Gail Sheehy: Throughout our life cycle, and the ideal time to draw on those extra years
is during the passages of adult life.
Many years ago I wrote a book called ìPassagesî about the predictable crises of adult life,
and I proposed that we continue ñ after the terrible twos and the noisy nines and the
turmoil of adolescence ñ continue to go through developmental stages.
And each time we tie up the tasks of one stage, we face a passage; a time of transition and
often turmoil.
Weíre yeasty and embryonic again but weíre also exposed and vulnerable, and that gives
us a chance to stretch and grow.
So during these times of passage we need to examine how we feel about our way of living
in the world, whether our values and goals and aspirations are being invigorated or violated
by the way weíre living or have we maybe lapsed into stagnation.
Itís in these times of passage when we need to make constructive changes, change chairs,
extricate ourselves from unhealthy relationships, take new risks, maybe change jobs or careers,
and take better care of ourselves.
The ideal time for you as health professionals to galvanize people to change their health
behaviors is when theyíre in a passage, because theyíre already reassessing their inner world
as well as their outer conditions.
What a great time to excite them to start rebuilding their health.
And, of course, when they start taking better care of themselves ñ shopping for good food,
eating well, getting enough exercise and good sleep ñ theyíre making these investments
in good health before the body alert, itíll improve their mood and sustain their confidence
while they tackle the hard work of change.
But Iím also talking to you ñ to you ñ some of the most dedicated and selfless professionals
in the world.
Youíre always thinking about how to help other people.
But what about nurturing your own health and wellness.
How much time do you give to doing or thinking about that?
So, letís start with the first adult stage ñ the tryout twenties.
The primary question is how do I put my aspirations into effect?
Who can help me?
How did you do it?
The generation gap that was so detrimental to boomers and their parents has been replaced
ñ Iím happy to say ñ by a generation connect.
Parents and grandparents of millennial twenties are being pulled together because of the revolution
in economic conditions.
This is bigger than the promises of either candidate in our presidential election.
Global forces are shaping an entirely new digitalized workplace, and weíre all scrambling
to figure out where weíre going to fit in.
More than half of college graduates today move back home and almost 40 percent of adults
between 18 and 34 say they either have spent some time back home after college or they
still live with parents.
This is a huge cultural change.
Moms worry all the time about ìWill this stunt the development of my kids?î But this
adaptation to current economic stagnation has many benefits for the wellbeing of young
people and their midlife parents.
In the tryout twenties, young peopleís time horizons are long and nebulous.
This is a stage when youíre hungry to soak up all kinds of information, explore other
parts of the world, and put the special skills of your generation to work in seeking social
justice and fighting discrimination.
But when I wrote ìPassagesî in the 1970s, the subtitle, ìPredictable Crises of Adult
Life.î And you know what?
The passages of adult life are in no way predictable today.
Weíve all got to think more like entrepreneurs.
Twenty-somethings today have a long provisional adulthood, really, until age thirty.
And that enables an extended education.
Itís something that President Obama talks about all the time.
This is a time to use some of those extra thirty years because every extra year of education
adds to your lifespan.
And that prediction comes from the Stanford Longevity Center.
Even one extra year makes a difference in how long you will live.
In every passage weíre uncertain of where weíre going to go next, and so we need to
develop a circle of care.
And letís look at the many benefits of boomerang children.
Moms and dads miss their kids when theyíre away, when they leave for college or graduate
school or go off to live in another part of the country to take jobs.
And theyíre often very happy to welcome their kids back home for a while.
And in your tryout twenties ñ those of you who are still there ñ youíll probably get
more sophisticated advice and support from your experienced parents than from your no-little
peers.
With mothers and daughters remaining closer longer, they can inspire each other to take
better care of themselves.
Mothers can educate daughters about putting strong bones in the bank before theyíre thirty,
because thatís when all the deposits of bone are made for our lifetime.
So if mom turns up her nose at carbonated, sugary drinks and offers her daughter cranberry
juice or keeps a pitcher of lemon and mint water in the fridge, sheís helping to protect
that girl against osteoporosis in her middle years.
By the same token, a daughter who is eating right and exercising can be a model for her
mom to joint Weight Watchers or get a gym membership.
Sons, of course, can help fathers.
Many of you know Ken Dychtwald who founded Age Wave.
Well, Ken is now 62.
He was always a gym rat, until the last five years when back problems made him slack off.
But last summer, he knew his 23-year-old son would be living at home to save money before
he left for China to study Mandarin.
Kenís son had been state water polo champion in college, so he was really tough.
And he and his dad used to play water basketball with a net in their shallow pool.
Well, the chance to be physical and have fun with his son motivated Ken to step up.
And he said, ìYou know, I put myself through a hard training program for a month to prepare.î
He said it was a better motivation than any doctor or TV show.
He said once his son came home, he said, Every day Iíd leave work at 3:00, weíd both put
on our Speedos, and then maul each other for two hours.
And it was the best time Iíve had in athletics since I was a kid.î So, think about working
with your adult kids to help each other have better health habits.
The more you do preventive exercises, the more you will inspire the people that you're
taking care of.
The students in the audience know that youíre entering a profession that doesnít expectÖyou
canít expect big bucks.
But it does offer you the chance to gain the skills and communication that are vital in
a global economy.
You may have experienced discrimination growing up and you want to help others, so youíre
going off to foreign countries or small villages, clinics to do good work in the world.
So more power to you.
Good luck out there.
Catch thirty is the next major passage.
And this is when most adults feel the urge to alter the choices of their twenties because
now they want to be something more.
In my generation, women and men were usually married by thirty and already had a child
or more than one.
And it was common for one spouse to expect the other to sacrifice their aspirations to
allow for the dominant spouse to advance.
Well, that led to an epidemic of early divorce, often about age thirty, after the first tryout
marriage.
Fifty percent of couples of who married in the 1970s divorced, and about half the children
were caught between warring parents.
The fallout was brutal.
One third of girls of divorced parents became teen mothers.
Eleven percent of boys whose parents split spent time in prison.
The good news is among educated Americans today ñ and I use the word educated importantly
ñ family life is improving.
In most of these households both mothers and fathers work, so they have greater financial
resources to invest in raising their children and providing for their further education.
Thereís a lessening of gender roles, thank God, with fathers and mothers sharing parenting
almost interchangeably.
So, on to the timeless thirties.
A stage when men and women commit to what they believe will be their true course in
life.
Their time horizons today are virtually unlimited.
Educated women can and often do delay marriage until their mid to late thirties and maybe
donít get around to pregnancy until theyíre forty.
Just this week, women were told they can freeze their eggs when theyíre young ñ not to make
meringue ñ but as an insurance policy against infertility later or to free themselves to
pursue a career well beyond the safe boundaries for conception.
This is a comfort to young woman who face sterilization from cancer treatment, but it
can also create the illusion that aspiring women can stop their biological clock almost
indefinitely and still produce the family they desire without multiple miscarriages
and possible failure if they wait too long.
And hereís another impact to consider: The happiest women in a daily survey of attitudes
and behaviors by Gallup and Healthways, a wellbeing improvement company, finds that
happily married women are likely to time their family building to free themselves of caregiving
by midlife.
So thereís a strong correlation between wellbeing in midlife and the timing of childbearing
in earlier life.
And hereís the deal ñ if you want to have the best chance for wellbeing in your fifties,
you will have your children between age 27 and 36.
If your last child is born when youíre 36, you will enjoy the freedom of empty nest by
your mid-fifties.
The midlife passage ñ 45 to 55, roughly ñ is often a crisis.
Both women and men in their early forties begin to freak out about getting older.
The first ah-hah moment may come when the 45-year-old father emails his son and gets
the message back, ìHey dad, email is for old people.
Text me.î Or the 42-year-old mom who just gave birth can't get the baby on her breast
without fumbling for her reading glasses.
Well, most of us carry the illusion that we will achieve our dream by our mid-forties
and have the marriage and family we always wanted, well when the first time the shadow
of mortality clouds over that sunny assumption, pushes us into the next passage.
Call it the crisis of meaning.
If we take an inventory of our goals in our first adulthood, we may find that weíve defined
ourselves and our self-worth only by externals.
Well, the midlife passage takes us beyond the preoccupation of self.
It initiates a search for meaning and greater involvement with the community or the world,
a cause larger than ones self.
We canít easily make this passage alone.