GETTING OLDER?   A MILLION LAUGHS?  APPARENTLY SO.

I get them on my email.  I’m sure you see them too.  Like this one:  Two elderly gents were eating breakfast in a restaurant one morning.  Henry noticed something funny about Arthur’s ear.  “Art, did you know you’ve got a suppository in your left ear?”

            “Hank, I’m glad you saw that thing.  Now I think I know where my hearing aid is.”

Or this one:  Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades.  Over the years they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures.  Lately, their activities had been limited to a few games of cards every week.  One day, one looked at the other and said, “Now don’t get mad at me…I know we’ve been friends for years…but I just can’t think of your name.  Please tell me what your name is.”

            Her friend glared at her.  For at least three minutes she just stared and glared.  Finally, she blurted, “How soon do you need to know?”

Humor at the expense of second-halfers seems quite common.   Allia Sobel’s book of cartoon humor The Joys of Being 50-plus is but one example of this insulting sophomoric perspective on aging.  While the book appears to target Second Halfers, my reading of these “funnies” made me shudder at the prospect of getting older.  Apparently, author Zobel believes there is nothing to look forward to upon reaching 50 except wrinkles, stupidity, self loathing, and insults from the rest of society.  Thanks for the laughs, but I’m just not laughing.

Another effort at poking fun at the aging process entitled “The Perks of Getting Older” include these screamers:

• You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
• Your eyes won’t get much worse
• Things you buy now won’t wear out
• You sing along with elevator music
• Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off
• Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.

There was a time when America made fun of blacks and Jews.  There was a time when jokes about dumb wives brought gales of laughter.  Quips and witticisms about people with disabilities—stuttering or wheelchairs—had their day, too.

Apparently the time is not yet nigh that laughing at older people or the aging process no longer seems so funny.  It’s easier to laugh at Alzheimer’s disease, apparently, when only 1 American is 100 is affected by it.  That percent will increase by 350% over the next 30 years, three times the rate of increase of the population at large.  At some point it becomes no laughing matter.

American media—magazines, TV, music, movies, newspapers, radio, and the internet—has been hi-jacked by very young adults.  Because these industries operate on increasingly narrow profit margins, they are the province of 20-somethings just out of school.  From the creative staffs of ad firms, to the producers of radio talk shows, to the editors of magazines, it is hard to find a major decision-maker over 40. 

The result?  The bright, and occasionally caring, young media leaders just don’t get it—no matter how intelligent they might be.  They don’t have a clue what aging really is about.  The mirror they hold to society is a false mirror of an aging that is invariably poverty-stricken, decrepit, stupid, and constantly in misery. 

Today’s newer “map” of aging reflects little of that antiquated mid-20^th Century perspective on age.  Unfortunately, the hot shots in media haven’t picked up on the fact that a new generation is headed its way:  60-year olds back in school, 70-year olds starting new businesses, 80-year old marathoners, and 90-year old newlyweds. 

Sadly the ultra-sophisticated and politically correct New Yorker magazine still hasn’t seen the light.  Here are several of their cartoon jabs at aging:

·        A bald, bespectacled tiny old man, seated at a swanky restaurant with a blonde one-third his age, suggests….  “Perhaps, given time, but not too much time, you could learn to love me.”

·        The inscription on a memorial statue in a park reads…   “Fred Philpot, born 1944.  Let it all hang out 1967-1979.    Stuffed it all back in 1980-2004.”

·        A doctor turns to a woman standing over a hospital bed of a man hooked up to an IV and informs her…   “It’s a very senior moment—he’s dead.”

A million laughs, don’t you agree?

            A Swedish study of depression and suicide shows a dramatic increase in the clinical “blues” for men over 45.  Prior to age 45, men and women commit suicide in a ratio of 3 to 2.  Between 45-65, men double their successful suicides.  By age 80, men turn to suicide 10 times more frequently than do women according to the Swedish study.

            What’s behind this increase in male depression in the second half of life?  One answer lies in what social scientists refer to as “primary social supports.”

            In a survey of 5000 American men and women over the age of 40, huge differences between men and women were identified.  A primary social support is the first person one turns to when something bad happens.

            When given choices between “spouse,” “relative,” “friend,” “co-worker,” and “none” 66% of the men polled identified their “spouse” as their primary social support.  The next highest response was “none” for 13% of the men queried. 

            Amazingly, only 9% of men identified a “friend” as their primary social support.

            The contrast between whom the opposite sexes choose for social support can be highlighted in several ways.  Women chose a “friend” as their #1 social support 28% of time while men chose a “friend” a mere 9% of the time. 

            And only 24% of women identified “spouse” as their primary social support-less than one out of four.  In fact, women identified “relative” in 4 out of 10 instances, whereas only 1 in 10 men answered “relative.”

            The conclusions are crystal.  Second half men who don’t have a spouse (but are not gay) or who lose a spouse through death, divorce, or Alzheimer’s are prime targets for depression and suicide.

            Additional contributors to troubled second half outlooks for men are their relationships to work and their view of sexuality.  A number of studies have shown that men suffer more than women do when their work life ends.  That may change in the future for Boomer and Gen-X women, but WWII and Silent Generation women seem to not identify strongly with their work life.

            Many men get positive feelings from their roles as providers and contributors.  And many men evaluate their success solely in terms of financial and career success.  It is not surprising then that high achieving male executives and professionals often experience deep depression as the joys of workplace, income, status, trappings and perks, and camaraderie fades away.

            The same is true as male potency erodes.  Studies show that men struggle more (but typically in silence) than women as their sexuality wanes.   

            Couple the end-of-work with declining sexuality and a lost wife, and you have a man on a treacherous slippery slope.

            What, if anything, can be done?  Men first need to understand the realities of being a second half male.  They need to join men’s groups and learn to share intimacies, learn to self-reveal, and learn to support new friends and people in addition to their wife.  Second half men need to embrace second-half sexuality and the changes it brings.  Men, even more than women, seem to benefit strongly from being a mentor.  Mentoring in any environment is energizing, hopeful and confirming, elements that all of us need more of in our lives. 

            Men need to visit their primary care physician regularly, and take a more active role in the doctor-patient relationship, and take more personal responsibility for their own health and wellness. 

            Finally, it seems that work, whether it is for financial gain or for free, is an essential core element for making second half men feel better about themselves.  Many of us Second Halfers don’t object to work, but we are less and less interested in 50-60 hour work-weeks for 48-50 weeks a year.  Employers and agencies that carve meaningful work into segments that are “bite-sized” and flexible will discover very motivated second half workers, and certainly lots of willing males among them.

                        “Work helps prevent one from getting old.  My work is

            my life.  I cannot think of one without the other.  The man

            who works is never bored, is never old.  A persona is not old

            until regrets take the place of hopes and plans.  Work and interest

            in worthwhile things are the best remedy for aging.”

                                                                                    Scott Nearing, 1980

            As with the great human revolutions before–the Agricultural Revolution of 8000 BC and the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s–everything changes.  Religions appear, political systems morph, classes of society come or go, communications systems are invented, family size alters, new cities and nations are created, and lifestyles never before experienced become commonplace.

            One result of the current Longevity Revolution is the coming into sharper focus of a new life stage I prefer to call the “Second Half.”  For many of us, our careers and our lives as parents come to a close in our late 50s and early 60s.  Yet many of us will enjoy relatively healthy, mobile lives into our 90s, 100s, and even hundred-teens, as “health-spans keep pace with life-spans.

            A new awareness is emerging that this “second half” of 20-30 “bonus years” exists.  Many Americans don’t yet fully perceive it.  The implications of work, marriage, parenting, legacies, friendships, home ownership strategies, finance, learning, and creativity remain still hidden in the fog of traditions that were forge decades and centuries past.

            Sadly, good bookstores don’t yet have sections on the Second Half.  To explore the world of ideas through books, you’ll wander from “Self Help” to “Aging” to “Health and Medicine” and “Psychology.”  Of my personal library of 50+ books on this hopeful new territory, here are a handful of my favorites:

New Passages:  Mapping Your Life Across Time by Gail Sheehy   This astute social journalist hones in on 50 exciting new facets of living after age 40.  Her descriptions of the Flaming 50s, the Serene 60s, the Sage 70s, and the Uninhibited 80s deal equally with issues and opportunities for both men and women.  New Passages is especially readable with hundreds of interviews and anecdotes.

 The Virtues of Aging by Jimmy Carter.   The President ran into some tough psychological and financial times as he moved from his work life to retirement.  His conclusion is that retirement is far less interesting than “refirement.”  This small (just over 100 pages), easy to read book is very important, and joyfully has almost nothing to do with politics.

The Fountain of Age by Betty Friedan    This feminist author (Feminine Mystique) documents our struggle to hold on to the illusion of youth, and observes that we are in truth denying the new triumphs of our second half.  The possibilities she invites are important for men and women in this meaty work of over 600 pages.

Dare to be 100 by Walter Bortz, M.D.   Dr. Bortz of Stanford Medical School is a leading health and aging expert.  In his books (also We Live Too Short and Die Too Long) he documents what other mammal species experience in aging, and concludes that humans have created lives that are far shorter than others in the animal kingdom.  He argues in easy-to-read paragraphs and hyper-short chapters how to extend our years and our enjoyment of them.

The Creative Age by Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D  Professor Cohen unearths research and history to make the case that our vocabularies expand with age, our connections between brain cells increase, and that the Second Half years are a time to turbo-charge our creative energies.  With more discretionary time on our hands, Cohen urges us to learn, to grow, to exercise our full creative and intellectual capacities.

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom    This popular, short book is a must.  Albom’s favorite college professor has terminal ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and Professor Morrie Schwartz has lessons to teach till his dying breath.  How we can learn to live with a debilitating disease, and break through our self-pity and sorrow to make each day one that we look forward to is a lesson for every soul.

Successful Aging by John W. Rowe, M.D. and Robert L. Kahn, Ph.D.   This is the non-academic report of the McArthur Foundation Study on Aging in America begun in 1987.  Among its important findings:  “Use it or lose it” is a myth when it comes to physical exercise.  We can continue to grow bone and muscle mass after decades of loss.  All we need to do is exercise and keep at it.

Age Power by Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D.   Dychtwald is America’s authority on the impact of the Age Wave on society, politics, business, and our personal lives.  This book is excellent in scanning the landscape of mega-trends and going to the core of what is needed in the next several decades as global aging occurs.

Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer by Connie Goldman and Richard Mahler.    This book offers story after story of people like you and me who carve new paths in their second half.  Less a how-to-do book and more of a how-to-be book, it highlights the importance of humor, spirituality, intimacy, risk taking, and more.

            An oft-cited 1960s sociological study revealed a telling insight into the second half of life.  The finding?  Couples report their highest levels of marriage satisfaction and happiness before they have children, and after the kids leave home.

            Free to travel, free to stay in bed all day, free to give vent to spur-of-the-moment whims, empty-nester couples in their 50s and 60s find themselves amazingly unshackled.

            A corollary to that best-of-all-worlds is grand-parenting.  To be able to shower those little ones with love and affection and toys—and then kiss them good-bye and send them off to Mom and Dad when your battery runs down—now, THAT’S the way to have fun with kids.

            Who wouldn’t choose grand-parenting over parenting?

            Given the current “longevity revolution” in which Americans have experienced an increase in average life spans of two-and-a-half years per decade since 1880, many of us will not only experience being grandparents; but great- and great-great grand-parenting as well.  For second-halfers, we’re going to have lots of kids names to keep straight. Those will are fun problems to have!

            If you are a grand-parent who loves to travel, let me suggest several time-tested hints for successful vacations with your grand-kids:

• One at a time:  A friend gave me this tip.  He observed that kids easily lose focus.  Vacations with siblings too often turn into constant bickering.  To build a life-long loving relationship, my friends take a different, single grandchild on a trip every year.  At the end of the vacation, that child knows grandma and grandpa in a very special and very personal way.
• Keep trips short.  Don’t expect any child under 12 to stay happily seated—in a car or a plane—for much more than two hours a day.  Little ones have way too much energy—and curiosity.
• Keep it simple.  A child will have far more fun discovering the things lying on a beach than the things on the wall at MOMA or the Norton-Simon Museum.  For most kids, the best things—and the memories—truly are free.  A marshmellow roasted over an open fire wins every time over a lecture about rock formations by the park ranger.
• Keep it casual.  If the goal of your inter-generational vacation is to build a lasting, loving bond, leave all thoughts of dressing up, or sit-down dinners with adult guests, or of renting fancy condos back on Mercer Island.
• Don’t do Disney under six.  Disney-places are a recipe for tears for tots that can’t filter out these hyper-stimulating parks.  Too much walking, too many lines, too many people, and to make matters worse, youngsters under six won’t remember it, even if you have a great time.  Which you won’t.  For older kids, Disney works.
• The Home-Base Rule:  Resist the temptation of complicated, different-city-every-nite road trips.  Children prefer security and familiarity to any Grand Tour.  Driving vacations that include three National Parks and seven different motels quickly become nightmares for all parties.  Better to rent a cabin near Mt. Rainier for three nights and plan short day-trips from there.
• Active is more fun than passive:   Does your 8-year-old granddaughter love tennis?  Don’t assume she’ll also love a week of watching the pros at Palm Springs next March.  Kids prefer playing their passions to watching.  If baseball is life to your 10-year old, playing catch or pitching batting practice (and picking up the balls together) brings you closer than sitting in the stands at Spring Training.
• Do art:   If the goal of an inter-generational vacation is truly centered on building a loving bond with your grandchild, actively plan to shut out all things electronic, packaged, commercial, competitive, or fast.    Going to the beach?  Taking a hike in the woods?  Planning an hour of fishing?  Take along color pens, cheap water colors and brushes, and drawing pad or board.  Give encouragement.  Model art by doing your own drawings or watercolors along with your grandchild.  Teach patience and laugh at your mistakes.
• Shopping is a no-no:  If you cannot picture a fun vacation with your grandchild without stopping at a shopping mall or souvenir stand—don’t go.    Hint:  as you plan this vacation with your little traveler, talk about your expectations toward money and buying things.  Get firm agreement, then stick to it.  And remember, there is no longer a museum or zoo in the world that does not have a gift shop.  So deal with it…up front.
• Food for thought:    Children prefer less food eaten more often.  If you are on the road, its’ a nice break to buy an apple, grapes, bananas, or peaches.  Grocery stores—or better, fruit stands—are as plentiful as burger joints.  Then definitely buy locally-grown produce and food items.  One final food hint:  carry an emergency thermos of warm chocolate milk.  Hot chocolate always brings smiles to travelers of any age.
• The Rubber Boot Rule:  Wherever you go, grandparents and grand kids should pack rubber boats, sweatpants, sweatshirts, and rain slickers.  Beaches, farms, forests, and mountains are all homes to surprise rain storms.  Turn downpours into one more adventure.
• Photos insure memories:   Children will remember past trips far more vividly when they experience periodic reminders captured on film.  In fact, making a follow-up photo history of the trip with your grandchild might be the frosting on the cake.

The question on everyone’s mind as they weigh their prospects on this earth: will that jump in longevity continue?

What is the likelihood you and I will live into our 90s-or more?

Dr. James Vaupel, the Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research is universally considered to be one of the greatest authorities on longevity. Vaupel speculated in a speech three years ago, “A baby girl born in 2000 in Japan, Western Europe, North America, Australia, or New Zealand has a 50-50 chance of seeing the 22^nd Century.”

Said another way, life expectancy for females lucky to be born in those developed countries is now 100 years.

100 years? 50-50! What about the rest of the world? It is rapidly extending life expectancy too. Since WWII global life expectancy (including undeveloped countries like Bangla Desh, Gambia, New Guinea, and Indonesia) has increased from around 45 years to 65. Put in perspective, that is a greater gain over the past 50 years than in the previous 5,000, according to the 1999 report by the authoritative Paris-based “Commission on Global Aging.”

If life expectancy’s increase stays constant, equaling its jump between 1900-2000, how long will Americans be living by the year 2100-97 years from now? Do the math. The projection is a life expectancy of 123 years for the average American. Today less that 1% of our society reaches the Century Mark. In 100 years, if the projection holds, most everyone will pass 100 years and not look back.

But isn’t there a biologic maximum to aging? George Buffon, a French biologist of the early 19^th Century, observed the close relationship between the duration for skeletal maturity and life span across a broad spectrum of animal species. Buffon noted that large mammals live longer than small ones, and importantly, that animals tend to live six times the period needed to complete their growth, ie gain “skeletal maturity”.

Humans reach skeletal maturity in 20 years, thus Buffon theorized that most humans should live about 120 years.

More recently Richard Cutler, of the Gerontology Research Division of the US National Institute of Health, has explored the rate of development, length of reproductive period, maximum caloric consumption, and brain size to compute the “mean lifetime potential” (MLP) of a number of animals. Mice live 3 years, dogs 20 yeas, elephants live 70 years, and whales live 100 years. Cutler’s calculations lead him to conclude that the MLP for humans is 110 years.

Walter M. Bortz, MD and lecturer at Stanford Medical School and one of America’s foremost geriatric leaders, believes that if we don’t live to 100, we’re doing something wrong. His very readable two books “We Live too Short, and Die to Long” and “Dare to be 100” spell out why we should be living longer and how we can stop “shooting ourselves in the foot” geriatrically. No surprises here: More exercise. Better diet. More exercise. More exercise. Staying engaged. More exercise. Finding meaning in what we do. And oh, did I mention “more exercise?”

Certainly our American healthcare researchers are doing their part these days. Ken Dychtwald, PhD points out that more resources have been devoted to fighting disease and aging over the past 10 years than in the previous 10 centuries. Advances in tissue engineering, stem cell research, the human genome (gene mapping) project, bionic body parts, animal organ transplants, ever-improved public health advances, micro-nutrient research, and massive breakthroughs in diagnostic tools all bring that 100, or 110, or 120 life expectancy closer to each of us and faster too.

Given the amazing work in bio-engineering of these past 10 years and the next 100, it may be that humans will be pushing the 150-year limit rather than the 120 ceiling. With replaceable body parts grown of our own DNA and without rejection, it’s possible, and maybe likely.

Now if I can just learn to stay away from donuts and take longer walks every day.

They had so many caring, rich friendships from their first half of life, they didn’t need any more for the Second Half. Or so they thought.

By their last five years, and thanks to their own above average longevity, they had out-lived most all their good friends. At a time when my parents became less and less mobile, their friends had either passed away or moved to warmer climates…and out of their lives.

Friend-making is a skill we learn early. It heightens as adolescents and young adults. Sadly, friend-making is a skill that, for many of us, erodes in our middle adult years, or in “middlescence” as sociologist Gail Sheehy calls it. When I speak of “friend-making” I don’t mean people who we smile and laugh with at work or at the club. Most of those people we don’t invite into the secret spots of our heart.

Rather, I’m talking about real friends, who really know us—on the inside, who don’t have to be asked twice to do a favor, who will offer to lend a hand or broach a subject before you even ask.

Americans, especially contemporary middle-class types, use the phrase “friend” much more readily than Europeans. Other cultures ascribe the concept of acquaintance to many who Americans would think of as friends. My sense of a friend is someone who I can trust with everything in my life including my money and my secrets, and someone who will do anything for me.

We all need real friends. For many of us, having a loving spouse or grown children, or brothers and sisters isn’t enough.

Second half men are very reluctant to expose themselves to the risk of friend-making. In one telling 1997 survey of Americans over age 40, men and women responded to who were their “primary social supports.”

Men reported their spouse 66% of the time, a relative 10%, a friend 9%, a co-worker 2%, and NOBODY 13%. Women ranked their spouse #1 only 24%, a relative 40%, a friend 28%, a co-worker also 2%, and nobody only 4%. Men rely on friends less than one-third as frequently as women, and women turn to relatives before friends.

Sociologist Sheehy points out that when women lose a husband either to death or by divorce and when the children are safely out of the nest, they report almost zero interest in “raising another man again.” On the other hand, when Second Half men lose their spouse, they either remarry quickly or they die quickly.

So what’s the role of “friend-making” in the second half of our lives? I believe that it is the yeast, the “tingle” that makes it a little more fun to get up in the morning. Old friends are wonderful. They are to be nurtured and treasured. But creating new, deep, intimate (I use this word in the non-sexual sense, but that isn’t cast in stone either) friendships, is a little like opening oneself up to a new lover. The risk of making yourself vulnerable, by sharing aspects about you that are personal, you are extending yourself and most of the time, the pay-off is a new depth of relationship that nurtures us and makes us feel more whole.

Self-disclosure is the step we take to let someone know that we’re willing to take a chance with them. When we self-disclose, and when someone lays themselves out for your, life starts to take a richer timbre.

Most of us don’t make friends any or many new friends as adults. We grow into relationships that we call friendships, but they are something else. People move away, and we never hear from them again. You leave your place of work, and there goes the “friendship.”

Second-Halfers need friends. We have more discretionary time to invest in friendship building, and these new friendships are the pathways to fulfillment.

So how do we do it? We simply extend ourselves to all those people we see week-in and week-out who we like, but don’t really know. We ask that new fourth person for doubles to get together for coffee or lunch. We invite that new person at the book club to meet for lunch. We apologize to the neighbor we’ve said “hi” to for the last five years, but never had over for dinner, and we ask them to come join us. We invite that new family at church to come for dinner. We sign up for hosting a foreign exchange student at the high school or college.

And who says that we can only have deep personal friendships with people our age? Not me. One of the deepest streams of our sentiments is to mentor. If you want to have personal friends who are 20 or more years younger than you, goal yourself to extend yourself to them. Make a friend out of one of the adult friends of your kids. They will LOVE really understanding what life looks like through your eyes. Ask the new young couple in the neighborhood over for some dessert and tea. Take a risk with that wonderful person with the caring smile at the bank, the Bookstore, the gym, or the salon. Tell them you’ve always liked their spirit, and ask if they would want to join you for an ice cream sometime. See where it goes. You’ll be surprised.

And with friends, touching is okay. In fact, it’s a good thing. The older we get, the more we appreciate it.