Maggie's Farm

My grandfather was a farmer (in a British colony) and he died at 55 (stroke, no medical care worth a damn in the colonies, an athlete, qualified for the Olympics, lifelong tennis player, rode all over his estates on his horse, hunter, explorer). My other grandfather taught at Harvard and was a museum director, historian, author,and also died of a stroke, but after a fat and comfortable existence with many friends, died at the age of 70, working until a day before his fatal attack. Never stopped writing ,studying, working.

The women lasted longer: both grandmothers til mid 90s. Probably because they never worked full time and didn't have to deal with vicious office politics or (in farmer grandfather's case, rioting workers advancing on the estate with torches and angry threats periodically). Also probably because they had no heart or blood vessel problems ,ate their veggies, had many friends, constantly did good deeds, surrounded themselves by young people and loved children, had no use for old people, were politically liberal, were constantly learning new things, and changing their opinions. Both grandmothers were influenced a great deal by us grandchildren (several of us lived with them for prolonged periods of time) and they said we kept them young. Both grandmothers had never really had full time jobs, but they always worked part time volunteer jobs. One had trained as a concert pianist and worked in WWII as a driver for the Polish Govt in Exile, another was a historian and author and extremely active in charitable activities. Both grandmothers had extremely good health until about 90.

As for parents? Mother a housewife, became paraplegic as a result of a fall at 60, obviously couldn't work. Father had to retire from the worldwide company he had founded after a couple of years of her injury to be her full time caregiver. He had to learn how to be a full time homemaker, cook, nurse, etc. after a 40 year marriage in which she had done everything to run the household. So he never retired, he just changed roles, quite devotedly and in fact became a spectacular cook tho never a good housekeeper.

We kids were very sad that our parents never got to retire as they went straight from my father working 16 hour days for the family with them only having occasional vacations together, to my mother being crippled and constant dreary nursing being their existence. They both died relatively young (70 and 73) after being pretty much tethered at home. They were happy so long as they were together but we felt that my dad had worked SO hard all his life that it would have been nice if he had had at least a few years to relax and pursue more of his hobbies and travel even more with her (he had always travelled for his work).

As far as retirement in general goes, it matters more to working class and lower middle class people. Most people in this country have horrible jobs, not fulfilling professions as partners in law firms or physicians. A lot of the people I work with are laborers who develop crippling injuries or office workers who get carpal tunnel or sedentary people who develop other health problems that more or less make them too sick to work by 65. A psychoanalyst can go gently senile and be thought wise and calm at 80 as he nods off in his wing chair. But a tree climber will die at 50 if his shoulder seizes up at the wrong moment.

It's very easy to carp at people for wanting to retire if one has an interesting career oneself. But many people have either had to settle for whatever work they could get, or had to abandon youthful dreams and ambitions to pursue work that will enable them to support a family. Sometimes work that the individual absolutely detests, that literally shortens their lifespan (read some of the studies on pink collar stress, for example). For their health's sake, then, many people retire as soon as they possibly can.

For example, people who work in closed buildings (where the windows won't' open to the outside air) for more than a few years will likely end up with chronic respiratory conditions eventually. At my former employer's, a Catholic agency in a sealed building, virtually all the nuns over a certain age living there had unnaturally high rates of respiratory illness, that killed many of them too young. Fortunately they moved (tho not for that reason). But certainly some work environments are physically unhealthy, and many FAR worse than an indoor office environment which just has mold, dust, formaldehyde, etc. People in coal mines, factories, and the like end up retiring early because of lung damage.

The other piece of all this is simply this (just to play devil's advocate): if you love your spouse and the rest of your family, why on earth would you continue to go to work all day, every day when you could be taking your loved one around the world or at least helping them look after the house or going and visiting your grandchildren? The people I know who keep endlessly working are usually avoiding being at home....

It's good to have somewhere to go each day for a few hours, so as to have interesting things to tell one's spouse over dinner, but realistically, most of us are really not going to be worth our pay once we're over a certain age. The young have it WAY over us on most counts. They are quicker, calculate faster, are more cheerful, idealistic, more creative, less devious, less cynical, and not as doom ridden as the old.

I feel strongly that it is selfish for old people who can afford to retire to hold on to their jobs like Komodo Dragons when there are young people with families to support in need of work. I don't think retirement should be mandatory, because some old people really do need the money. But I do think anyone working after 70 should ask themself if they are taking bread out of the mouth of a recent college graduate. And if it is ethical to do so, just so that the 70 year old can feel fulfilled and stimulated when the 22 year old needs to eat and pay off student loans and be able to marry and start a family.

John, every male in my family has had your experience Imy dad at 45 when he was in surgery for a brain tumor because they didn't want him seeing clients with a shaved head. He was fortunate that his crazy scheme of a business took off after that) --I'm NOT talking about the revoltingly disloyal way corporations treat middle aged people who have put in years of service. I;m reacting to the phenomenon I see all around me (it may be unique to my area?) of prosperous old people holding on to their jobs ferociously when young and middle aged people are unemployed, of people double dipping (retiring from one profession with a pension then getting another job). I don't romanticize the young (I have em), but they don't ALL have degrees in diversity and it is a tragic waste when bright, hard-working kids can't even get a job of ANY kind out of college. How are they going to have sense knocked into them except in the workplace? I learned more in my first two jobs than in all of school....