Category: Aging

Blogging Boomers Carnival #116: From 401(K)s to Folk Art

Carnival Welcome to the 116th Carnival of Boomer Blogs.  This crew has been a joy and a great resource for as long as I've been privileged to be part of it, and this week is no exception.  Given the economy and all, let's start with John Agno of So Baby Boomer.  John, always wise, warns us this week that early withdrawals from Individual Retirement Accounts and 401 (K) plans are a "No, No!" because they trigger taxes and penalties that can really add up.  Good advice, no?

While we're on serious "boomer interest" topics, we'll move to Wesley Hein at LifeTwo.  This week he's writing about HBO's multi-part documentary on Alzheimer's Disease.  The underlying message is that Alzheimer's can no longer be ignored.  I've actually seem some excerpts and would concur.

That health issue is part of what makes Janet Wendy at Gen Plus "mad as hell" and she's not going to take it anymore…maybe.

On another side of the economy, let's talk business.  Andrea Sternberg at The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur asks: "With Twitter you can have conversations with a large number of people, but do these twitter conversations convert to actual sales?  That question haunts many small business Twitter users and is the main thing", Andrea says, "holding others back from giving Twitter a try."  You'll find her answer to this dilemma in her post Make Money with Twitter – Is It Possible?

Also on the business end of things: do you ever feel like a loser?  The Midlife Crisis Queen did often after she lost her job.  This is how she dealt with it.

One of our founders and leaders, Rhea Becker, reports from Boston on The Gemini Web "I can't read my favorite magazines any longer without eyeglasses.  I think they're using smaller type.  Or maybe it's just me."

 On a cheerier note, the Glam Gals (style experts for women over 40) ask, "Have you heard the true story of the woman who overcame having diabetes, while losing 100 pounds and then entered the Mrs. Idaho pageant?"  This is a must-read and inspiration story, they  tell us.  Find out more from FabulousAfter40.com.

Oh – and do you remember watching Art Linkletter?  Dina at This Marriage Thing, who loved the show Kids Say the Darndest Things shares some newly discovered gems about marriage "out of the mouths of babes."

Feeling artsy?  During her recent travels in the Florida Keys (who wouldn't love that?) Barbara Weibel at Hole in the Donut discovered Stanley Papio, whom some consider an important folk artist, while others insist he was nothing more than a welder with a yard full of junk.  Stop by and contribute to the conversation!

In the same vein, Ann at Contemporary Retirement has a video clip of some amazing sand art, crated by Ilana Yahav using just her fingers, some sand and a glass table.

One more travel contribution from Nancy Mahegan at Vaboomer. Ever want to sell everything and retire on a beach in Mexico?  Read about real people who did at Vaboomer.com,

Finally, my own contribution is a tribute to an old friend, long-time New York Times Book Review Children's Book Editor Eden Ross Lipson.  If you have children you've probably made use of her classic NY Times Guide to the Best Books for Children.  She was something special.

Farewell to Eden Lipson, A Great Mother, Editor and Friend

Eden There were so many of us in 1968, joined to battle the Vietnam War by helping Eugene McCarthy run for president.  We lost the Senator several years ago, and Eli Segal, one of the best, soon after.  Today I learned of the loss of another of the dear ones, Eden Ross Lipson.  She died this morning of pancreatic cancer.  You can see from this photo that she was a woman who relished life and laughter.  Her greatest joys: her husband and her kids.

Although we shared a history from the campaign, we also shared some great lunches and adventures in Manhattan, where she had dozens of friends who loved and respected her.  Principled and kind, she was a joy and support to so many.

NYT kids books In her work as Children’s Book Editor of the New York Times Book Review, Eden produced what is still the classic work on children’s literature.  I knew her as she wrote the first edition; it was a real labor of love.  Her understanding of kids, of books and of writing and purpose made her an ideal guide for anxious parents and savvy librarians alike.

Her generosity went far beyond the love of children that made her such a great advocate for the joy they would find in their books.  It was she who gave me my first review assignment and it led to an entire side career as a book reviewer that lasted for years.  She was a tough and smart editor, too.

I remember my review of one of my favorites: Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic.  A time-travel Holocaust story, it is a beautiful book.  I submitted a very positive review.  Soon after, Eden called.  In a tone slipping between amused and professional, she reminded me that not all parents were as open as I was, and that I needed to add some kind of caution to parents who were more protective about at what age their kids were exposed to tough information.  She was right, of course.  I began an embarrassed apology.  Her response:  if people didn’t need editors she wouldn’t have a job!  I fixed the piece and it ran.    Later, it was Eden who connected me with the editor who published my first book.  She did it, as she did all things, with no expectation of reciprocal benefit.  These sorts of things are typical of the warmth and kindness she showed to everyone who knew her.

Life is strange.  Eden was someone I knew, respected and cared about.  I lost touch with her, as with so many others, when we moved to Los Angeles.  My life then just didn’t allow for working to stay connected; there were hard things happening and they made it difficult to think outside the immediate circumstances of my life.  And so I’m doubly sad as I struggle to write about a woman with such a mind, and a spirit, and a heart.

I’m comforted to know, though, that she had friends and family around her, supportive and caring, in her last days. That’s no surprise; it’s what she offered so many others.

RERUN – A GREAT REPUBLICAN: Farewell to Jack Kemp, a Fine Gentleman

Jack Kemp foodball

This good looking guy, football star of the early 60’s, is Jack Kemp – congressman, vice-presidential and presidential candidate and a fine man.  He died of cancer Saturday at 73, universally respected and, by many, loved.   If you read this blog you know that I’m anything but a conservative, so this isn’t a political meditation; it’s an appreciation of a good guy.

When I think of Kemp, whom I met several times during his various campaigns, I see the same picture.  It’s Inauguration Weekend for the first George Bush, and there’s a huge youth rally at the National Armory in Washington.  I’m there for the Today Show, filming the teenagers practically hanging from the rafters, excited and waiting for the speakers to show up.

There are lots of them, holding forth in various ways about the new administration and all it would do.  Finally, Kemp, the soon-to-be Secretary of HUD, Housing and Urban Development, arrived, and gave a sweet, unpretentious talk.  Then, football hero that he was, he knew how to handle this young and happy crowd.  Producing a football, he drew his arm back, ball in hand, and threw the ball far into the crowd, to enormous applause.  It was wonderful.

After his years in the Bush Administration, he continued to act on his values: the need for extra opportunity for those held behind, and for justice.  In the years of fierce immigration battles in the 90’s, he opposed California’s cruel anti-immigration Proposition 187, jeopardizing his own political future, and took strong positions on the concept of opportunity for those whose futures seemed bleak.  Kemp was an economic conservative and all that that entailed, and also a caring, committed American.  He proved it’s possible to be both.  I’ve always admired him, and I wanted to say so, and wish him Godspeed.  The is a portion of a (long) letter to his (17) grandchildren shortly after the 2008 election:

My first thought last week upon learning that a 47-year-old African-American Democrat had won the presidency was, “Is this a great country or not?”

You may have expected your grandfather to be disappointed that his friend John McCain lost (and I was), but there’s a difference between disappointment over a lost election and the historical perspective of a monumental event in the life of our nation.

Let me explain. First of all, the election was free, fair and transformational, in terms of our democracy and given the history of race relations in our nation.

What do I mean?

Just think, a little over 40 years ago, blacks in America had trouble even voting in our country, much less thinking about running for the highest office in the land.

A little over 40 years ago, in some parts of America, blacks couldn’t eat, sleep or even get a drink of water using facilities available to everyone else in the public sphere.

We are celebrating, this year, the 40th anniversary of our Fair Housing Laws, which helped put an end to the blatant racism and prejudice against blacks in rental housing and homeownership opportunities.

As an old professional football quarterback, in my days there were no black coaches, no black quarterbacks, and certainly no blacks in the front offices of football and other professional sports. For the record, there were great black quarterbacks and coaches — they just weren’t given the opportunity to showcase their talent. And pro-football (and America) was the worse off for it.

I remember quarterbacking the old San Diego Chargers and playing for the AFL championship in Houston. My father sat on the 50-yard line, while my co-captain’s father, who happened to be black, had to sit in a small, roped-off section of the end zone. Today, we can’t imagine the NFL without the amazing contributions of blacks at every level of this great enterprise.

I could go on and on, but just imagine that in the face of all these indignities and deprivations, Dr. Martin Luther King could say 44 years ago, “I have an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind.” He described his vision for America, even as he and his people were being denied their God-given human rights guaranteed under our Constitution.

You see, real leadership is not just seeing the realities of what we are temporarily faced with, but seeing the possibilities and potential that can be realized by lifting up peoples’ vision of what they can be.

When President-elect Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln on the night of his election, he was acknowledging the transcendent qualities of vision and leadership that are always present, but often overlooked and neglected by pettiness, partisanship and petulance. . . .

My advice for you all is to understand that unity for our nation doesn’t require uniformity or unanimity; it does require putting the good of our people ahead of what’s good for mere political or personal advantage.

Kemp was a fierce economic conservative.  AND a true believer in the promise of our country.  There is no Republican candidate who offers that kind of moral, ethical and political leadership today.  We could really use him.

 

Can You Believe We’re at Blogging Boomers 112 Already? Time Flies, Eh?

Thanks to the great Barbara Weibel, you'll find this weeks Blogging Boomers Carnival at Hole in the Donut.  She's listed everything from those puzzling moments when you and your long-time companion come up with the same thoughts at the same time, to midlife relationships to stashing unused pharmaceuticals, and a lot more.  There's not a week when the carnival isn't interesting, but this one is a really wonderful combination of ideas.

G-L-O-R-I-A! Happy Birthday Gloria Steinem

Gloria Bunny
I have known Gloria Steinem for a very long time.   March 25th was her birthday and she is an amazing seventy-five years old!   I've admired her since my teens.  There used to be a magazine called SHOW, kind of a cross between Vanity Fair and New York Magazine.  In 1963, when I was a senior in high school, Gloria published a piece there called "I Was a Playboy Bunny."  Describing her three weeks as an "undercover" Bunny, the piece launched her career.  I remember saying something half derogatory about it — remember I was 17 — and my mother saying to me "You're just jealous."  She was right.  What a great job, what an elegant woman, offers from magazines, everything I was determined to have for myself – she'd done it.  If she could get out of Toledo, I could get out of Pittsburgh.  (I did.)

I've had my eye on her ever since and as she helped to lead all of us out of the wilderness I felt a special ownership since we  both attended Smith College.  In those years, as I became more involved in what would be called the Second Wave of Feminism, Gloria was a spearhead for most of it.  In fact, I once told a colleague of hers, a well-respected writer herself, how much I admired her.  Her response "The way you feel about me?  That's how I feel about Gloria."  

On the tenth anniversary of Ms. Magazine, which Gloria had helped to found, I produced a series for  The Today Show .  For one segment, a camera crew and I followed her on a day-long trip to Philadelphia to make a speech.  That was when I realized that her role was larger, and more personal, than I had understood. 

Here's what happened:  We got on the Metroliner in Penn Station and a woman came up to us to tell Gloria how she had changed her life.    We arrived in Philadelphia and, right in the station, another women did the same.  So it was all through the day.  At the evening event, she could barely make her way through the room as an endless stream of women approached to thank her, express admiration, just talk to her.  Through all of it, woman after woman after woman, she was unfailingly courteous and engaged.  Each was the only one she was talking to.  None was made to feel out of place or inappropriate.  I don't know about you, but that's tough for a public person to do; Gloria has done it for years.  In other words, she wasn't leading Feminism, she was being Feminism.

It's been like that ever since.  In the public eye or out, hugely famous or less famous, she's always been there to keep the focus where it belongs and carry us further toward equality, and it's always been about all of us, not her.  It's been an honor to know her, even a little bit, and to see personally that she's not just a fine leader, she's a fine person.  Happy Birthday Gloria (a little bit late). We're lucky to have you.

Blogging Boomers #108: the Economy Hits Home

SO BABY BOOMER header
The very wise John Agno of So Baby Boomer suggested at all the Carnivalistas write about the economy this week and so we have.  For a Boomer perspective that, of course, mirrors what everyone is feeling, this is the place to go.  It turns out we're a pretty wise bunch, writing about everything from the "alternative economy" to keeping things less stressful at home to dealing with the market.  John ha a good idea and Carnival posts rose to the occasion.  

Blogging Boomers Carnival #106 and Still Full of Great New Ideas

LifeTwo
Can a week have gone by already?  Must have – Blogging Boomers carnival is back on this snowy Monday, hanging out this week at Wesley Hein's LifeTwo.  True Love to 401Ks, innovation to blue jean fashion, Boomer women and Twitter – it's a wide swath of life covered this week.  But then, that's always true at the Blogging Boomers, so don't miss it.

Attachment Parents, Anxious Parents, Sanctimommies and Skinned Knees

Helicopter_WikiWorld
This morning I helped to produce a conference on parenting and "over" parenting.  It was designed to help anxious young parents who are often under pressure to be "better" and more attentive than their peers.  They feed on each other and worry all the time, and in cases beyond my community (I don't see it here) they compete, sometimes with cruelty, to see who's the best.

If you're a "mommy blog" reader you'll see it all the time.  One of my favorites is Liz Gumbinner, proprietor of Mom-101.  She has a gentle, loving, yet often hilarious and almost always moving take on life as a parent.  She also has a keen-eyed abhorrance for what she calls " Sanctimommies."  She writes about them often, and their thoughtless comments and judgments.  No matter how much we detest what they do, which is more often judgmental than well-meaning, they can get to us.  They plant scary, painful doubts, especially when we are vulnerable.

I remember this torment so well.  You don't want your child to feel bad.  You don't want her to fall off the monkey bars.  You certainly don't want him to be sad because he lost a T-Ball game and didn't get a medal or got a lower grade than the kid who sits next to him and didn't get a sticker on his paper.  It's terrible.  I think what's worse though is over-compensating to preserve delicate feelings.  

And that's what much of this conference was aimed at.  Speakers told parents that kids needed some autonomy, needed their own territory.   That protecting them prevented them from learning how to solve problems and bounce back from the adversity that is part of life.  They also made an interesting point that I think is controversial but tough to contradict.  YES, moms and dads are both important, but dads have a different role.  And mothers too often, in their frequent role as gatekeepers between the kids and daddy, set standards that are too squishy, not allowing the dads to find their own way to deal with their children.

This does not mean there is no overlap – nurturing dad and outward-facing mom.  But both perspectives – female and male, have value.  Many times as our kids grew up, my husband and I stopped one another from going too far in one way or the other.  I wanted to send money to bail them out of a jam.  My husband would remind me that if we ran to the rescue we were telling them that we didn't think they could take care of themselves. "If they really need help", he'd say, "they'll ask for it."

Other times he'd go nuclear in the punishment department or refuse permission for something perfectly acceptable because he didn't think first.  That was my cue to step in and moderate things.  I often thought sadly of friends raising kids alone, without this valuable balance.

I guess this is just a meditation on parenting in the 21st Century.  It's painful to see wonderful parents whose instincts are sound and who love their kids get tangled up in these issues, and it was wonderful to watch the dialog today and the passions in the conversations that continued over lunch and will go forward in several after-sessions.  In fact, it was very Web 2.0.  The speakers may have set things off, but now they're working with one another, strengthening not only their families but also the community around them.