Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job (31 page)

Putting down roots meant contributing his time and expertise to the community. Peter served on the Town of Wayland’s Finance Committee for two years and was Town Counsel for eleven years before being elected moderator of the town meeting. And, extraordinarily (to my mind), Peter served as moderator for thirty years! In my town, citizen self-government is
representative
; approximately two hundred elected members can discuss and vote on articles. In contrast, Wayland has an
open
town meeting, so one or two thousand residents or more can weigh in on every article. To manage the process and give everyone a reasonable opportunity to be heard, Peter developed a
Moderator’s Handbook
, laying out, for the first time, the rules and regulations that govern town meetings; he introduced separate microphones for “pro” and “con” voices, thus producing more civilized debates; he instituted time limits on the debates; and he implemented the first system of electronic voting to be used at a New England town meeting.

Yet another form of civic engagement is his family’s commitment to public education in Wayland. Nancy and Peter Gossels contributed to a fund for Excellence in the Public Schools, originally funded by his brother, Werner, and his wife, Elaine, to provide money for extra educational opportunities. In addition, the two couples created the Gossels Fund for Human Dignity.

Putting down roots also meant participating in a local congregation. Although proud of their religious identity, the Gossels found going to the synagogue was like going to a museum because the forms of prayer seemed ossified and lifeless. Peter and Nancy set out in 1980 to revitalize Reform Judaism and make the prayer book less male-dominated. As a result, the lay members of the congregation, led by the Gosselses and Joan S. Kaye, published an
egalitarian
prayer book,
Vetaher Libenu
, which features nonsexist, inclusive language; uses feminine and masculine pronouns to refer to God; and includes both the matriarchs and the patriarchs. It also featured many original poems by Nancy Lee Gossels. Thousands of copies have been sold all over the world to Christians as well as Jews. Nancy and Peter also led a team, including Harry Abadi, Gary Bean, and Ellen Zellner, who edited and published an egalitarian Machzor for Rosh Hashanah, and composed a siddur (prayer book) for weekday prayers titled
Canfey Hashachar
in 2003 and other prayer books. As a result, all prayer books published by the Reform Movement are now egalitarian and many conservative congregations have adopted the egalitarian language pioneered by Nancy, Peter, and Joan.

Defining all of the many leadership roles Peter has assumed over the years is his worldview as a lawyer. “I don’t think of it as my career. It shapes my life, and it is what I am. If you have your health, you can earn a living and be active and involved with people and issues, and you can help change things for the better. If I didn’t have enough clients to support myself, of course, I would have to retire; but so long as I can attract new clients, I will be able to continue my practice, contribute to my community and enjoy my life, because the challenge of work keeps me sharp, up-to-date and involved with the best and the brightest of my clients and colleagues.”

Peter admits he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he retired. “When I meet retired people socially, I often find their conversation less interesting, less stimulating, because they tend to see the world as spectators; not as people who are engaged in making a difference. To be honest, it frightens me. I’ve seen too many people retire and die.” While he gets no pressure from family and friends to stop working, Peter knows that Nancy would like him to do more traveling with her. They have already been to countries all over the world, including to France for a reunion of the surviving children of Chabannes and the elderly Paillassou sisters in 1996. Those heroic teachers and the director who risked their own lives to save the children of Chabannes have since been designated “Righteous among the Nations” at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Uprooted from his first home some seventy-four years ago, Peter Gossels knows how fortunate he was to be able to build a successful life in America with a wonderful wife and family and a profession he loves. As Lisa Gossels described him in a 2009 interview for the journal
Pulse-Berlin
: “My father is someone who believes in being a productive member of society. His response to his own personal tragedy wasn’t to feel sorry for himself or bitter, but to make family a priority, to embrace an inclusive and progressive form of Judaism, to be involved in social justice and cultural institutions, and to give back through philanthropy.”

Peter Gossels’s worldview as a lawyer shapes his life. Men like Peter seek to change things for the better. Sartre would call this an ethics of action and involvement. And I am also reminded of the practical advice proffered by the plain-spoken and (literally) straight-shooting Mormon cowboy who ran the working horse and cattle ranch in Arizona where I spent two glorious summers in the 1950s: “The one who puts the most into anything gets the most out of it in return. . . . Each day is a page in your life’s storybook. Put something good in each day so when it is finished it will be good reading material with no regrets.” I hope readers of
Men Still at Work
will agree that the men who shared pages from their personal and professional storybooks have provided good reading material. They are reaping what they have sown (to mix metaphors) and with luck and good health can continue to do so as long as they wish.

To be sure, working late can be taxing for men in their sixties, seventies, or eighties. With the exception of Jim Fannin, the historic preservationist and cemetery conservationist you met in chapter 6, and perhaps a few others, the older men I studied are engaged in professions that do not require heavy physical labor. Nonetheless, job-related travel, stress, and fatigue can be wearing, as can the stress associated with the various financial uncertainties caused by our still-ailing economy. A challenge for some is trying to achieve a salutary work-life balance that accommodates family and friends, plus time for home maintenance, recreation, fitness, and cultural and community/volunteering activities. And for others, delaying retirement avoids having to address a worrisome problem: What comes next? Whether they live to work
or
work to live—whatever their reasons—ever-increasing numbers of highly accomplished older men with stable, interesting professional jobs that pay relatively well are gladly continuing in the paid labor force, thus proving that work can certainly be an important part of successful aging. While many of their peers and men even younger have already retired, older men still at work are in the vanguard of a strengthening trend.

Notes

Chapter 1

1. Nelson D. Schwartz, “Recovery in U.S. Lifting Profits, Not Adding Jobs,”
New York Times
, March 4, 2013, A1, A3.

2. Elizabeth F. Fideler,
Women Still at Work: Professionals over Sixty and on the Job
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).

3. Roy P. Clark, “Eugene Patterson, 89, Voice on Civil Rights, Dies,”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, January 13, 2013
.
Retrieved April 15, 2013, from
http://www.ajc.com
.

4. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from
http://www.npr.org/workinglate
.

5. Gary Burtless, “The Impact of Population Aging and Delayed Retirement on Workforce Productivity,” Chestnut Hill, MA: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Retrieved July 8, 2013, from
http://crr.bc.edu
.

6. Sarah S. Willie,
Acting Black: College, Identity, and the Performance of Race
(New York: Routledge, 2003), 167.

Chapter 2

1. Laura B. Shrestha and Elayne J. Heisler, “The Changing Demographic Profile of the United States.” Congressional Research Service. No. 7-5700. RL32701. March 31, 2011,
http://www.crs.gov
.

2. Shrestha and Heisler, “The Changing Demographic Profile.”

3. US Census Bureau News, “Older Americans Month: May 2013.” CB13-FF.07. Washington, DC, March 7, 2013. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from
http://www .census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/cb13ff-07_older2013.pdf
.

4. Retrieved February 15, 2013, from
http://www.fairfaxcountyeda.org
.

5. Sara E. Rix, “Unemployment Rises for Older Workers.” AARP Public Policy Institute, Fact Sheet 255. March 2012,
http://www.aarp.org/ppi
.

6. Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, “Older Americans 2012: Key Indicators of Well-Being.” Retrieved March 18, 2013, from
http://www .AgingStats.gov/main_site/data/2012_documents/population.aspx
.

7. MetLife Mature Market Institute, “Transitioning into Retirement: The MetLife Study of Baby Boomers at 65.” Westport, CT, April 2012. Retrieved January 8, 2013, from
http://www.metlife.com
.

8. Paul Solman, “Manufacturer Vita Needle Finds Investment in Older Workers Turns a Big Profit.” Retrieved January 4, 2013, from
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june13/makingsense_01-02.html?print.
In addition to the
PBS NewsHour
feature, anthropologist Caitrin Lynch wrote a book about the company titled
Retirement on the Line
. German and Dutch filmmakers have made documentaries about Vita.

9. David Hackett Fischer,
Growing Old in America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

10. Scott Bass, “From Retirement to ‘Productive Aging’ and Back to Work Again,” in
Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age: Implications and Next Steps
. Dawn C. Carr and Kathrin Komp, eds. (New York: Springer, 2011), 169–89.

11. Gordon F. Shea and Adolf Haasen,
The Older Worker Advantage: Making the Most of Our Aging Workforce
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006).

12. Helen Harkness,
Don’t Stop the Career Clock: Rejecting the Myths of Aging for a New Way to Work in the 21st Century
(Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing, 1999).

13. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot,
Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012).

14. Marc Freedman,
Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life
(New York: PublicAffairs/Perseus Books, 2007).

15. William A. Sadler,
The Third Age: Six Principles of Growth and Renewal after Forty
(Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000).

16. Dawn C. Carr and Kathrin Komp, eds.,
Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age: Implications and Next Steps
(New York: Springer, 2011); Peter Laslett,
A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989).

17. Phyllis Moen, “A Life-Course Approach to the Third Age,” in
Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age: Implications and Next Steps
, Dawn C. Carr and Kathrin Komp, eds. (New York: Springer, 2011), 13–33.

18. Graham D. Rowles and Lydia K. Manning, “Experiencing the Third Age: The Perspective of Qualitative Inquiry,” in
Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age: Implications and Next Steps
, Dawn C. Carr and Kathrin Komp, eds. (New York: Springer, 2011), 147–67.

19. ADEA applies to workers forty and older.

20. Scott Bass, “From Retirement to ‘Productive Aging’ and Back to Work Again,” in
Gerontology in the Era of the Third Age: Implications and Next Steps
, Dawn C. Carr and Kathrin Komp, eds. (New York: Springer, 2011), 169–89.

21. George E. Vaillant,
Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2002), 5.

22. Vaillant,
Aging Well
, 305–6.

23. Robert Waldinger, MD, is now leading the study.

24. Vaillant,
Aging Well
, 222.

25. Vaillant,
Aging Well
, 223.

Chapter 3

1. Gay Talese, “The Crisis Manager.”
The New Yorker
, September 24, 2012, 40–49.

2. John Wooden,
Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court
.
http://www.goodreads.com
.

3. At the end of September 2013, Bud Selig announced his retirement in June 2014.

4. Barbara Ehrenreich,
The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment
(Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1983).

5. Gail Sheehy’s widely read
Passages
books built upon Levinson’s work.

6. Daniel J. Levinson et al.
The Seasons of a Man’s Life
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1978).

7. Daniel J. Levinson and Judy D. Levinson,
The Seasons of a Woman’s Life
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).

8. Levinson and Levinson,
The Seasons of a Woman’s Life.

9. Gerardo Marti, Davidson College, associate professor and chair of sociology. Course Syllabus for Sociology of Work (2006).
http://www.davidson.edu
.

10. Rucha Bhate, “A Woman’s Place? A Cross National Exploration of Gender Role Perspectives—Quick Insights.” Boston College, Sloan Center on Aging and Work (November 2012). Retrieved November 27, 2012, from
http://www.bc.edu/content/bc/research/agingandwork/archive_pubs/QI1.html
.

11. Bhate, “A Woman’s Place?”

12. Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.”
Atlantic Magazine
(July–August 2012). Retrieved December 13, 2012, from
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020
.

13. Stephanie Coontz, “Why Gender Equality Stalled.”
New York Times
, February 17, 2013, SR1, SR6–7.

14. Hanna Rosin, “Who Wears the Pants in This Economy?”
New York Times Magazine
, September 2, 2012, 22–29, 38.

15. John Gray,
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
(New York: Harper, 1992).

16. Gray,
Men Are from Mars
, 12.

17. Gray,
Men Are from Mars
, 9.

18. APA Center for Organizational Excellence, “Work-Life Fit and Enjoying What They Do Top the List of Reasons Why Employees Stay on the Job” (September 5, 2012). Retrieved March 4, 2013, from
http://www.apaexcellence.org/resources/goodcompany/newsletter/article/391
.

19. Andrew O’Hagan, “The Male Bond,”
New York Times Style Magazine
, March 10, 2013, 86, 88.

20. Robert Bly,
Iron John: A Book about Men
(Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990).

21. Edward R. Barton,
Beyond Men Hugging Trees: A Qualitative Exploration of Men’s Participation in Men’s Peer Mutual Support Groups
(Saarbrucken, Germany: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller, 2011).

22. Edward R. Barton, “Experiencing My Mid-Life Crises and Afterward: Various Hermeneutical Analyses of Lived Experiences, Part 1,”
International Journal of Self Help and Self Care
2 (4) (2003–2004): 329–38.

23. Barton, “Experiencing My Mid-Life Crises and Afterward,” 329–38.

24. Terry Jones,
The Elder Within: The Source of Mature Masculinity
(Wilsonville, OR: BookPartners, 2001); Terry Jones,
Elder: A Spiritual Alternative to Being Elderly
(Portland, OR: Elderhood Institute Books, 2006).

25. Bly,
Iron John
; Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers,
The Power of Myth
(New York: Anchor Books, 1991); John. H. Lee,
The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man
(Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1989).

26. Edward R. Barton, ed.,
Mythopoetic Perspectives of Men’s Healing Work: An Anthology for Therapists and Others
(Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2000).

27. Edward R. Barton, “Early History of the Changing Men Collections,”
Journal of
Men’s Health and Gender
3 (2), (June 2006): 213–14.

28. Rick Broniec,
A Passionate Life: 7 Steps for Reclaiming a Passionate, Purposeful and Joyful Life
(Greenwood, WI: Rick Broniec, 2012).

29. Ellen Cole and Mary Gergen, eds.,
Retiring but Not Shy
(Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute, 2012).

Chapter 4

1. US Census Bureau News, “Older Americans Month: May 2013.” CB13-FF.07. Washington, DC (March 7, 2013). Retrieved March 18, 2013, from
http://www .census.gov/newsroom/releases/pdf/cb13ff-07_older2013.pdf
.

2. Maria Heidkamp, “Older Workers, Rising Skill Requirements and the Need for a Re-envisioning of the Public Workforce System.” Rutgers University, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, 2012, 5–6.

3. Heidkamp, “Older Workers,” 5–6.

4. Mitra Toossi, “Projections of the Labor Force to 2050: A Visual Essay.” US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Monthly Labor Review
(October 2012), 3–16.

5. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. “National Hispanic Heritage Month.” BLS Spotlight on Statistics (September 2012). Retrieved January 28, 2013, from
http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/hispanic_heritage
.

6. APA Center for Organizational Excellence, “Work-Life Fit and Enjoying What They Do Top the List of Reasons Why Employees Stay on the Job” (September 5, 2012). Retrieved March 4, 2013, from
http://www.apaexcellence.org/resources/goodcompany/newsletter/article/391
.

7. The full retirement age for Social Security is sixty-five for people born in 1937 or earlier. For people born in 1938 or later, it increases gradually until it reaches sixty-seven for people born after 1959.

8. Mitra Toossi, “Employment Outlook: 2008–18: Labor Force Projections to 2018: Older Workers Staying More Active.” US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Monthly Labor Review
(November 2009).

9. Laura B. Shrestha and Elayne J. Heisler, “The Changing Demographic Profile of the United States.” Congressional Research Service. No. 7-5700 (March 31, 2011).
http://www.crs.gov
, RL32701.

10. Lauren Weber, “Americans Rip Up Retirement Plans.”
Wall Street Journal (
January 31, 2013). Retrieved February 1, 2013, from
http://www.online.wsj.com
.

11. MetLife, “10th Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends: Seeing Opportunity in Shifting Tides” (New York: MetLife, 2012). Retrieved December 27, 2012, from
http://www.metlife.com
.

12. Weber, “Americans Rip Up Retirement Plans.”

13. Aegon, “The Changing Face of Retirement: The Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey 2012.” The Hague, Netherlands: Aegon Group. (2012). Retrieved March 8, 2013, from
http://www.aegon.com
.

14. Alicia H. Munnell and Steven A. Sass,
Working Longer: The Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

15. Eduardo Porter, “The Payoff in Delaying Retirement,”
New York Times
, March 6, 2013, B1, B5.

16. Kyoko Hasegawa, “Retirees Still Seeking Work,”
Japan Times
. Retrieved August 1, 2012, from
http://www.japantimes.co.jp
.

17. Annet de Lange, “Sustaining an Aging Workforce.” AGEnda, Aging and Work Blog. Chestnut Hill, MA: Sloan Center on Aging and Work, January 23, 2013,
http://www.agingandwork.bc.edu/blog/2013/01
.

18. Suzanne Daley and Nicholas Kulish, “Germany Fights Population Drop: Takes Steps to Avoid a Shortage of Labor,”
New York Times
, August 14, 2013, A1, A6.

19. Ministry of Labour, Luxembourg, “Luxembourg 2020.” National Reform Program for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg under the Europe 2020 Strategy. The European Semester (April 2011). Retrieved November 15, 2012, from
http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/nrp/nrp_luxembourg_en.pdf
. Also see
http://www.noagesite.com
.

20. Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre. Retrieved December 10, 2012, from
http://agingandwork.bc.edu/blog
/a-20-year-view-of-the -labor-force.

21. Catherine Rampell, “U.S. Adds 171,000 Jobs, More Than Estimated,”
New York Times
, November 3, 2012, B1, B2.

22. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s 2012 analysis of “The State of Working America,” at the end of 2011, 10 million jobs were needed to return to the pre-recession unemployment rate. At the rate jobs were being created during the first six months of 2012, the target would not be reached before 2020.

23. Adapted from Economic Policy Institute, “Unemployment Rate, by Gender and Education, 2000–2011,”
The State of Working America
, 12th ed. (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2012). Retrieved February 11, 2013, from
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/jobs/table5.4
.