Books for Boomers:Reviews & Coaching Tips
By John G. Agno
Copyright 2011
Smashwords Edition
ISBN-10: 097585612X
ISBN-13: 9780975856123
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Table of Contents
Getting beyond the fear of death
Hope and Inspiration in Tough Times
Life is About Hope Not Happiness!
Boomer Grandmothers on Mother’s Day
For Boomer Women: Friends Matter
What Boomers Don’t Know About Love and Marriage
Does an Empty Nest Spell the End of Your Marriage?
Jane Fonda on alpha men, forgiveness and mellowing with age
Self-Coaching Guide for Boomer Women
Un-Rooted Boomers Take Root in France
Health, Fitness, Parenting and Aging
Boomer Parents Still Supporting College Graduate Children
Boomers’ Kids Graduate But Aren’t Being Recruited
Gen Y/Millennials Shaking Up the Workplace
This isn’t Supposed to Happen to Me
Boomer Choice: Old or Beautiful
An Adult Children Parenting Guide for Boomers
Boomers Coping with Alzheimer’s
Boomer Views of the Golden Years of Retirement
Boomers’ Spending Binge Hinders Retirement
When in Doubt, Your Stockbroker Will Not Tell You to Get Out
Starting Over After Involuntary Retirement or Unemployment
Introduction
Baby Boomers are becoming aware that they are experiencing a different type of retirement than the previous generation.
Compared to other generations, these confident and independent Baby Boomers admit that:
+ They need more money than their parents' generation to live comfortably.
+ Their generation is more self-indulgent than their parents'.
+ They will be healthier and live longer.
Most Baby Boomers (the cohort of Americans born between 1946 and 1964) believe that they will still be working during their retirement years. The oldest, born in 1946, reached 65 in 2011 as they begin retirement age over the next several years.
8 in 10 Plan to Work at Least Part-Time
Eight in ten say they plan to work at least part-time--and others envision starting their own business or working full-time at a new job or career--according to an AARP Segmentation Analysis: Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement.
The fact is older boomers, those born between 1946 and 1955, had a median household net worth of just $146,050 in 2001, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by AARP. Half of this net worth was accounted for by savings accounts, mutual funds and other financial assets with the rest tied up in home equity.
Financial stress is the dominant theme of a Putnam Investments survey of 2,000 people who retired between 1998 and 2002. Some 70% said they wished they had saved more, and 59% regretted they didn't start investing earlier to meet their higher-than-anticipated expenses.
According to a survey by John Hancock Financial Services, the average 401(k) participant expects to retire at about 64 1/2 years old. That's up more than three years from a 2002 survey, and up nearly five years since 1995.
If these workers carry through with their plans, they would reverse a 50-year trend toward earlier retirement. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, men retired at an average age of 62 between 1995 and 2000, and women quit at 61 1/2. In 1950, the average retirement age was 67.
Governments and companies around the world are shifting retirement risk to individuals. The troubling news is that neither workers, retirees, nor the financial world are adequately prepared. Few Americans realize how long they can expect to live, or how much retirement will cost. Don't expect to rely on the government or your former employer as you plan for your retirement years. There will still be a safety net, but proceed as if you are on your own.
Today, many seniors have been forced back to work by financial need. The impact of the new global economy and the financial effects of the lengthy bear market on 401(k) plans have affected thoughts of retirement. A staggering half of households headed by 50-to-59-year-olds have $10,000 or less in their 401(k) accounts even as public and employer retirement benefits are being trimmed. With little net worth to fund retirement, there is now an exodus out of retirement to working. Most are healthy go-getters who would rather work than scrimp and save in an idle retirement. By 2015, estimates the National Council on the Aging, 20% of the U.S. work force will be over age 55, up from 13% in 2000.
This "phased retirement" of Baby Boomers will shape the American workplace and compensate for a severe talent gap due to a shrinking supply of new workforce entrants. Phased retirement will allow Baby Boomers to engage in work they enjoy while providing needed income.
Managing money well is important. But for many people, the most important investment they can make during their working years is in gathering the skills, education and contacts they need for the work they want to do in retirement. Start today asking yourself what kind of life you want to lead?
Before retirement is the time to dream about what you would love doing--and--invest in that dream by being specific as to what, where and how to make your dream a reality.
If you are about to retire, now is the time to get smart by shaping your phased retirement and deciding how you want to live the rest of your life.
Hope and Happiness
In many ways, the "culture wars" of the twenty-first century began in the sixties. Those 1960s were symbolic of change, creativity, experimentation and the perseverance of human spirit. The final year of the sixties decade was a vastly influential year covering politics, sports, civil rights, music, technology and much more.
Personally, while living in the Metro Seattle Area in 1969, I looked up into the sky and thought I saw a Boeing 707 plane flying very low. After awhile, I realized what I saw was the maiden flight of the Boeing 747 high in the sky. In January 1969, my wife and I had purchased our first house overlooking Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Mountains and on August 18th, 1969 our son was born in a small hospital in Bellevue, WA.
Here are some of the events that happened in 1969 that you may remember:
Jan 12 - Joe Namath and the New York Jets won Super Bowl III
Jan 20 - Richard Nixon is inaugurated president of the United States
Jan 30 - The Beatles give their final live performance in London
Feb 9 - The Boeing 747 takes its maiden flight
Mar 1 - Mickey Mantle retires from baseball
Mar 3 - The launch of Apollo 9
Mar 30 - Detroit police engage in a gun battle with members of the group New Republic of Africa
Apr 9 - Harvard Student Strike
May 18 - Apollo 10 launches
May 25 - Midnight Cowboy premieres in New York City
June 22 - Cuyahoga River catches on fire
June 11 - True Grit with John Wayne premieres
July 18 - Mary Jo Kopechne perishes in Chappaquiddick incident
July 20 - Man walks on the moon
August 8 - "Helter Skelter": Manson Family murders at the home of Sharon Tate & Roman Polanski
August 15 - Woodstock Music and Art Fair in White Lake, NY
August 20 - Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant premieres
Sept 6 - Lieutenant William Calley formally charged for his role in the My Lai massacre
Sept 8 - Police raid the Black Panther breakfast in Watts, CA
Sept 23 - Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid hits screens in limited release
Sept 26 - The Brady Bunch debuts on ABC
Oct 11 - The Zodiac Killer murders San Francisco taxi driver Paul Stine
Oct 16 - Mets defeat the Orioles to win the World Series
Oct 29 -Computer networks, in any real sense, didn't exist until the ARPANET was built starting in 1969. However, the first email message via the ARPANET network (the forerunner of the Internet) was sent by Ray Tomlinson, an old high school friend of mine, in late 1971.
Nov 10 - Sesame Street debuts on National Educational Television Network
Nov 19 - Apollo 12 lands on the moon's Ocean of Storms
Dec 4 - Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton & Mark Clark are killed during raid by Chicago Police
Dec 24 - Curt Flood declares his intentions to challenge baseball's reserve clause and file as a free agent--- (that free agent act kicked off the move toward high salaries for talented professional sports players and corporate executives that we recognize today)
Source: Rob Kirkpatrick: 1969: The Year Everything Changed
Getting beyond the fear of death
Once the fear of death is transcended, life becomes a transformed experience because that particular fear underlies all others. Few people know what it is to live without fear--but beyond fear lies joy, as the meaning and purpose of your existence surfaces.
Motivation proceeds from meaning, and meaning, in turn, are an expression in context. Thus, achievement is bounded by context, which, when correspondingly aligned with motivation, determines the individual's relative power.
Power arises from meaning and this meaning has to do with the significance of life itself. Power gives life and energy to what uplifts, dignifies and ennobles. This energy is associated with compassion and makes us feel positive about ourselves.
Although it is not ordinary to move out of one energy field into another during one's lifetime, the opportunity still exists. It remains for motivation to activate that potential; without the exercise of choice, no progression will occur.
For more on the meaning of your life, go to: www.LifeSignature.com
Source: Power vs. Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
Boomers’ Leadership Needed
While on vacation in Maine, I purchased a $.25 well-used book from the Great Cranberry Isle library. This best-selling book was written in 1972 and targeted to young Baby Boomers to help them understand the political health of their country and what they must do to get the country back on track.
Here is the author's Foreword to the bestseller "Captains and The Kings" in 1972:
”This book is dedicated to the young people of America, who are rebelling because they know something is very wrong in their country, but do not know just what it is. I hope this book will help to enlighten them. The historical background and the political background of this novel are authentic. The "Committee for Foreign Studies" does indeed exist, today as of yesterday, and so does the "Scardo Society," but not by these names.
There is indeed a "plot against the people" and probably always will be, for government has always been hostile towards the governed. It is not a new story, and the conspirators and conspiracies have varied form era to era, depending on the political or economic situation in their various countries.
But it was not until the era of the League of Just men and Karl Marx that conspirators and conspiracies became one, with one aim, one objective, and one determination. This has nothing to do with any "ideology" or form of government, or ideals or "materialism" or any other catch-phrases generously fed to the unthinking masses. It has absolutely nothing to do with races or religions, for the conspirators are beyond what they call "such trivialities." They are also beyond good and evil. The Caesars they put into power are their creatures, whether they know it or not, and the peoples of all nations are helpless, whether they live in America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa, or South America. They will always be helpless until they are aware of their real enemy.
President John F. Kennedy knew what he was talking about when he spoke of "the Gnomes of Zurich." Perhaps, he knew too much! Coups d'etat are an old story, but they are now growing too numerous. This is probably the last hour for mankind as a rational species, before it becomes the slave of a "planned society." A bibliography ends this book, and I hope many of my readers will avail themselves of the facts. That is all the hope I have.”
Taylor Caldwell
Now 40 years later, Baby Boomers are the best educated of all former generations. However, they need to read or re-read "Captains and The Kings" to better understand how their countries are being weaken through politically created wars and inflationary monetary policies.
Boomers are valued and needed to exercise their responsibility, serious work ethic, "can do" attitude and competitiveness in stopping the bankruptcy of their country. They need to exercise their leadership capabilities in finding, promoting and voting for political candidates in 2008 that are for free markets, sound money, reasonable tax policies, and ready, willing and able to fight terrorism the way Canada, Sweden and Switzerland do.
Source: Taylor Caldwell: Captains and the Kings
Will Boomers Give Their Best?
As millions of people in their 50s and 60s exit the corporate world, many will search for "encore careers" in the public and nonprofit sectors.
This could result in the biggest transformation in the U.S. workforce since women began pouring into it some 30 years ago, says Mark Freedman, author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life (PublicAffairs, $24.95). Freedman, founder of San Francisco think tank Civic Ventures, discussed this trend in BusinessWeek (December 17, 2007) with Toddi Gutner.
How do you define an encore career?
It's when someone can earn income, find new meaning and use accumulated experience in ways that have a positive impact on society. They represent the best use of the accumulated experience of the Baby Boomer population.
Despite boomers' claims of wanting to help society, is it possible most would rather retire to a life of travel and golf?
Baby Boomers could be blowing a lot of hot air. I think whether they retreat into another round of selfishness or can respond to JFK's challenge--to ask not what the country can do for me but what I can do for the country--will have to do with whether we as a society call them up to a higher purpose. We need to create the on-ramps to work that matters and embrace the talent.
Does their romanticism blind them to the trade-offs?
There is definitely a lack of realism over what it means to do this work. That's why, if you think you might be interested in a give-back career for your encore, you should get as much experience as possible before making the leap. Boomers will do these jobs if they feel they are making a genuine impact or if their time isn't wasted and their experience is put to good use.
If these things aren't there, it becomes a question of grinding it out in a nonprofit for less profit versus working for a corporation. I don't think many people will make that choice unless they are masochistic.
Source: Marc Freedman: Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life
Shared Thinking
The natural laboratory we call "life" is often much more informative about the way the world works than is the artificial setting of a man-made laboratory.
Some scientists are intrigued by psi, the technical term for psychic abilities, but have openly worried they will lose their credibility if they investigate it. Strong evidence for psi phenomena such as telepathy is vitally important, for it has the capacity to be the revolutionary catalyst that will redefine our understanding of consciousness.
Twins and Coupled Consciousness
Some of the most compelling evidence for telepathy comes from the study of identical twins. According to Guy Playfair, author of Twin Telepathy (Vega, 2002), as many as 30 percent of identical twins appear to experience telepathic interconnection.
Some of the earliest research on twin telepathy was done by a twin, Professor Horatio Newman, head of the zoology department at the University of Chicago. He had what he considered telepathic experiences with his twin brother and published a book called Twins and Super-Twins in 1942. The section on telepathy discussed identical twins who were mystified by the way they could communicate with each other without any verbal exchange.
Telepathy happens frequently between closely connected twins during crisis.
The
term crisis telepathy was coined after several dramatic
accounts such as the following: Martha Burke felt as if she "had
been cut in two" one day in 1977 when a searing pain crossed her
chest and abdomen. Hours later she discovered that her twin
sister had died in a plane crash halfway across the world.
Similarly, in July 1975, Nita Hurst's left leg became agonizingly
painful as bruises spread spontaneously up the left side of her
body. She later discovered that her twin, Nettie Porter, had
been in a car crash at the very same time four hundred miles away.
Research launched in 1979 by the University of Minnesota on identical twins raised apart produced findings that were startling. Many of these are discussed in Nancy Segal's book Entwined Lives (Plume, 2000). Sixty-eight cases were extensively studied. The twins who were reunited often felt as though they had known each other their entire lives.
The "Jim twins," for example, had been separated at four-weeks-old and were apart for 39 years. Both were named Jim, married a woman named Linda, divorced, and then married another woman named Betty. However, one Jim was on his third marriage. They both had had childhood dogs named Toy and sons named James. One son was James Allen and the other James Alan. They both had been firemen and sheriffs. Both bit their nails, suffered from migraines, smoked Salem cigarettes, and drank Miller Lite beer. Each was six feet tall and weighed exactly 180 pounds, but they wore their hair differently. Among the most remarkable shared details was that both had a compulsion to build a circular white bench around a tree in their yard during the time right before they met. Also, they both had owned light-blue Chevrolets, which they had regularly driven to Pass-a-Grille Beach, Florida, for family vacations. They also enjoyed leaving love notes to their wives throughout their homes. Their facial expressions, IQs, habits, brain waves, and handwriting were nearly identical. To top it off, they died from the same illness on the same day.
Defying Conventional Explanations
What explains these remarkable findings? Are they because of the twins' identical genetics, similar brain wiring, or both? The Minnesota data confirms that the commonalities aren't because of the amount of time the twins spend together. How much can we attribute to genetics, and how much to environment? And how do these two influences interact?
Because the Minnesota study's twins shared identical genes but had entirely different environments after birth, scientists have used the twins-separated-at-birth data to justify the idea that our genes play a far greater role in which we are than we previously realized. However, the problem with this conclusion is that the human genome isn't complex enough.
This isn't to say that genes don't explain some of the similarities, such as similar tastes in cigarettes or colognes, similar interests or careers, similar looks, similar IQs, and so on, but some parallels---such as building a circular white fence around a tree---do not have a genetic explanation.
Could the answer be with the chromosomes? Ninety-eight percent of the content of our chromosomes isn't genes and cannot be translated directly into the manufacture of proteins, which is how genes produce their effects. The explanation also can't come from the shared hard writing in the twins' brains. The brain has a "plastic" quality, meaning it is highly influenced by its environment. Its connections are continually changing in response to what is learned, reinforced, or ignored.
Richard Rose, professor of psychology and medical genetics at Indiana University in Bloomington, has studied personality in more than seven thousand sets of twins. He believes that environment, whether shared or unshared, plays a larger role in their personality development than do genetics. Rose examined a factor unique to identical twins that correlated with the degree to which the twins were similar: the length of time they were joined in the womb. Rose found that the earlier the egg separates, the less alike the twins are in personality.
In the research to date, the twins who were the most alike were those whose cluster of undifferentiated cells separated one day before the biological deadline that would have resulted in their becoming physically conjoined. This makes one wonder whether telepathic twins could be an illustration on the macro scale of what physicists see on the micro scale between electrons that have been entangled, or coupled.
Entangled electrons must always have spins that are complementary, or opposite, to each other. If entangled electrons are allowed to travel light-years away from each other, they still maintain complementary spins. If the spin of one of them is altered, the spin of the other instantaneously changes. This "nonlocal" effect is due not to a signal between the two electrons but rather to the fact that in some way they have remained interconnected.
How can electrons be light-years apart but not separate? Superstring theories propose that there are at least six more dimensions that the four (time and three physical ones) that we experience directly. Perhaps, entangled electrons only separate in the dimensions we knowingly experience but not in one or more of the "higher" dimensions. What if the time those identical twins spend as "one" similarly keeps them from separating in one or more of these dimensions? How frequently could we be experiencing the same thoughts as someone to whom we feel closely connected?
It probably happens far more often than we've ever imagined.
Source: Diane Hennacy Powell, MD: The ESP Enigma: The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena
Hope and Inspiration in Tough Times
In 1908 an unknown American author, then a reporter, named Napoleon Hill got the opportunity of a lifetime to interview America's richest man, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie presented to Hill, then twenty-five years old, a letter of recommendation that would grant him access to 500 of that era's top achievers in business, politics, science, and religion in order to discover the common denominators for success.
From those interviews, Think and Grow Rich was created and written. It covered the thirteen principles and the philosophy of personal achievement and success. Hill gave life to the personal development movement that has since swept the world.
Fast forward a hundred years, and the Napoleon Hill Foundation wants to provide renewed hope and courage for everyone during the current global economic crisis. The Foundation to ask the leaders of our generation to find out something very timely: Why they didn't give up--through their challenging times. From these interviews, many lessons were learned and are shared in this book:
From reading these leaders’ stories, you will learn what kept them going, what gave them the courage to persevere, and why they want to share their stories of success with you so you may find your own personal path to great success.
In today’s global landscape, we truly need to keep reminding ourselves that once we find our definite major purpose and create our mastermind, it is our responsibility to continue the quest, no matter how hard the challenge. Every one of us holds a gift that is meant to be shared with others.
Source: Mark Victor Hansen, the co-creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Life is About Hope Not Happiness!
In 1978, a trio of psychologists curious about happiness assembled two groups of subjects. In the first were winners of the Illinois state lottery. In the second group were victims of devastating accidents. Some had been left paralyzed from the waist down. For the others, paralysis started at the neck.
The researchers wrote up their findings on the lottery winners and the accident victims in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper is now considered one the founding texts of happiness studies, a field that has yielded some surprising morose results. It's not just hitting the jackpot that fails to lift spirits; a whole range of activities that people tend to think will make them happy do not, it turns out, have that effect.
As the happiness researchers Tim Wilson and Daniel Gilbert have put it, "People routinely mispredict how much pleasure or displeasure future events will bring."
Several studies have been offered to explain why the United States is, in effect, a nation of joyless lottery winners. One, the so-called "hedonic treadmill" hypothesis, holds that people rapidly adjust to improved situations; thus, as soon as they acquire some new delight their expectations ramp upward, and they are left no happier than before. Another is that people are relativists; they are interested not so much in having more stuff as in having more than those around them.
In his bestselling book "Stumbling on Happiness" (2006), Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, offers a catalogue of the ways that people misjudge their own satisfactions. They tend to think they'll be happier with more variety, when, in fact, they get more pleasure from being offered the same thing over and over again. They are willing to pay a premium to preserve their options, but they're more contented when they commit themselves to a particular choice. They anticipate being overjoyed by events that, when they actually occur, leave them unmoved.
If happiness research simply confirmed what people already believed, there would be no need, and really no reason, to argue for its relevance. It's the counterintuitive cast of the results that makes the work provocative. Life satisfaction comes from the hope of tomorrow being a brighter day. As Alexander Pope wrote in 1733, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."
Source: THE NEW YORKER, March 22, 2010
Daniel Gilbert: Stumbling on Happiness
Love, Marriage and Friendship
The U.S. Census projected that 1.5 million female Baby Boomers turned 60 in 2006. And the percentage of Americans older than 65 is rapidly increasing.
"It began with movies that featured romantic scenes with older women, like 'Something's Gotta Give,' and 'Under the Sand' with Charlotte Rampling," says Carol Schneider, executive publicity director of the Random House Publishing Group, which is bringing out Gail Sheehy and Jane Juska's books.
"That paved the way for people writing about the sex lives of older women. This is ground that has not been covered extensively before. We put these books out because there is a market for them."
The truth is that women tend to live longer than men, and finding a partner is often difficult. Of all the books, Juska's is the darkest, especially as she describes her romance at 71, with Graham, 36, with whom she fell deeply in love. But Graham eventually married a woman closer to his own age. "I am moved to tears with longing and love for this man," Juska writes, "with despair and regret for what cannot be."
Indeed, in a telephone interview from Berkeley, Calif., Juska says that since the publication of "A Round-Heeled Woman," in her conversations with older women, "the strongest sense I came away with was yearning."
Source: Dinitia Smith, New York Times, February 16, 2006
When Lovers Part
The intuition of love had told him.
It could never be deceived. Tears came into her eyes. But I am glad that I will be the one to go first, she thought. You are strong, but I am weak. You will bear this as you have borne other tragedies, but I could not have borne your dying. For that, if nothing else, I thank God.
All our lives are a giving up, one by one, of the things we love and enjoy, and finally there is the last abandonment and we are empty.
But the memory of our love which I will take with me, if I may, for you are the only joy I have ever known, the only contentment and delight. And so, I am rich after all, richer than most. Others live lives of no color or vitality, and their existence are like nursery porridge, and as bland.
But I have known all the heights that can be possible for a woman, all the raptures and the faith and the trust, all the excitements and the wonders, and even grief was bearable in your presence, my darling. I must not be greedy and try to cling to what I have had--for it is all fulfilled, full and overflowing. Nothing can be added. Nothing taken away.
From: "Captains and the Kings" by Taylor Caldwell (Doubleday & Company, Inc) 1972
Revisiting “The Joy of Sex”
The 1972 best-seller "The Joy of Sex" was intended to unleash its readers' sexual potential by counteracting their ignorance and shame. "The Joy of Sex," which sold more than twelve million copies worldwide, was an "unanimous account of the full repertoire of human heterosexuality," according to its author, the British scientist and physician Alex Comfort. It was the English answer to Japanese pillow books, illustrated texts designed to show couples where to put what, and was further enhanced by helpful advice: for instance, "Never, never refer to pillow-talk in anger later on ('I always knew you were a lesbian,' etc.)."
If you are a child of the seventies and were raised on "The Joy of Sex," you are not likely to have forgotten the illustrations. The woman depicted in these drawings is lovely, and, even nearly forty years later, quite chic. Her gentleman friend, however, looks like a werewolf with a hangover.
At times, "The
Joy of Sex" has the feel of a penis propaganda pamphlet.
The penis "has more symbolic importance than any other human organ." Lest there be any confusion: "Vibrators are no substitute for a penis." Comfort writes of male genitalia, "It's less the size than the personality, unpredictable movements, and moods which make up the turn-on (which is why rubber dummies are so sickening)."
There was not a lot of feminist outcry about the book when it was published, probably because in 1972 there was so much else for feminists to cry about. There was, however, a feminist alternative: the Boston Women's Health Book Collective's "Our Bodies, Ourselves" which covered much of the same material as "The Joy of Sex," just with a different tone. Both books said that everybody was bisexual, that sex should be a mutually satisfying, full-body experience, and that the communication of turn-ons could be of great benefit to this enterprise.
"Joy" and "Our Bodies" were part of a movement that radically reformed the way the English-speaking world conceives of sexuality.
Today, Crown is releasing a new edition of "The Joy of Sex" ($29.95). Comfort himself revised his book several times; now Susan Quilliam, a British "relationship psychologist and agony aunt" (as her Website describes her), has endeavored to modernize the text for a new, post-feminist era. Quilliam has succeeded in bringing "The Joy of Sex" up to current standards. The book is still emphatically straight, but Quilliam has given it a gay-positive tone.
The original drawings have been replaced, with a mixture of modest photographs and impressionistic sketches. The participants have the smug smiles of a couple whose 401(k)s have just appreciated. They look as if they were in a Viagra commercial, which is to say that they look like two people who have never, ever had sex.
Source: THE NEW YORKER, January 5, 2009
Alex Comfort: The Joy of Sex: The Ultimate Revised Edition // The Timeless Guide to Lovemaking
Boomer Grandmothers on Mother’s Day
Did you know that you are one of the 58% of grandparents in the U.S. who are boomers?
That's right, more than 27 million boomer grandparents are best friends with their grandkids...probably due to the fact that they both have one enemy in common. These boomer grandparents are probably living close to one or more of their grandchildren and spending as much time with them as possible.
Today, grand motherhood is radically different from motherhood because when you become a grandmother you realize very quickly you have no control, no say in anything. Exploring these grandmotherly emotions and experiences is the theme of a new book by 27 grandmother writers who reveal the hidden pleasures of being a grandmother.
If you are a grandparent, you have probably talked with grandparent friends who told you their stories of connecting with their grandchildren. In past generations, it was over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house they went. However, since our children are spread all over the country and even the world, today's grandparents mostly travel to where the children live.
Reading about real stories from these two dozen plus grandmother authors is a great gift that every boomer grandmother would love to experience. The new book, "eye of my heart," is a unique Mother's Day treasure for the woman who has molded you and/or your children and now is taking on the mission of becoming a cherished mentor to her grandchildren.... ....wherever they may live.
Mother of the Bride
Congratulations on the engagement of your daughter (or son)!
The excitement has begun and the wheels are in motion for a dream wedding she’ll never forget. Now comes the hard part – what should YOU wear on the big day?
Are you stressed out at the mere thought of going shopping for a mother of the bride dress?
Is this the first time in years you have tried on formal wear, and have no idea what looks good on you?
Are you confused about the color and style of dress to buy?
Do you worry you’ll have a hard time finding a dress that will flatter your midlife body?
Or, if you’ve found your dress, are you still unclear about what shoes, purse and jewelry you need to make your dress look wow?
If you wish someone could just wave a magic wand and turn you into the 'Belle of the Bridal Ball' then you need to stop worrying, and relax!
You can find the perfect mother of the bride dress and look absolutely gorgeous on your son or daughter’s wedding day, with the help of the Glam Gals at Fabulous After 40. The Glam Gals, are image and style experts specializing in helping women 40 plus look and feel fabulous.
Their ebook, "Mother of the Bride" is written for women who will be attending the wedding of their daughter (or son) and have no idea what to wear. Readers of this e-book will discover how to select the right color and style of dress and accessories to wear to any type of wedding. The ebook is bursting with over 150 color photos including styles of dresses that are perfect for the big day.
For Boomer Women: Friends Matter
The research is clear about the positive implications of friendship.
There was, for instance, a 14-year project at Flinders University in Australia that tracked 1,500 women as they aged. The study found that close friendships---even more than close family ties---help prolong women's lives. Those with the most friends lived 22% longer than those with the fewest friends.
Linked by 40 years of experiences and memories, 10 women from Ames, Iowa, are a lesson in the power and lifelong benefits of friendship. Born at the end of the Baby Boom, their memories are evocative of their times. Their story is universal, even common, and on that level, it can't help but resonate with almost anyone who has ever had a friend.
In their adult lives after Ames, the women found newer friends. But these more recent friendships are built mostly around their kids, jobs or current neighborhoods. The bonds are limited to the here and now.
Duke University researchers looked at hundreds of unmarried patients with coronary heart disease and found that, of those with close friends, 85% lived at least five years. That was double the survival rate of those lacking in friends.
Gerontologists say longtime friends are often more understanding about health issues than family members are. Friends are more apt to acknowledge each other's ailments without dwelling on them. The Ames girls do their share of talking about the aging process, but then they move on to the next conversation. And given how much they laugh, and how laughter is good for anyone's health, they figure their time together is completely therapeutic.
By the time women are middle-aged, most have built the friendships that will sustain them. That is the conclusion of a study that began in 1978 at Virginia Tech, when 110 women over age 50 were first asked to name their closest friends. Fourteen years later, when these women were ages 65 to 89, they were asked the same question, and 75% of them listed the exact same names.
Similarly, a Harris Interactive Inc. survey in 2004 found that 39% of women between ages 25 and 55 said they met their current best friends in childhood or high school. Women are likely to connect early and then hold tight to each other. This is despite our transient society, or in some cases, even because of it.
There's a Spanish proverb: "Tell me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are."
The story of the Ames girls will have many more chapters, of course. There will be losses ahead, they all know that, but there will be great joys, too. And they have no doubt they will be there for one another always, whatever happens.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2009
Jeffrey Zaslow: The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship
Sex and the Single Senior
The U.S. Census reports there are nearly 16 million unmarried Americans age 65 and older. Add the bubble of single Baby Boomers, now 47 to 65, poised to join the senior set -- and it’s no wonder that singles age 55 and older are the fastest growing group of online daters.
Dr. Terri Orbuch (a.k.a. The Love Doctor®) – a professor, federally funded research scientist, and marriage and family therapist -- has joined forces with SeniorPeopleMeet (www.seniorpeoplemeet.com), the nation’s largest online dating site devoted to seniors, to offer guidance and perspective to the seniors who have formed a community there in their search for companionship, love or even marriage.
"Without doubt, the single most common question I get from seniors is: is it too late or will I find that someone special again?” said Orbuch. “Many seniors believe in the concept of a soul mate and think they’ve already had their turn at love. That’s absolutely not true, and online dating can be a godsend for them. It offers a vastly expansive pool of potential partners -- far more than the limited number of singles one can find randomly in the neighborhood, grocery line or place of worship.”
Dr. Orbuch discusses such senior dating dilemmas as:
· When is it too soon -- to date, have sex, tell the kids?
· Seniors and cyberdating: is there a stigma and how to overcome it?
· Money: yours, mine and ours? When’s the right time to talk about it?
· Top tips for staying safe online -- for seniors in particular
· Why older singles crave companionate love
· How health issues affect commitment in seniors who date
· Special rules for seniors dating after divorce
· Top ways to build trust in a new relationship
· How your personal history affects your ability to trust
Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great
What Boomers Don’t Know About Love & Marriage
While having dinner out, we noticed a couple at a table across from us, who were separately and silently reading during their meal; she a book and he a newspaper.
Terri L. Orbuch, Ph.D., "The Love Doctor," would tell them (to be happy in their marriage) wives need emotional connection, including talking regularly with their husbands about their emotions, their relationship and sharing a team-like approach to household activities. This time of connection, say over dinner at the end of the day, matters to women. Yes, husbands don't want a lot of relationship talk. However, when husbands take time to listen to their wife and respond in affective affirmation, the "mood" of the marriage can dramatically change for the better.
There is so much we don't know, we don't know, about the science of becoming happy couples. That is why a new book by Dr. Orbuch, based upon her federally-funded research study of married couples, is a necessary read for boomers who wish to seize the moment and make their marriage exceptional.
"5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great" is full of "do you knows" that can change your perceptions from myths to proven facts, separate tips for both men and women, as well as important findings from Dr. Orbuch's ongoing long-term study of marriages detailing what works and doesn't work for couples to be happy.
Yes, men are from Mars and women from Venus and bound to collide as Dr. John Gray has told us. And because we genders think differently, we seem to speak different languages.
For instance, Helen R. Weingarten and Elizabeth Douvan, both psychologists from the University of Michigan, observed that men and women ask different questions when they problem solve. When problem solving, women will ask you what you mean? They are focused on the underlying emotional reasons why you did what you did. It is difficult for most men to speak clearly about the emotions behind their actions--such as telling someone how they felt. In contrast, the man will ask her where is this going? Men's problem solving is very task oriented and focused on the future implications of the discussion.
Can old boomers lighten up, understand the other gender's language and focus on new, positive elements to boost marital happiness?
Just as they have been setting new trends in every stage of their lives, boomers will continue to do so as they head into their best years. With greater freedom to explore exciting experiences and places, they hope to enjoy these new adventures side-by-side with a loving partner. Dr. Orbuch's new book is an excellent travel guide to take along on these new journeys
Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great
Marriage in America
The casting agents for NBC's "The Marriage Ref" scoured the countryside in search of bickering couples ("No problem is too small!") willing to submit to an arbiter advised by a panel of stars, including Alec Baldwin, who, though divorced, did play the title role in a movie called "The Marrying Man." Meanwhile, a National Marriage Boycott is on: its members pledge not to get married, no matter how many people ask them.
Marriage in America is in disarray.
Americans, among the
marryingest people in the world, are also the divorcingest.
Even during the downturn, business
is up at eHarmony, which has taken
credit for one out of every fifty weddings in the United States.
"The State of Our Unions," a annual report issued jointly by the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values, warns of a "mancession": in a lousy economy, more men than usual are working fewer hours than their wives, making for unhappier husbands and angrier rows. A spike in the divorce rate is anticipated, although this may be mitigated by the fact that divorce isn't cheap and people are broke.
You may think that the mancession would also foretell a falloff in couples counseling, which isn't cheap, either, but there's no sign of a "therapycession." Up to eighty percent of therapists practice couples therapy. Today, something like forty percent of would-be husbands and wives receive premarital counseling, often pastoral, and millions of married couple seeks therapy. Doubtless, many receive a great deal of help, expert and caring. Nevertheless, a 1995 Consumer Reports survey ranked marriage counselors last, among providers of mental health services, in achieving results.
As Rebecca L. Davis observes in an astute, engaging and disturbing history, "More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss" (Harvard; $29.95), the rise of couples counseling has both coincided with and contributed to a larger shift in American life: heightened expectations for marriage as a means of self-expression and personal fulfillment. That would seem to make for an endlessly exploitable clientele, especially given that there's not much profit in pointing out that some things just don't get any better. Not everything admits of improvement.
Rebecca L. Davis: More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss
Source: The New Yorker, March 29, 2010
Finding Love Later…by Author Laura Lee Carter
Love can be a tough one when you’re older, recently divorced or widowed, and wondering what’s next. I know I felt relatively certain my “love life” was over at age 49. But I learned so much more after I lost my career as a research librarian.
Going only on my own desire to try something completely different, I started my own dating service. There I spent some serious time learning from hundreds of 40+ singles about what it feels like to know that you are too young to give up on love, and yet fearful that you may be too disillusioned to ever believe in love again. What I discovered is that there are quite a few of us who have lost our faith in love, and that included me!
So I got busy and figured out how to change that. With my natural stubborn streak and extensive background in counseling psychology, I used decades of personal experience with love and disappointment to turn my attitude around. I first began to finally value my mysterious intuitive personal guidance system and not interrupt it constantly with more “rational” assessments of my situation. I also acknowledged how important it was for me to forgive myself for everything in my past, but what was the best way to do that?
Slowly I created a formula which included finding new self-respect for where I was at, appreciating how I got there, and then finding various ways to love myself into believing in love again. I saw that I felt afraid of love for many good reasons, so I began searching out those experiences in my past that were keeping me stuck in my old way of thinking. My formula included focusing on my own unique shame and trust issues, forgiving myself for past mistakes, listening to my inner wisdom, and utilizing cathartic techniques to change my beliefs about what love might have to offer me now.
I knew I was on the right track when I met the love of my life a few months later! Six years after that fateful meeting I completed the new book: How To Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom. Pick up this book when you are ready to acknowledge that you have lost your faith in love, and getting it back it your highest priority.
Laura Lee Carter: How To Believe In Love Again
Does an Empty Nest Spell the End of Your Marriage?
That was the question we asked Dr. Jacqueline Del Rosario, America's Marriage Doctor, and Dr. Terri Orbuch, The Love Doctor. Here are their answers:
Dr. Terri Orbuch answers the question: Does an empty nest spell the end of your marriage?
Even though we love our kids, many studies have found that marital happiness actually increases after the kids leave home. For many couples, marriage happiness continues to rise steadily during the empty nest years and reaches an all-time high at 35 years of marriage.
Despite these hopeful findings, it's very common for spouses to express anxiety before their children move out. The questions I typically hear from my therapy patients, TV and radio fans, and online readers who are about to enter the empty nest years are: Do we still have things to talk about? Do we have enough in common? Will we get sick of each other's company? Do I even still like him/her?
The big message I tell them is this: It doesn't take a lot of hard work to renew your marital bond and to rekindle the kind of lighthearted joy and excitement you felt early in your marriage. In fact, the "newness" of being alone together again helps to jump start these feelings. My research has shown that when partners make a few positive changes in their behaviors and habits, they can greatly increase their marital happiness over the next many years.
Here are five marriage-rekindling strategies that will absolutely help you and your spouse enjoy years of happiness together once you are empty-nesters:
Start chatting
daily--for 10 minutes.
When was the last time you and your
partner talked about something other than the kids, the house, money
or your work? Practice talking to your partner for 10 minutes a day,
every day, about anything other than those four topics. Meals are
good opportunities to practice the 10-Minute Rule. So is right before
bed. My research found that couples who practice the 10-Minute Rule
daily feel closer and happier over time.
Psyche yourselves
up.
As in any new endeavor, going in with a positive attitude and
some concrete goals leads to success. Sit down with your spouse and
discuss all the benefits of having the house to yourselves and what
you are each looking forward to. More free time? Freedom to travel?
Eating out more? Eating differently? Less mess? Skinny dipping in
your pool? Doing this simple activity will get the two of you in
alignment and jazzed up about your new life.
Share a new
activity.
Engaging in a new experience benefits your marriage by
helping to rekindle the same feeling of newness you experienced as
dating singles, when every activity was a freshly shared experience.
Doing something novel together--such as taking tennis lessons, eating
at a new restaurant, or visiting a local tourist attraction--is also
a way to inject fun into the marriage. My research has found that
when couples characterize their relationship as frequently fun, they
are likely to be happy over the long term.
Knock your partner
off balance.
One of the best ways to bring more passion into your
marriage and get out of a relationship rut is to shake up your normal
routine. For example, if the wife goes grocery shopping at the end of
the day, maybe the husband offers to go with her. Or if he typically
falls asleep in front of the TV at night, maybe the wife challenges
him to a game of Scrabble instead. Even small changes and surprises
keep relationships feeling fresh and exciting.
Talk about sex.
It's important for long-married couples to talk about their sex
lives together. This can be helpful as well as physiologically
arousing to both partners. Discuss what makes your sex life exciting,
your sexual fantasies, or what you desire from each other. A good way
to start this conversation is to remember back when you first had sex
and remember what turned you on then. Focus on the positive and what
would be erotic to each of you.
As you can see, these are not complicated, difficult, or major activities. Nevertheless, each one addresses a different aspect of your relationship in a positive way. Bringing these new behaviors into your mature marriage will guarantee that you and your long-time spouse will enjoy many more years of marital happiness through the empty nest years. Don't be surprised if you begin to feel more content and connected to your spouse than you've ever felt before--it happens all the time.
Terri L. Orbuch: 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great
Here is Dr. Del Rosario's answer to the question: Does an empty nest spell end of your marriage?
Absolutely not! But, whether your marriage can weather this transition is entirely dependent on the level of preparation and commitment that you and your partner are willing put in.
When a couple starts having children, it’s easy for their entire relationship to focus on the needs of the next generation. Parents’ lives revolve around feeding, changing and bathing infants followed by baby proofing the house and potty training. For the next few years, couples have to worry about elementary school, science projects and a strew of ever-changing extracurricular activities. This continues with changing scenarios as children grow into puberty and then young adults going off to college. This tunnel vision allows partners not to have to communicate with each other about the relationship, and the marriage lasts almost by default. In other words, the kids become the point of commonality rather than one another.
I remember watching the movie "Failure to Launch" starring Matthew McConaughey who played Trip, a 35-year-old late bloomer still living in his parents’ house, clinging to their sides. However, when Trip finally moved out, it sent his parents into a state of shock since they were so used to the family unit revolving around him, their only child. On one end of the spectrum was the stir-crazy father who immediately did everything he always wanted to do including turning Trip’s old bedroom into his new “naked fish tank” room. Yes, you guessed it – a room where he could walk around naked and admire his new fish tank. On the other end was his mother who was worried that her husband would have to get to know her again in the context of a woman, as opposed to a mother. What scared her even more was the thought of her husband not liking the person she had become over the years they spent growing apart just focusing on their son.
It’s important for couples to be aware of the “All-About-the-Kids” syndrome, so that they can try to avoid it. They need to remember that their relationship requires attention and nurturing too. Individuals are constantly evolving and changing over time, so it’s imperative that couples stay in tune, so that they can grow alongside each other.
In fact, my husband and I are currently experiencing it. We have two boys – the eldest went off to college last year, and we’re in the process of sending the second one off this year. And while we’ve grown stronger over the last 22 years of marriage, we have some adjustments to make. I’ve always said that marriages go through seasons, and the empty nest period will take work.
So when the empty nest approaches your door here are a few things to keep in mind. A mistake that couples often make is trying to recreate where they were before the children came along. You and your mate are two completely different people than when you first fell in love with each other. Couples need to establish how they will recommit to each other during this new phase. If you assume that your lives will just return to what it was prior to having children, you will be thoroughly disillusioned and disappointed…it’s been almost two decades! Often, your perspectives and goals have changed, not to mention your physical features – your spouse could have a different body, different hair or no hair at all! Remember that while love is a feeling, marriage is a commitment, and you must be ready to fall in love all over again.
Secondly, couples shouldn’t wait until the “chicks” are gone to start dismantling the “nest.” During the high school years, the kids are able to drive themselves and they spend more time with their friends out of the house, so it’s a great time for you and your mate to begin redefining the relationship and thinking about the new era to come.
Couples must start to purposely craft this new time by relinquishing the mundane and ordinary. Repurpose or come up with new ways to be with each other. I’m not talking about risky escapades or mid-life crisis moves. I’m referring to creative ways to get to know each other in this new setting. Ask yourselves, “What can we do that’s about us?” This can be a very hard question to answer since both of you are so used to asking what you can do for the kids.
Just the other day, my husband and I decided to run errands together. We ended up eating lunch at a new restaurant and even caught an impromptu movie before the night ended. It was refreshing just following our own whims instead of our kids’ schedules, but I have to admit that it was an unfamiliar feeling.
In many cases, that adventurer in you who used to crave spontaneity went into hibernation. Instead, you and your partner focused your attention and resources on building that nest for your children, making it as comfortable as possible. And, over the course of time, you got used to the dimensions of it without realizing that there’s a whole another word out there. Just like your kids, it’s time for you and your partner to venture outside that nest.
Remember, it may feel foreign, but you can't fear the unfamiliar. It’s unchartered territory that you must embrace by recognizing that it’s a new beginning that holds so much promise and possibility. It’s the next chapter in your lives, and if you make sure to turn the page together, you can make it EXACTLY what you want it to be.
“America’s Marriage Doctor” Jacqueline Del Rosario, Ed.D. is President and CEO of Recapturing the Vision International, an organization dedicated to promoting healthy marriages and family strengthening. Also a published author, speaker and nationally regarded media personality, Dr. Del Rosario has been a certified pre and post-marital counselor for more than 20 years. Her cutting-edge series, Marriage Solutions and The Marital Constitution™, help couples successfully work through problems and find healthy solutions. She may be reached online at www.doctordelrosario.com.
JACQUELINE DEL ROSARIO: Capturing the Vision
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