I’ve been trying to find a cogent explanation for this trend, especially because I joined the fray two years ago when I started my own business at 55 years-old on a wing and a prayer. I somehow convinced myself that I had something unique to offer the world that would produce a sustainable income. I’d exhausted myself lawyering for 20+ years and it was now time to reinvent myself. Luckily, after spending a few unhappy months searching for long-squelched abilities, some bubbled to the surface. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I enjoyed “owning the room,” both as an Instructor and a paid keynote speaker. I pursued both. When I finally succumbed to the oft-repeated advice that I had to start blogging, I learned I had a knack for crafting an interesting read. Before I knew it, I had articles in print, a book in publication, and was invited to join HuffPost.  My business has continued to evolve with my interests and aptitudes. My latest is a foray into Wellness Coaching. In short, I’m earning a living and having the time of my life!

However, I still puzzle over the question of what possessed me to take the leap into entrepreneurship. After all, I’d been quite content to receive a steady paycheck as a W-2 law firm partner. Hanging out my own shingle as a solo practitioner seemed as enticing as the wafting stench of gefilte fish.

So what’s gotten into me and so many of my boomer comrades? After all, we know that start-ups are typically foolhardy adventures. There’s no denying the daunting statistic that as many as one-half of all new businesses tank within the first five years. Yet many of us are willing to invest our life savings in our solo ventures, well aware of the fact that we don’t have enough working years left to replace our nest eggs. Where are we getting the chutzpah to believe that we’ll succeed where so many others have done a face plant?

I’ve mulled over all the logical explanations. Perhaps our life experiences have imbued us with confidence in our abilities and the seasoned judgment to sort through and reject harebrained ideas. Or maybe our bravado is fueled by the fact that, absent the financial pressure of supporting two kids, we’re now free to pursue our passions.

Then I stumbled across the real reason. It’s in our genes. Did you know that ants change careers as they age, eventually taking on the most risky venture—leaving the nest to forage for food? Researchers have found that other insects, like honeybees, also engage in career reinvention as they age.  

So, there you go!  It’s in our bug genes. Our DNA goads us into taking crazy risks, like starting our own businesses, in our golden years. As Ricky Ricardo used to say: “That ‘splains it.”

The post Why the Boom in Boomer Entrepreneurship? Blame it on the Ants appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

With Mother’s Day approaching, I feel compelled to speak up for the underappreciated dads of the world. Mother’s Day is as big as the Super Bowl. So, why is Father’s Day more like a junior high scrimmage? Consider this—last year Americans spent $8 billion more celebrating mom than dad.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got no beef with Mother’s Day. Being a mom is a tough job. Mothers deserve their “Hallmark holiday” replete with a mandatory family brunch, where the price of admission is a non-Cubic Zirconia bauble or a fragrant bouquet of red long-stemmed roses. We ignore mom’s big day at our peril. After all, we have to make sure our mom has bragging rights when she and her girlfriends compare notes. Still, I question why moms have been elevated to a status just below sainthood.

Compare this to Father’s Day. Dads didn’t even get their own day until 1972, some 58 years after Mother’s Day was enshrined. What’s the most noteworthy stat about Father’s Day? Historically, it’s been the busiest day of the year for collect calls. Technologically updated, the cell satellites will be overwhelmed by three word texts sent to dads from smartphone accounts paid for by them.

If you forget Father’s Day entirely—no worries. Your chances of a reprimand are low. Those of us who take to time to shop for a pair of socks or a garish tie feel we’ve gone above and beyond. If dad’s day is commemorated with a dinner, chances are he’s paying. Luckily, men don’t compare notes about their Father’s Day with their golf buddies.

I offer my opinion that dads are getting short shrift from my unbiased position as a daughter who is not a mother. As a boomer, I’ve seen dads take on more and more responsibilities over time. In the “Father Knows Best” era, role expectations were clear. Dad’s job was to bring home the bacon, while mom was tasked with raising two well-adjusted, adorable children. With the advent of The Feminine Mystique, traditional marital roles were upended. Mom was free to enter the workplace, while dad was expected to continue to work hard, but also to take on his fair share of parenting and domestic chores.  While some women thrived in the workplace while juggling family responsibilities, I saw many women dabble as lawyers, only to give it up after a year or two, once they realized that practicing law was stressful and often tedious.  Men don’t enjoy the luxury of quitting when they’re no longer having fun.

In my 23 years of lawyering, I observed my male colleagues put in their 80-hour workweeks while trying to meet their wives’ unrealistic expectations that they be home in time for dinner every night. Many a dad felt obliged to sneak away mid-afternoon on Friday to fulfill his obligations as soccer team coach. If little Susie landed the coveted role of lead elf in the school play, dad was front and center in the audience cheering her on, even if he had to sprint from a meeting to be there on time.

At an average cost of $300,000 per child, supporting kids is a very expensive proposition. And that doesn’t even include the cost of college. Dads still bear the brunt of this monetary outlay. My dad struggled valiantly to support five kids. I watched him expertly manage payments on two dozen credit cards and write post-dated checks to cover the bills.

It’s time that dads got their due. How about a website, www.DadsAreGreatToo.com, where people can brag about what they did to make their dads feel special on Father’s Day? Anyone willing to write the first post?

The post Mother’s Day Versus Father’s Day appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

If you’re a boomer, you’re old enough to remember when flying was a treat. Those days are long gone. Today, air travel is on par with colonoscopy prep. The hoped for synergy of combining air carriers has not panned out. Instead, Continental’s highly touted customer service has succumbed to United Airlines chip-on-the-shoulder mentality. AirTran has taken the spirit of fun out of Southwest. Soon we’ll have a single airline that specializes in poor customer service. I have the perfect image for the planes—a snarling winged greyhound.

The airlines are eliminating flights and jamming more seats into their glorified sardine cans. Soon they’ll employer Japanese pushers to shove the passengers in so they can close the cabin doors. The litany of purser instructions will include a directive that we inhale and exhale in unison. They’ll play a video of a yogi to assist the uninitiated.

I’m often relegated to the middle seat, squashed like a cartoon character as my fellow passengers ooze into my personal space. But there are treats in store for us. We may soon have the option of saving a few bucks by standing during flight. RyanAir has designed a “standing-room only” seat just for you. If you’d like a seat belt, bring your own.

Airlines now post a la carte ticket prices. It’s only after you invest 15 minutes online that you’re privy to the actual cost of the trip. Extra fees are big business. In 2011, airlines earned a staggering $22.6 billion worldwide in “ancillary revenue,” up 66% from two years earlier. We’re being nickeled and dimed to death with add-on fees for everything from food, to early boarding, to checked bags. Want to fly without having your knees impaled in your chest? Pay for “extra legroom.” Need to change your itinerary? Not so fast. After listening to an endless loop of Musak, you’ll be connected to India and informed that you’ll pay $150 to $200 for the privilege.

Still, the airlines worry about their public image. So, they’ve taken to cheating. They pad their flight times to feign on-time performance. They claim they lose fewer bags. Yet, we all know they have fewer suitcases to lose since more of us are jamming our Rollaboards into the overhead bins.

We are not happy campers. Passenger complaints rose by 20% from 2011 to 2012. The depth of the public’s animosity toward flight personnel became clear recently when the TSA announced its inexplicable decision to allow passengers to carry pocket knives, baseball bats and hockey sticks on board. The proposed change elicited an immediate outcry from the flight attendants’ union. Were they worried about terrorists? No. They envisioned irate passengers knifing them in the back or high-sticking them in the face as they dispense beverages. Understandably so. My recent travel debacles have left me fantasizing about sharp objects.

Don’t feel too sorry for the flight attendants, though. According to George Hobica, founder of www.AirFareWatchDog.com, who surveyed his friends in the industry, they have their sneaky ways of evening the score. It’s all about getting us to go to sleep so we leave them alone and they can retire to their jump seats and read People Magazine. Did you know they pass off decaf coffee as regular, leave the seat belt sign on after the turbulence has passed to keep us in our seats, and refuse upgrades after the cabin door has closed simply to avoid extra paperwork?

There are indications that the airlines may have outsmarted themselves. According to a Consumer Reports survey, 40% of respondents said they’re flying less due to the annoying add-on fees. Sadly, until the command “Beam Me Up, Scotty” works, commercial airlines are the only game in town for everyone but the super-rich.

Do you have any tricks for making the best of the current state of air travel?

The post The Once Friendly Skies are Now Plagued with Turbulence appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

We boomers have now reached the stage in life where we’re caring for our aging parents. Add it to the list of everything else we’re juggling. As a longtime caregiver for my wheelchair-bound, brain-impaired dad, I speak from experience.  

 Because I’m an elder care specialist, I’m constantly hit up by friends for advice about how to address their mom’s forgetfulness or erratic driving. I offer sound, practical suggestions which are almost invariably ignored. Predictably, after a crisis, my girlfriends lament their head-in-the-sand approach, realizing that they could have prevented the calamity. So why don’t they do something before mom falls and breaks her hip or starts a kitchen fire? To put it more bluntly: “Why are we killing our mothers?”

We boomers mean to do well by our parents. We squelch any thoughts of placement, having been raised on horror stories of children dumping their unsuspecting mom in a facility, while falsely assuring her she’s just visiting. Many of our mothers have extracted the “I’ll never put you in a nursing home” promise from us. We’ve crossed our heart and pledged that Mom will die peacefully at home, in her own bed, surrounded by loved ones. It all sounds good. But, as it turns out, mom’s dying isn’t the hard part. The challenge is to properly care for her during the extended period of her declining health. 

As I see it, most of us are at best neglecting, and at worst hastening, our beloved mother’s death by our own guilt-fueled paralysis. These unintended consequences stem from the fact that most of us are blissfully ignorant about elder care. Unlike the newest tech gadget, we choose to remain clueless because even thinking about it implicates our own mortality and who wants to go there?  But, denial doesn’t work when you live in an earthquake zone. Did you know that every 29 minutes an adult over the age of 65 dies from a fall? Or that 15 older adults are killed, and another 500 injured, in car crashes every day?

We like to tell ourselves later is soon enough. After all, Mom’s erratic driving hasn’t caused any damage beyond scratched paint and even though she’s increasingly forgetful she still has good days. Our motto seems to be “Why do today what you can put off to tomorrow?”

Even those of us who take the first step of educating ourselves about the unappealing worlds of in-home care and assisted living, shy away from broaching the subject for fear of a confrontation. This avoidance rationale is often used by doctors who neglect  to counsel their obese patients about the health risks of being overweight.

Boomers need to face facts: no one gets out alive. Mom is going to die. She needs our help to have a good quality life as her body, and perhaps her mind, fails. Boomers love to talk about “giving back” to the community. How about showering some of this largess on the person who’s earned the payback?  

Watching and waiting is sure-fire way to induce disaster. Stop pretending you don’t see the elephant in the room. Talk to your mom and give her reasonable alternatives. But don’t be shocked if mom bridles at the thought of giving up her independence. Wouldn’t you? Just put your facemask on and tough it out. This transition will require time and patience, but this is the loving approach. As an added bonus, you’ll sleep more soundly and have less guilt when Mom dies.

The post Why Are We Killing Our Mothers? appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

While no one expects this trend to reverse itself, just compare my experience visiting my GP for my annual well woman exam to the attention Dr. McMahon gives to his patients.

My experience: I arrived at the office with completed release and waiver forms, as instructed, hoping that my reward would be that I’d only have to page through one copy of People Magazine before being called to the inner sanctum. No such luck. As the 30-minute mark approached, my name was finally called. I was then processed by his office staff, who weighed me, stuck a thermometer in my mouth and applied the blood pressure cuff. When my doctor finally appeared, he greeted me, determined the purpose of my visit, and immediately turned his attention to writing my yearly orders for prescription refills, a mammogram and blood work. The “examination” consisted of listening to my heart and breath sounds, with a stethoscope placed under my unzipped jacket. I never graced the exam table or removed a stich of clothing. Our only conversation concerned which blood lab and imaging center I preferred. I was on my way in less than six minutes.

A Typical Dr. McMahan patient: “McMahan’s 10 a.m. appointment is with 79-year-old Wydene Tomberlin, who has come bearing an apple as a gift. McMahan takes it cheerfully, adding ‘You can tell I’ve had an influence! She used to bring me chocolate.’” McMahan treats Tomberlin for a staph infection in her ankle. But, his attention goes beyond the immediate ailment. Due to his vigilance, he has also succeeded in getting her off a lot of pain medications she’d been taking. After the exam is over, Dr. McMahan “lingers, asking about Tomberlin’s family—he also treats her brother Wycliff and his wife, Ann.” Dr. McMahan comments on the rewards of small town practice: “You don’t just see your patients. You see their family, you see their friends. It can help.”

Let’s hope there’s more than one Dr. McMahan out there!

The post The Old Family Doctor Still Exists appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

This uncoupling trend has become so common it even has a name: gray divorce. There’s a lot of speculation as to why so many 60s flower children are getting divorced in their later years. Some say a longer life now allows for a second mid-life crisis, while others attribute it to a narcissistic focus of self-fulfillment as the primary purpose of marriage.

Some of my friends who’ve been married for over 30 years have suddenly decided to call the whole thing off. It puzzles me. I wonder if after so many years of raising kids or working 60+ hour weeks, they finally had a Nano-second to assess their partner and realized he’d turned into “Mr. Wrong.” Or perhaps they’d been harboring a secret desire to try their luck at Internet dating.

A word of caution is in order. Before you decide the grass will be greener as a single, consider the financial impact of divorce at or near retirement age. In general, a divorced boomer is significantly poorer than a married one. Experts estimate that it costs at least 30% more to live as a carefree single than as a couple. That’s because you’ll likely need your own bachelor pad, a stand-alone medical policy, and perhaps even a new car. Vacations and eating out will suddenly be more expensive without a partner to share the costs.

 Once you finish splitting up the pots and pans, some of the other financial downsides set in. Your 401ks are likely to be split in two, so you may have to deferg your retirement plans. When you opt to go solo, you’ll likely pay higher taxes and miss some cherished tax breaks you’ve become accustomed to, like the mortgage deduction.

And there’s more. If you spent your adult life being a great mom, the credit bureaus may find you invisible. Worse yet, maybe your spouse has been secretly racking up credit card debt for which you will now be held jointly responsible.

So before you precipitously decide to untie the well-worn knot, take a long, hard look at the lifestyle changes in store for you. You may just decide to love the one you’re with.   

The post Boomer Divorce Can Be Costly appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

Mayor Bloomberg needs something to do when he terms out at the end of 2013. Governor Chris Christie has a serious weight problem. I’ve got the solution—Bloomberg should re-career as Christie’s weight loss life coach. It’s a win-win. The Mayor can personalize his messianic health kick, while the Governor reaps the benefit of living to see his kids go to college.

 At the end of this year, Bloomberg, a billionaire, will no longer be Mayor of New York and is wondering what to do with himself to “remain relevant.” For the past ten years the Mayor has adopted the mantle of New York City’s Health Nanny, banning smoking and trans-fats, requiring disclosure of calorie counts, pushing a salt reduction initiative, and outlawing super-sized sugary drinks. There’s even talk that Prohibition-type curbs on alcohol are on the way. Thanks to the Mayor, bleary eyed straphangers are confronted with heart-stopping ads depicting an overweight amputee, accompanied by the stark warning that “Portions have grown, so has Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations.” Bloomberg is so devoted to the cause that, when addressing the U.N. General Assembly, he proclaimed health promotion “government’s highest duty.”

There’s no doubt that Bloomberg is out to save the world from obesity, one person at a time. Why not start with Governor Chris Christie, who lugs around 300+ lbs. on a 5’ 11” frame and fits into the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen BMI category? The Governor’s denial of his weight problem is evident in his recent public tiff with the former White House physician, who had the temerity to state the obvious: that the Governor’s weight poses a danger to his health. Christie resorted to name calling, branding the well-meaning doctor a “hack” who just wanted her 5 minutes of fame. Despite the Governor’s attempt to make light of his physique by eating a donut on Letterman, he has a serious health problem to address. There’s just no disputing the fact that obesity is associated with an increased danger of heart disease, stroke, and a host of other life-threatening ailments.

I hereby appoint Mayor Bloomberg as Governor Christie’s personal health nanny. It will do them both a world of good. The Mayor can give back by helping the Governor drop 100 lbs. Then maybe, instead of running for President, Christie will become a fitness convert, write a book, and become a poster child for healthy living. Stranger things have happened.

The post Post-Mayor Job for Bloomberg: Life Coach to Chris Christie appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

From Lance Armstrong’s grandstanding appearance on Oprah, to the recent vote to deny Hall of Fame admission to steroid-tainted baseball star Barry Bonds, the subject of testing for performance enhancing drugs is constantly in the news.  

Doping scandals have become routine media fodder in almost all spectator sports, ranging from cycling to baseball to football to the Olympics. Unquestionably, professional sports are rife with athletes cheating to gain a competitive advantage.

Last year, the NFL took great pride in announcing the fact that it had issued 21 suspensions to athletes caught using banned substances, up 75% from 2011. But no one really believes that only 1% of the 1700 super-sized jocks are using performance enhancing substances. If I were earning the average NFL salary of $1.9 million per year, I’d sure be tempted to look for a competitive edge to stay in the game.

The cheaters, like Armstrong, will always find ways to avoid getting caught, much like an alcoholic who favors vodka so his supervisor will be none the wiser. The “drug of choice” is a moving target. Ban steroids and athletes switch to growth hormones. Test for HGH, and the players move on to Adderall  and deer antler spray. choice.

The issue is further muddied by the constant battle to identify what substances should be banned. While many studies have proven that caffeine is a performance enhancer, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has not banned it.  Endurance athletes have long trained at altitude to gain an advantage in competition. WADA considered outlawing this technique, but declined to do so. Add to that a long list of unregulated herbs and supplements which many players take religiously, and you can begin to appreciate the herculean task faced by the regulators.

Testing is made even more problematic by the frequent using of masking drugs to avoid detection and the fact that savvy users carefully time their dose of the banned substance so all markers have cleared their system by the time of the testing.

Regulating what athletes put into their bodies and how they soothe their nerves is a losing battle, akin to passing a law prohibiting motorists from texting while driving. With so much money and reputation at stake, the decision to join the fray and take the miniscule risk of being fined or suspended is a no-brainer.

We have a tradition of treating players like children, even while we pay them millions of dollars for their skills, perhaps because they make their living competing in games we played as kids. It’s time we view athletes who enter the professional ranks as adult workers, just like employees who toil away in office buildings. 

Why not give up the pretense that there’s any feasible way to police doping in sports and allow professional athletes to ingest and inject their favorite drugs and pursue any training regimen they wish? These elite athletes are already putting their bodies at risk just by routinely performing the extraordinary feats required by their sports. That’s why they have notoriously short careers and retire with broken bodies. Those who choose to participate in physical competition for a living should be free to prepare their bodies for combat in whatever way they see fit.

The fact is that spectators enjoy watching players hit monster home runs, sprinters run like gazelles, and football players make hard hits. Some will argue that ignoring drug use will ruin sports forever and that no “clean” player will be able to compete. But that’s already the case; the only difference is that we would finally admit this truism.

The post Why Drug Testing Should be Eliminated in Professional Sports appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

I asked myself why the surgery was performed. Did the surgeon truly believe that this procedure would add quality years to his life? Doubtful. Was there a good chance he wouldn’t even survive the surgery? Yes. Did anyone consider the cost of the procedure? Probably not.

Is it any wonder that medical care is prohibitively expensive? This type of over-treatment has become as common as taking a patient’s blood pressure during an annual physical. We’re all sharing the financial pain of this no-holds-barred approach. The humanity of treating the dying with dignity, relieving their pain and allowing them to die in the comfort of their own homes, has gotten lost in the shuffle.

It’s easy to point the finger at greedy doctors. Since the system incentivizes them to perform procedures to maximize their incomes, it takes an unusually principled physician to buck the tide. And almost any treatment can be rationalized by their medical school training, which teaches them to keep patients alive above all else, and by the fear of becoming the target of a malpractice lawsuit.

But I place equal responsibility on us—the medical care consumers. We need to adjust our thinking about doctors, knock them off the God pedestal, and start engaging them in robust discussions of care options, including the choice to leave a condition untreated. Runaway medical costs will be reined in only when we begin to think about medical care as a “cost” instead of a “freebie” provided either by our employer or Medicare.

The post End of Life Care: Why Perform Heart Surgery on a Frail 92-Year Old? appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.

As any boomer will tell you, the first symptom of aging is that your arms shrink. Suddenly they’re just a little too short to allow you to decipher the text on your Smartphone or read menu descriptions. Many of us are in denial, so rather than bite the bullet and buy a good pair of reading glasses, we opt for the multi-pack of cheaters at Costco. Still, we’re being forced to wear specs, some of us for the first time.

A few years ago, I noticed unsettling changes in my once supple skin, which now has a consistency more like tissue paper. My formerly pristine face is marred by broken blood vessels, saggy eyelids, and lots of wrinkles. Angry looking purple bruises pop up without apparent provocation. How do I deal with it? I’ve ditched my magnifying mirror on TMI grounds and try not to fling my limbs into stationary objects.

Then my hair started to go. I mean that literally. I found myself wrapping the Goody ponytail band five or six times before it took hold of my meager wisps. Scalp was visible where there once was a thick mane of hair, and I began to scratch like a dog with fleas. I was hoping I had a treatable medical condition, but, no such luck; it was just another symptom of an aging body. The good news? Neutrogena T/Gel really works!

My latest challenge is the painful bunions on my feet. While this condition may be partly hereditary, it’s also payback for indulging my shoe fetish. But, what woman can resist the lure of cute shoes? As my penance, I’ve undertaken a public service to warn young women hobbling around in 5-inch heels that it will come back to haunt them. Of course, they turn a deaf ear to my advice. As for me, it pains me to walk, but even worse is being restricted to flats with wide toe boxes.

The old age hits just keep on coming. The downside of being a Gerontologist is that I know what to expect and can’t help but look ahead. One thing is for certain; continual bobbing and weaving will be required. Sometimes I feel like prize fighter cleverly maneuvering around my opponent to evade the knockout punch.

The post Aging Myths: You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks appeared first on AgingBeatsTheAlternative.com.