Over-50

Mary McCarthy's "The Group" - 51 Years Later

In 1963, when "The Group" by Mary McCarthy was published, it shocked. It looked at the raw underbelly of life for educated women once they graduated an elite institution. Here is Vanity Fair's take on the book, the controversy and lessons perhaps learned.

That same year, what was going to be the Class of 1967 entered women's Roman Catholic Seton Hill in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Our biology teacher Sister Florence Marie told us that we could not take the birth control pill, a technology invented in 1960, unless there was medical justification. A number of Freshman classmates stopped their education, pregnant. Others left school because they wanted to get married, assumed they would become pregnant, so that was that.

Weekly we attended etiquette lessons to prepare us to entertain our husband's clients. One early how-to involved eating a banana the right way. 

The head of the English Department Sister Miriam Joseph hammered me about my weight.  Of course, I dug in my heels and ate more and more. Yes, I was one of the myriad English majors who landed in real life without a marketable skill. 

As an outsider (I never was a "Seton Hill woman") and a writer I observed my classmates and myself during the past 51 years. My conclusion is that we were as ill prepared and equipped to deal with life on life's terms as those in "The Group." Soon after graduation, as in "The Group," one attempted suicide. Unlike "The Group," she didn't succeed. 

The most painful part of the past 50+ years was that if we kept our suffering secret we couldn't gain perspective. Had I known some of my classmates were as ambitious as I was I might have given myself permission to focus solely on my work. On the other hand, when we were open about our setbacks, we could become victims of unsolicited and sustained advice. My biggest regret is sharing with four classmates a professional catastrophe in 2003.

Will female Millennials and Generation Z (here is my article on Z) suffer less than we Baby Boomers did? Hell if I know. My focus now is to find joy where it can be found. For that reason I now refrain from associating with any member of the Class of '67. That's exactly the wrong space for me. Around the turn of the century, I notified Seton Hill to remove me from all mailing lists.  Any communications from the institution, I informed them, would be treated as harassment. 

Richard M. Scaife: His Newpaper Gave Me My First Break

Back then in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania I was still too self-involved to know that the Tribune-Review was a conservative newspaper.  All I knew is that, already I was in my early 30,s and it published an article I submitted. It was about the ethos of a flea market.  I also didn't know that the publication's owner was GOP champion Richard M. Scaife. I was a registered Democrat.

His death, which he predicted his many enemies would relish, resonates with me because that article was the beginning of a whole new career for me. Yes, I was on my way to becoming a writer. Within a few years, Chevron would hire me to ghostwrite articles and speeches for their brass. Not long after that I would be at Chrysler ghostwriting away for Lee Iacocca as he saved Chrylser and hundreds of thousands of American jobs. 

The success in writing came just in time. Within about 60 days of publishing the article in Scaife's newspaper my employer in Greensburg State Senator Jim Kelley canned me from the research assistant job. Kelley is now a judge there. That puzzles me. He seemed to have judged me very wrong indeed. 

 

Baby Boomer observes, "It's perfectly fine with me (and my clients) that I'm a B+ now"

Often, thanks to both our experience and honed talent, we Baby Boomers find - shock - that we can delight our clients and our employers with just doing the assignment or job.  And not striving for extradordinary performance.

A successful 55-year-old web designer confided to me, "It's perfectlyt fine with me and my clients that I'm a B+." Gone were the days when she made it her business to chase the "As." 

It could be that we recognize that our usual performance tends to superior to that of much of our competition.

It could be that we have found out that there is more to life than work.  We have made the decision not to put so many eggs in that basket.

And/or we don't "need" fame as we had in our 30s and 40s.

Me? I am thrilled when my communications work gets clients the outcomes they need.  I enjoy being able to operate a thriving business, even though I am no spring chicken. It's exciting learning about fresh developments in my field. 

But, I no longer lose sleep if I don't get an account I bid for or a client is not totally pleased. That's the gift which comes from the wisdom of aging.

Emotional Meatloaf: Leftovers from College Can Taste Bitter

Institutions of higher learning seem to milk the nostalgia of graduates for their fund-raising or, as it's now called, "institutional development." 

For the Class of 1967 at Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania there could have been a lot of shared memories of seeming emotional innocence. We trusted, for example, that if we were nice, listened, kept our weight under control and drank like ladies our Prince Charming would give us a ring senior year.

That didn't happen enough. Too many of us had to enter real life with having to make a living and ill-equipped for that, given our liberal arts education. And those who did take the vows of matrimony that summer of '67 also experienced brutal adjustments as their spouses struggled to make ends meet.

Things didn't become much easier as the decades went by. Our generation lacked the tools future ones were given for coping with life on life's terms. Eventually, I had to go to a 12-step program to be introduced to Reality Fundamentals. 

There is bitterness, including toward each other, to show for that. I bumped into those emotional meatloaf leftovers as I dumb-as-dirt reached back to renew those relationships. Some were in person. Some on the phone. Some through email. Some on Facebook.

Ancient resentments hardened in time into obsessive grievances.  Those who wound up only financially comfortable bad-mouthed those who leaped into the 1% via their husbands' success.  Soap opera like assessments were made of others' marriages. Bitchiness was barely masked about deconstructions of so and so's lack of social skills. 

When did it dawn on me that the members of the Class of '67 were likely also being astute about identifying my tragic flaws?  Not soon enough.

Takeaway: Make new friends. That will allow us to keep the fond memories of college friendships intact.

Baby Boomers As "Spiritual Pilgrms" - Let's be wiser shoppers

Earning a living, relationships and health.  Some or all of that became issues again as we hit 50 or 60.  Yeah, we assumed our lives were set. We had made smart choices  and that was that.  We even had our wills, for possessions and end-of-life procedures, done.  

Then the world changed, our industry changed, family members changed, friends changed and we changed.  That wonderful (smug) centering was gone.  

The good news is that we began to search.  Some of us became "Spiritual Pilgrims." We tried eastern religions, yoga, mindfulness centers, tarot-card reading services and wellness pop-up stores. 

The bad news is that we too often didn't get what we needed to process our current lives and move on to the Next.  Some of these services merely wasted our time. Some, we assessed, wasted our money.

Let's not over-react. Searching is necessary in these volatile times. The rub is that we gotta become wiser shoppers.  Yes, we have to approach providers of services as we would any other situation in which we will invest scarce resources like time, money - and hope.

What is useful it asking those whose values we are comfortable with for recommendations.  Then, we seek out free trial offers. After that, we make pragmatic buying decisions. 

Working Baby Boomers: 21st Century Pioneers

We beat the odds!

At least those of us Baby Boomers who are working. Somehow we figured out how to continue to make a living. Despite age bias (very real, we found out). Requirement to keep up with digital technology (ever changing). And a global crisis in the availability of paid employment, whether that be in the form of a job, chasing contract assignments or running our own enterprise.

Yes, we are the new kind of pioneer.  Probably we assumed our trail blazing days were over when we cut our hair, bought an attache case and joined middle management in Corporate America.  From then on, we followed. Not broke new ground.

For me that trail blazing has been physical. In early April, Lee K, my trusty animal companion and I, packed into our Chevy ("See the USA in your Chevrolet") with survival provisions. Those ranged from a laptop and printer to meet-with-clients clothes and Cesar Grilled Chicken in Sauce canine cuisine.  On April 14th we pitched our tent in Tucson, Arizona.

My hunch was that I, "at my age," would get more assignments for my communications boutique in the non-hipster Southwest than the glam Northeast Corridor.  I was on the money.  That soul-wrenching risk paid off.

We should be proud that we are pulling this off.  But there is still that bee in my bonnet which tells me to feel sorry for myself that I could not simply glide into a paradise of enjoying life, after the rat race. Few of us expected our little lives to take on such big growth challenges. 

Baby Boomers: How to Stop Acting Old in Work, Immediately

Often, we Baby Boomers are our own worst enemies in getting and keeping work.  We act old. And old is the kiss of death in professional life.  Here's how to stop all that immediately:

Get a more diverse network. That will demonstrate that you are a smooth operator who can attract players from all generations, disciplines and earning categories.  

The usual pattern is to hunker down in a bunker with the kinds of colleagues who bring a level of comfort. Break out of that and invest the energy into making more friends and exerting more influence.

Stop alluding to age, the past and iconic players who are dead.  We got to purge our elevator talk of anything which makes reference to what Generations Y and X can't identify with. Or what turns them off. Read Tech Crunch.  That provides a whole new frame of reference.  

Dump contacts who pigeon hole you.  The present is too full of opportunity.  Those who define us narrowly won't open doors to all that.  Also, their way of seeing us can become a burden. Recently I dumped the members of my graduating class in college. They seemed back where I had been then and in my early adulthood. Now there is the bearable lightness of being.

Don't try to act young. We aren't young.  Presenting ourselves as otherwise makes us appear foolish.  A friend send me photos of my dog and myself from an outing. Neither the dog nor myself appeared young. So?

Age bias is real.  We can either be smart about this or allow the world to deny us the ability to earn a good living. 

 

Baby Boomers: No, don't be less ambitious, just reconfigure how we identify and pounce on opportunity

"Elderly people need to give up ambition, rivalry and anxiety if they want to be happy in old age, Dame Joan Bakewell [age 81] has said."  Reported by Sarah Knapton in Telegraph .Co.UK.  Here is that article. 

Bad advice.  Actually we have to become more ambitious in identifying and pouncing on opportunity.

There is a glut in just about every field. And there is bias against the aging. The tough nut to crack, though, is that we have to figure out how to reinvent and keep reinventing ourselves in how we operate out there.  I have been playing in that reinvention sandbox since my professional and personal world collapsed in 2003 Download Geezerguts.  As the marketplace keeps shifting so must my strategies and tactics.

One of the best role models for reinvention is Betty White.  She has figured out how to leverage aging as a marketable commodity.  In doing that, she has become a more recognizable brandname than she had been in her youth and middle age.

In his early 80s, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has shifted his focus from success in newsprint to entertainment. He broke News Corp into newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and broadcast such as Fox.  His ambition is to capture more of the entertainment dollar and influence.

Recently, I got it that gaining expertise (e.g. acquiring writing samples for my portfolio) in subject matter which is marketable trumps networks of supposed important contacts.  For example, because I was willing to take on an emergency I researched and wrote two speeches on the digital wallet.  That opened for me fresh opportunities in ghostwriting/scriptwriting about the payment industry. Also, for my own byline I have become a weekly columnist for Payment Week. Here is a recent article that received plenty of attention. Of course, I'm leveraging it for more assignments.

Thanks to my ambition, I've also been able to put together a low profile persona.  Millennials are on the front lines in my industry.  Walk into a public relations agency and they dominate.  Today I have to let custom-made cover letters and a portfolio bulging with the right samples put me out there.  Me? It's best that I am, like myriad aging, relatively invisible. 

Baby Boomers & Hunger for Success: Feed It Protein

Remember when we ambitious Baby Boomers took all those standardized tests.  To prepare, we were instructed to have a good breakfast.  Well, those of us who remained strivers might have to amend that mandate.  

What I have found is that a "good" breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks consist of a high amount of protein.  And that could make the difference between declining energy and a fresh infusion of zest. That ranges from the hours we can commit to work to how well we can unthink supposed best practices. 

This was an accidental discovery - as most ah-ha moments are.  Several months ago a medical doctor in West Hartford, Connecticut hammered that I was on the verge of diabetes.  Despite my shock I asked him what he recommended. The answer was protein, hold the carbs and exercise.  Former college friend Dr. Kathleen Huebner invested hours on a marathon phone call explaining the details of that regime. 

What a game-changer.  Sure, I lost 15 pounds. Sure, I sleep sounder and for fewer hours. Sure, my relationship with dog Lee K. is better. He now gets longer walks.

But this also went directly to the bottom line. I made and implemented the decision to reduce my cost of doing business.  I did that by relocating my executive communications boutique from the pricey Northeast Corridor to the more affordable Southwest. 

I take deep dives in experimenting with my marketing communications.  After plenty of course correction on a pitch email (custom-made manually) to public relations agencies and corporations, I am getting more business from those. 

I can say "no."  Those at Jones Day Law Firm and Prism Public Relations asked me to look into a very old case coming to trial in June.  Obviously they would have liked me to blog on that on my award-winning syndicated site, which you can click on here.  That's work.  I didn't perceive any payoff for myself. Finally, I have healthy professional boundaries of self-interest. Carbs can mess with one's judgment. 

I can also say "yes." Not all assignments have to be lucrative. I can accept some if they provide a knowledge base and material for my portfolio which could be useful.

My hunger for success has returned with an aggressive sense of direction and shrewdness which I never had before.  

The downside.  As research and experience show, a high protein eating plan is expensive. Downing a box of cereal is relatively cheap. 

Baby Boomer Woman's Reflection: Probably I was paid lower than male colleagues

Equal pay for equal work has been the meme for decades.

The Jill Abramson firing at The New York Times may or may not have been about that issue.  We will probably never know. However, enough media outlets are spotlighting equal pay for women that the matter has grown new legs.  The kind which belong to deft marathon runners in the front lines of activism. 

But, wait a minute. Way back then when we Baby Boomer females were "allowed" into relatively high-paying, high-status positions in Corporate America, many of us were simply surprised - and grateful.  I was among those who never anticipated doing complex work such as creating speeches and articles for the "captains of industry," as we used to call them.  And there I was doing just that.

In addition, I traveled a lot on business. Had a country club membership. Received developmental opportunities. For example, the boss' boss at Chevron Bill Cox mandated that I have a shot at writing parts of the annual report. 

Of course, I was aware that I likely was not compensated as well as male colleagues. Also, I was embittered about being passed over for a promotion. Overall, though, I was preoccupied with learning my trade, that is, executive communications. When Corporate America downsized and I was among the aging middle managers to get the ax, I had a marketable skill.  After I hung out my shingle it only took 7 months to earn more than I had as an employee.

Life isn't fair. If it were, I might have access to same plum assignments as former First Daughters. So? You play the cards you got. And you play them smart.  I was smart enough back then to not, as did Abramson, introduce a lawyer into the loop.  I let it be. I got ahead. In my late 60s I still am able to make a very good living.