Study.