Retirement ... encore (Part 2)

A few days ago, I posted a blog about an emerging view of aging that suggests a new “encore” stage between midlife and old age. The idea is that instead of retiring (in the old sense of taking it easy), a lot of folks are filling their post-midlife years with very active engagement with the world—sometimes including starting new careers. There’s a lot to be said for this new look at aging, and that was the subject of that earlier blog. But I promised to come back with some concerns I have about this model. This, you will no doubt be happy to know, is that promised commentary.

So here are my two concerns:

First, I always worry about any model that talks about “stages” of development. Stages always imply a sort of lock-step approach, where you have to take one step before you can start the next. They’re always accompanied by a nodding acknowledgement that “this doesn’t fit everyone.” But for the most part, the discussion of stages then goes on to assume that the model does, in fact, apply to everyone … except maybe folks who are somehow failing at their developmental task.

So, I’m troubled by the sort of “should” nature of this portrayal of aging as happening in stages. What does this perspective say, for instance, of someone who doesn’t want to add on a stage or start a new career? What about people who are perfectly content building their later life around recreation, hobbies, family, personal pursuits? Are those folks somehow failing to “fulfill their full potential”? Are they abandoning the promise of their generation by making these choices? And then what of the person who doesn’t get an “encore”? The person who, for whatever reason, chooses to (or must) continue in the “old” job/career until they retire once and for all? And what about someone who thought they had a chance for an “encore” until the bottom fell out of the economy? How do we understand their choices within this model?

I think the idea of staying engaged in the world—through a career or other means—is grand … for those folks for whom it fits. But I resist any implication that there’s a “right” way to grow, whether it’s growing up or growing old.

My second concern is that this model makes huge assumptions about the choices that are available to people. Now, this model applies to a lot of retired folks I know. Some have started new careers, lots are very engaged in community activities. But my circle of friends is a fairly homogeneous group. Like the “encore” folks discussed in these writings, most of us have a wealth of privilege—financial privilege, white privilege, educational privilege, geographic privilege—that allows us to live as we do. The fact that we can even entertain an “encore” option points to our privilege. 

The question for poor folks is not whether to frame retirement as a recreational escape or as an opportunity for an “encore” career. The question is whether they can stop working at all. For people without economic resources, the end of working life comes not by comfortable retirement of any sort, but by default, by necessity, due to poor health, economic downturns, outsourcing. (Coincidentally, as I was thinking about this, I also came across a recent study showing that both forced “retirement” and ill health have significant negative effects on post-retirement well-being. What a surprise!)

I have similar thoughts about educational privilege. It’s far easier to consider entering a new career when you have a broad education that allows for flexibility than when you have a limited set of skills that fit a limited range of occupations. It’s easy to say “go back to school” when it’s back to school instead of just to school because you never got much schooling as a child.

To see what I mean, check out the list of possible “encore” careers given in the article I talked about before. The vast majority of them require significant educational background: nurse, nurse instructor, social worker, teacher, child-care worker, yoga instructor, non-profit social media manager, grant writer, pastoral counselor, etc. These may be encore careers for someone with considerable prior education. But they are almost certainly out of reach for someone who previously worked as a clerk, a welder, a nurse’s aide, a bus driver, a domestic worker. Other options listed not only presume that the retiree is well established but that a lot of other (privileged) folks are interested in the retiree’s particular “passion”—yoga instructor, for instance. The few positions listed here that might be within reach of folks who are poorer, less able, and less educated would hardly be considered “encore careers” that promise passion and purpose accompanied by a far-less-important paycheck. They’re more like continuing hard work for low pay: home health aide, solar installation trainer, weatherization installer.

So, this whole idea of an encore career offers us an opportunity to reconsider our privilege. Now, privilege isn’t inherently a bad thing. As Suzanne Pharr has said, you just need to spend your privilege well. This provides  the ideal lens through which we might envision that encore career—as a way to spend our privilege well. From my own particular personal peculiar perspective, that would not include yoga instructor, but it would definitely include teacher’s aide, Peace Corps volunteer, AmeriCorps volunteer, home-health aide. These are jobs, not careers, and they don’t pay well. But for those of us who have the resources to make a choice based not on monetary need but on the desire for passion and purpose, jobs like these would mean privilege well spent. There are other options, too, careers that spend privilege well but that require more education than many retired people can (or will choose to) undertake—social worker, teacher, non-profit grant writer, and others. Or, we have the privilege to simply retire, to rest. To stop and smell the roses. But let’s not imagine that this privilege is available to everyone simply because a new life stage has been designated.

This whole line of thought seems like such a wet blanket. It’s far more fun to tout the joys of aging and the choices we have (as I have done before here). So this blog seems out of character for me. But I want to honor the lives of people who don’t come to aging with anything like the privilege I enjoy. The vision of an encore performance is grand. For those who can do it, it’s a fine testament to the amazing ability of humans to, as old Timex watch ads used to say, “take a licking and keep on ticking.” But whether we have this option depends so much on the the privilege we arrive with. 

Really.