The Baby Boomers were a generation that suffered from lack of models.  It wasn’t that our parents and grandparents were not admirable people, heroes even, but they did not live the lives that we lived in the times that we had to live them.  Many women who worked their entire adult lives grew up with stay-at-home moms.   Even if our moms worked, the model out there was the carefully coiffed young mother with an apron and a roast in the oven.  Think of June Cleaver or Lucy Ricardo.  Men of our generation did not learn what it meant to have a working wife, not to have dinner on the table when they got home from work, how to handle demands for assistance with domestic chores.  The result was that not only did we work ridiculously hard at home and at work (we did have models for a work ethic), but we were always feeling guilty about not being able to be the kind of parents, husbands, and wives that our parents were.

Then there were relationships.  When I was a child, divorce was never discussed – and even if it did happen, no one talked about it.  And yet, even today, baby boomers divorce more than any other age group: Another life event that we had no template for, and, again, that nagging guilt if it happened to us. 

We must remember that, as children, we soaked up so much unconsciously.  We learned the complexity of language – the words, the grammar, the pronunciation.  We absorbed social norms – ways of eating, sleeping, interacting.  And now we are getting old. We surely absorbed something about what it means to grow old, and – whether we are conscious of it or not – it is affecting us now that we ourselves are old.

When we were children, our models for growing old were our grandparents, who often did not live to be as old as we are now.  They might have been stern (my Dutch paternal grandmother) or doting (my maternal Nana and Papa).  I did not think much as a child about how they lived, but it surely had an influence.  There were other elderly relatives, most of whom seemed like another species.  Surely, we would never look like that!

And our culture provided few positive templates in our formative years for senescence.  Coming of age novels (Bildungsromans) and movies abounded – from Little Women to Catcher in the Rye – but coming of old age stories (Vollendungsromans) were scarce on the ground and rather scary.  There were tales like Heidi, in which an old person gets rescued from isolation and depression by a younger one.  But novels about old people who were interesting in themselves, potential models, were few.

Think of fairy tales.  The protagonists (often princes and princesses) were always young and beautiful.  The evil stepmother was old.  The witches were old.  Consider Arthur Rackham’s illustration from Hansel and Gretel with a very scary witch of advanced years (here).

The stories usually ended with the witch in the oven, the adventure complete, and a wedding, with no note about what happened as the characters aged.  The Grimms’ classic telling of Cinderella ends like this:

And now her two sisters found her to be that fine, beautiful lady whom they had seen at the ball. They threw themselves at her feet to beg pardon for all the ill-treatment they had made her undergo. Cinderella took them up, and, as she embraced them, cried:

That she forgave them with all her heart, and desired them always to love her.

She was conducted to the young prince, dressed as she was; he thought her more charming than ever, and, a few days after, married her. Cinderella, who was no less good than beautiful, gave her two sisters lodgings in the palace, and that very same day matched them with two great lords of the Court.

There are many things to be noted here, but generally, marriage is the end of the story.  Cinderella is always beautiful and bountiful and young in our imaginations.  We wanted to be Cinderella and have no model of an old Cinderella.

Songs of our youth assumed that “forever young” was the way to be.  Even songs like Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game” or Peter Yarrow’s “Puff the Magic Dragon” assume that upon adulthood, all magic is gone.  Old folks make no appearances.  The movements of the sixties didn’t trust anyone over 30, and it never occurred to us that we would someday be old.

So here we are trying to work out the best way to be old.  The aged folks in Washington surely have not figured it out.  The drunk crowd in Margaritaville don’t seem to have the answer.  But there are clues out there.  And the first step might be to be more aware of our ingrained assumptions.

Around me, there are various models – positive and negative.  There’s the “let’s see the world and spend our money before we die” folks.  There are those kind souls who sacrifice their time and resources to take care of grandchildren so that their kids can avoid daycare and afford a house.  There are those who spend their time and resources in keeping fit mentally and physically, and have a weekly array of classes and therapy sessions.  There are those who secluded themselves during Covid and never fully emerged.  And everything in-between.

While I was writing this, I heard that Jane Goodall had died – at age 91 and while out on the road doing speaking engagements, active and with a project to the end.  An article about her in the NYTimes (What Jane Goodall Taught Us About Living a Long Life) which extols her for staying active, having a purpose, and having an optimistic view about things in general, including the afterlife.  Of course, Jane Goodall was no ordinary woman and we all need more relatable models.  Or, of course, we could structure our own.  I’m just trying to encourage myself and all of us to do it consciously.  Any suggestions are welcome.  And we must remember that – although they could not seem to care less – our grandchildren are watching.

For me, reading and writing are ways to explore alternatives. I have written several reviews of novels about old people (see here and here).  Many of my short stories involve older people trying to come to terms with where they are in life.    You might try my short stories “Closing Time” or “Snickerdoodles” – or write your own.