We Can Only Learn from Each Other
When the first copy of my new book FIFTY IS THE NEW FIFTY arrived from my publisher, my emotions were mixed. On the one hand the book embodies the long-awaited launch of my ideas into the public conversation. On the other hand, it makes me vulnerable to the public’s response. Curiously, though, I feel somewhat less vulnerable this time out than when INVENTING THE REST OF OUR LIVES was published several years ago.
This is due in part to the fact that I was …

You’re Not Who You Were, Only Older – My “first post” from December, 2005
My first step into Second Adulthood was backward off a ninety-foot cliff. On impulse, I had signed up for an Outward Bound program and found myself poised in full rappelling gear—harness, helmet, and guide rope—to walk down the face of what could just as well have been my twelve-story apartment building. The terror was pure. I was only mildly distracted by the reassuring words of our leader: “Fear is the appropriate response here. After all, evolution doesn’t …

“Tradition! Tradition!” sings Tevya in the rousing testimonial to rites of passage from “Fidler on the Roof.” Traditions mark transitions. They create community around significant life experiences. And force us to pause and take stock. Indeed, many of us have tried to initiate new traditions to commemorate neglected but major passages – such as a fiftieth birthday or a divorce.
I am thinking about all this because there are two big transitions coming up in my family’s life. One is well-marked milestone: My daughter is graduating from college this month, amid …

I used to have a fantasy gift that I hoped someone would give me– one canceled lunch per season. For years I gratefully received news that someone else couldn’t show up for something. It never occurred to me that I could initiate the gift of needed time or rescheduling to accommodate other priorities. I always showed up.
I remember once traveling an hour to spend a few minutes speaking to a journalism class when I was almost delirious with fever. Another time I showed up for an exam the day I …

Whenever I watch “Antiques Roadshow” I am struck by how many people have lots of things that “have been in the family” for generations. That phrase suggests longstanding roots and lovingly transported trunks that are not part of my history; my grandparents and my father were immigrants – the steerage kind – and couldn’t have brought along an exquisite 18th century high-boy, even if they had one.
There is one exception, though: my mother’s Victorian pendant – heart shaped and glittering with curls of tiny diamonds – that was never referred …

Recently I was invited to speak to a group of about 300 women in the suburbs of New York City. They were full of energy, wit and candor about the changes they were experiencing. As always the “question” part of the evening became what we once called a consciousness-raising. And as always, there were surprises. Someone asked for a show of hands of the “single” – divorced, widowed, never married – women, and to my (and their) amazement two-thirds of the hands went up. (When I polled the divorcees further …

Because I am working on a new book about the unprecedented stage of new life that women are discovering, I have an excuse to indulge in my favorite pastime: talking to women. And because our conversations get real pretty fast – even if we’ve only just met – I have heard a lot about sex in this strange new world of Second Adulthood. The responses can be sorted into three general categories: “Who needs it!” “Where do I get it?” and “What took so long?” (Perhaps this is the next-stage …

When Gloria Steinem famously proclaimed “This is what forty” – and then fifty, sixty, and now seventy – “looks like!” I totally endorsed her message: if each of us stops trying to hide our years, we will liberate each benchmark for all of us. And in all my writing about women’s Second Adulthood I have passionately put forward the conviction that for many women, myself included, the years after fifty are the most dynamic, authentic, and fun of all. In fact, I have just signed a contract to write a …

I have just finished screening purposals for the Purpose Prize, a cash award to be given by the terrific organization called Civic Ventures that promotes civic engagement on the part of people over fifty. The entries I saw were all impressive and I wish they all could win, but what really struck me was the theme that was taken up by several of them – the growing care-giving crisis in our society, which is particularly accute among women in their Second Adulthood. Many have given up everything – relationships, jobs, …

I’ve been traveling again – and talking to more women about what’s on our minds. The theme that has emerged recently is “The Sandwich Generation” stresses. It is a condition of our parents living longer that makes it likely that we will have, according to some estimates, as many years of parent care ahead of us as we have had of childcare behind us. Not that caring for our children is behind us. The other half of the sandwich is the trend toward grown children moving back home or simply …