he needed to explore, once and for all, whether he preferred men. On a winter break, he went to Key West, Florida, where the gay lifestyle was already openly happening.
Ken returned to Michigan sure of his preference for men, and began to discreetly explore the gay scene in the town where he taught, which proved to be both frightening and unsatisfactory. He returned to school for a master’s degree, then landed a teaching job at a college in Miami.
Life was better for Ken in Florida, with its larger cities and greater opportunities for self-expression, including sexual preference. He developed a deep and devoted relationship with a man. Both in their mid-forties, they discussed the possibility of adopting children but decided they were too old to start a family. Now retired from teaching, Ken lives in Key West, where he remains active, working to integrate the gay and lesbian communities into the larger population.
Those of us that are child-free may be married, divorced, widowed, or single. We come in all colors and represent a wide variety of backgrounds, but all of us need to prepare for our later years without the help of adult children. That’s what makes us unique. Today’s outlook for the senior years promises many choices—for parents as well as non-parents.
When asked about options for a rewarding older adulthood in the early twenty-first century, I like to say, “This is not your father’s retirement!”
We still fear the big three health challenges, but most people now survive heart attacks and strokes and can live for years, even decades, after cancer treatment. Life expectancy across the United States has been increasing steadily and now hovers in the early- to mid-eighties, so we must stay as healthy and positive as we can in order to enjoy what gerontologists Lynn Peters Adler, Ken Dychtwald, and others have called “the bonus years.”
Jean Houston, teacher, author, and leadership guru for the United Nations, calls this stage of life “the great turning point.”4 She goes on to suggest that we “don’t know a darn thing till we are about fifty-five or sixty. The years after that are the years in which you can bring your humanity to bear upon the great issues of our time.” She includes, in this new way of thinking about older age, the pursuit of lifelong education—both learning and teaching—and reminds us that we have lived through more history of the human race than our grandparents could ever have imagined. Wow! What a positive way to think about our post-fifty lives.
“Life without a script” provides another way of looking at these bonus years. Specific expectations were at play for all earlier stages of life. Here’s how the life script reads: from ages one through five, we are in strong growth mode. We are learning how to get from one place to another in our environment. We are learning about rules and danger and how to express ourselves. Our “job” at that time of life is learning about our separateness from the others around us. Once we enter school, our role is to learn, to achieve, and to earn rewards. We also have to learn social skills during that time. We have to navigate the waters of love, indifference, and hatred, and resolve complicated relationship and sexual questions. And we have to cut the ties with our parents. Once out of school we have to learn to live on our own and support ourselves. Most people’s scripts include finding a partner and, for many, starting a family. For those without children, the next part of the script involves nurturing our careers and pursuing activities that are interesting and fulfilling.
This last part of the script takes us up to around age fifty-five or sixty, at which time the script ends. What now? In American society, the script ends when we leave our careers. For parents, a partial script exists, which involves being a grandparent. However, the main actors in that production are the younger parents themselves, so grandparents play a supporting role at best, unless the parents are incapacitated or unavailable.
Most of us age in stages. If you are reading this book, you are probably in the early stages of older adulthood: fifty-five to seventy. In those years, statistics are on your side. Many people today live healthy lives well into their seventies and eighties, in fact, more and more people are aging to triple digits every year. However, 70 percent of us will need some level of assistance to manage our lives,5 especially as we get into our mid to late eighties and beyond. None of us knows in advance how much or what kind of assistance we will need.
Another mystery is how long we will live. Many factors are at play: general health, genetics, lifestyle, habits, stress tolerance, and more. Because of this uncertainty, we can’t know for sure how much money we will need to fund that long life. Planning requires us to make some educated guesses and prepare for uncertain times.
In the following chapters you will meet more child-free people who have taken the reins of their lives and made plans for their future happiness and safety in a variety of ways. Some have chosen to continue working long past the typical retirement age; some have chosen unique lifestyles and living environments; some have chosen new community designs. Indeed, there is no end in sight to the creative ways those of us without children can prepare for our remaining years.
In addition, we will need to give thought and make plans for how to receive care in our oldest years. In later chapters you will meet child-free people who have made those plans—some in conventional ways, others in brave new ways. They have all done their homework and followed their hearts. I found their stories fascinating and encouraging. They spurred me to do the additional research to round out the guidance offered in these pages. If you take the stories and recommendations to heart and plan aggressively for your later years, you will be able to sit back and continue to enjoy the same freedom you have had all your life. Enjoy the ride!
Chapter 3. The Role of Adult Children in the Life of an Elder
“Blood relatives have always been the only source of morally obligated support in later life.”
—Robert Rubenstein, Social Scientist
Let me start this chapter by telling you the story of Fred and Hildy, a couple without children who did not plan for their later years, but got very lucky at the end. My colleague and friend, Andrea Gallagher, shared their story with me and offered to let me use their real names. She and her husband Peter, who do not themselves have children, learned some great lessons from it … and so did I.
Hildy and Fred in their home in 2005
Andrea and Peter had recently moved into a new home and invited a few of their closest neighbors over to introduce themselves. Fred, eighty-six, and Hildy, eighty-nine, were the oldest couple on the block, having lived in their home since the neighborhood was developed, over forty years earlier. They arrived at the party a little early and stayed throughout.
As they got to know Fred and Hildy better, Peter and Andrea started helping them with small chores like putting up holiday decorations. They also learned Fred and Hildy had no children and no close relatives. Early one Saturday morning, about eighteen months later, Hildy called and asked if one of them could take Fred to the hospital for a minor procedure. Hildy did not drive. She was mostly wheelchair-bound because of macular degeneration and crippling arthritis in her legs.
What was to be a quick outpatient surgery for Fred turned into a weeklong stay at the hospital. Frustrated and concerned about the turn of events, Fred asked Andrea and Peter to sleep over at his house so Hildy would not be afraid. How could they say no? Every day they took Hildy to see Fred and either Peter or Andrea stayed with Hildy each night. One of those nights Hildy came down the hall in her motorized chair at three o’clock in the morning, fully dressed, and announced she wanted to “take you kids to breakfast.”
After a week, Fred was able to leave the hospital and
