SARASOTA, Florida / Herald-Tribune / Columnists / Opinion / August 1, 2009
At a wedding reception not too long ago, my wife and I were seated at a banquet table with six other guests, only two of whom we had met before. Introductions and small talk led to discussion about families, and about the children of one of the couples, specifically regarding the difficulty that their 9- year-old was having in school.
“The teacher wants him tested, but I don’t like him labeled that way,” said the mother. “It’s not so much a stigma anymore, as more parents request it,” my wife said. “It could be just a small problem with visual or auditory perception, and then the child would be eligible for all the help and additional support he will ever need.”
“Are you a teacher?”
“I taught fourth grade for 23 years. I’m retired now.” The woman’s response was immediate: eyes glazing over, mouth closing into a tight smile, and then the slow, silent nod. Anyone who has retired has encountered similarly dismissive body language. It’s a look that says you’re no longer in the game, that you don’t count. If you’re wondering whether you’re guilty of the same attitude, ask yourself if any of the following pictures flashes in your mind when you see the word “retiree”:
a) A white-haired female in a floral pantsuit, braced in an aluminum walker.
b) A slumping couple in a Mercury Marquis moving five miles an hour below the speed limit.
c) A half-dozen men in farm-implement caps sipping senior coffee in a booth at McDonald’s.
As 79 million baby boomers in this country are now turning 60 at the rate of 8,000 per day, those stereotypes grow more and more inaccurate.
An AARP survey found that 80 percent of those born between 1946 and 1964 intend to stay at their job past the age of 65. And that percentage was thought to be rising as the U.S. recession intensified. More than half of the survey respondents listed the need for money as their primary reason, while the rest said they would continue working in order to stay “mentally active,” for reasons of physical and psychological well-being.
Still teaching
My wife fits into the latter classification. After taking her teacher’s pension three years ago, she began volunteer work almost immediately, splitting her days between a local hospital and a grade school. Besides counseling our two children who are also teachers, thereby continuing to affect the lives of another generation of students, she’s the go-to guy at the local elementary, relied upon to help out with instruction and advice. For her mentoring duties, she draws on her past and current experience, in addition to the latest literature in the field, which she finally has time to read. I haven’t begun to detail the rest of what consumes her days and nights, including serving as plant manager for two homes and as resident editor for a free-lance writer. But this column is not just about her. Instead, it’s a proposal for eradicating the odious stereotypes by coining a replacement term.
After all, “retiree” denotes a person who leaves or quits or sits on the shelf. It’s a word that needs to go the way of “redskin,” “dame” and “hick.”
Changing the vocabulary is necessary in order to reflect the new reality, and to reform attitudes. Nor can we revert to other words commonly used, such as “aged,” “elder,” “senior” or “mature adult,” which evoke images of the infirm and irrelevant, even more readily than “retired” does.
Logical alternatives might seem to be certain other re- words, such as “retooled,” “revitalized,” “reclassified” or “rerouted,” except that they sound too much like corrections of a career that was a mistake. My recommendations? Ruminating once more on the multi-faceted role of my spouse, and the esteem with which she is held, I see “accomplished” as a felicitous replacement for “retired,” as in “I’m an accomplished grade school teacher.” As another word that does the trick for both meaning and sound, “sage” is hard to beat: “Please provide proof of sage to get your discount at Baer’s.” Or maybe an entirely new word needs to be invented, one with the familiar configuration but which captures the appropriate context and spirit, like “reaspired.” AARP wouldn’t even have to change its acronym! Mine is not the last word, of course, so e-mail me your suggestions. But don’t delay.
Eight thousand of us are turning 60 each day. That’s over 300 Americans per hour! [rc]
David McGrath is a “reaspired” free-lance writer living in Port Charlotte.
E-mail: profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com Copyright © 2009 HeraldTribune.com
