07/19/2010 12:00 am
Life
Do You Plan to Be Working Full-Time When You Are 70?
A recent New York Times article reported that a mere 5% of women are in the full-time workforce at ages 70-74.
Candice Bergen
Well, if goddamned Betty White can do it … Of course, I’m getting no offers of any kind except a few that don’t interest me or sound like too much work. But I don’t think full time is what I’d be looking for.
But a full-time/part-time job … that would pique my interest. And look at our Ms. Mary – she has energy to burn and ideas bubbling in her little well-coiffed head. And the Lizard! My God, she is an inspiration to us all. Oh hell, I just say work at SOMEthing to keep engaged, to retain a last wisp of memory, to give back and to just have fun.
Joan Juliet Buck
I will be working until I drop. That’s not the worry. The worry is whether they will still be paying anyone for words when I am near dropping. Or even next week.
Joan Ganz Cooney
I wouldn’t know – even at my advanced age – what to do without work. However, I was very lucky. I no longer wanted to be CEO of my company when I was 60 but I was asked to stay on to become Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board, which is functionally inside chairman of the board. I go to my office part of four days a week and meet with various people, attend some meetings and generally keep up with and offer opinions on a lot of different things. I would never want to fully retire but I had a good way of getting the workload right for me.
Whoopi Goldberg
Yes, I’ll be working past my 70s. That is what happens when you marry often but not well.
Judith Martin
It would be great to retire so I could really speak my mind and boss everyone around. Oh, wait! That’s my job.
Cynthia McFadden
Today I would like to retire tomorrow … But when I’m 70 I’m sure I’ll be remembering lovingly my “great old job.” Sure I’ll work. At something. I’m thinking of going all Jane Goodall at 70 …
Sheila Nevins
Overtime for all time until time runs out.
Liz Smith
Except for vacations I have worked every day of my life since age 16. I hope to go on that way till the grim reaper calls.
Mary Wells
I want to go on to my last breath but not at the same place, same thing, same goals. I want to keep learning everything that I don’t know (except for whitewater rafting, snowboarding, unicycling, circus acts and swimming with whales). I want to see what I haven’t seen, love who I should have loved, write what I’ve never written – you know what I mean! Then I want to go on to the next universe and start there. Why not? But I don’t want to go on and on at the same game.
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I want to see what I haven’t seen, love who I should have loved, write what I’ve never written – you know what I mean! Then I want to go on to the next universe and start there. Why not? But I don’t want to go on and on at the same game.
This says it perfectly! I have my four points mapped and ready to be in motion! I am open to the plan yet I like the spontaneous part of life in bringing it all together.
My grandmother went skydiving and white-water rafting at age 81 just because she had never tried them before.
I guess she could have done those things earlier, but her life was full of poverty and distractions when she was younger.
Sounds like your Grandmother was a remarkable woman.
Yes, yes, yes. I have a great need to be highly challenged, to take on new things (not the same old thing or with the same old people), and I cannot imagine not working … well, forever.
But I think the key is to find "the right fit" in a profession, and never never get stuck in a job rut that may bring in the bucks but not the fulfillment. If you love what you are doing, "work" is not synonymous with drudgery. AND if you find joy in what you are doing, I notice that your entire life expands … and I will always say "Please God, let me not be dull ever" — which I happen to notice with older friends that seem to have given up their connections with the wider world.
I guess I would say what I want is to step out my door each day to a job that is challenging, compelling, fascinating . . . and be so good at it that my services will be desired no matter my "age" (and I think "age" is a state of mind anyhow!) And — so far so good!!!!
Painting this issue with a broader brush I think we need to realize that not all jobs are the kind one can continue with "until I drop." Those in the creative fields are the luckiest since they can continue on with their endeavors well into old age––all those old rock stars still strumming away–-Ringo at 80 doing just dandy, Simon who once sang, "Isn’t it strange to be 70" is now realizing it isn’t strange at all. The aforementioned Bette White can continue as many actresses can, albeit on their own terms. Writers can always write as long as they have their marbles and so on. BUT the majority of people have jobs they look forward to leaving, you know the type: Having to wake at the crack of dawn to beat the long line of traffic five days a week and/or having to catch the 6.40 train or bus to get you where you work. How about construction work on a highway in the blazing sun?
There was a piece about aging in the Times that I thought made an excellent point about the expectations our culture has regarding old age:
Gerontologists tend to think of successful aging as taking advantage of what potential there is, staying as socially and intellectually engaged as possible. Our culture tends to measure it more in terms of how active people are.
“It wouldn’t do us a whole boatload of harm to reinstate some values to contemplation,” said Dr. Basting [Anne Basting, director of the Center on Age and Community] “Part of the pressure on older people to be successful and give back and volunteer and be active and play tennis is that we are a culture of doing. We don’t really know how to be. That’s something that late life gives us, is time to be. But that’s stigmatized.”
The real problem could be that the aged are unprepared for a life without the extensive distraction and over-stimulation that our culture so readily offers. I think of Pascal’s comment on diversion: "The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room."
All this is not to negate the riches of engaging in what you love: those with money can bloody well do what they want; those with more slender means can discover worlds in books and long walks and perhaps learn to just BE.
Phyllis, that Pascal was a real card. I know too many people who stay quietly in their rooms. Booooring!
I’m 77 and have recently closed another door and moved on. I was a printer/publisher for 30 years… always self employed. Now I have finished my last edition and cleaned off my desk. But I’m not staying quietly in my room! I have begun (again) to paint, but in the 21st century way - digitally. I’m having so much fun painting pictures on my computer that I can’t stop! One of these days I’ll have to get them matted and sell them, but for now, I still have to work at teaching book making for extra money. There’s a great website called MixedMediaWorkshops.com that has workshops on many different artistic subjects, and I’m going to teach books there.
As long as I can still type and paint on my ‘puter, I’ll be sitting there grinning until the end.
Patrice