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Until recently, at this age, we began to prepare for retirement, and today we are preparing for a new, no less bright round of life. Why has everything changed so much and what are our prospects in modern reality?
Life expectancy is increasing, so our old age will begin 25 years later than our parents. And at the age of 50, only the flowering of maturity awaits us. There are fewer and fewer people who want to devote themselves exclusively to caring for their grandchildren at this age. Sociologists talk about a paradigm shift, and the current 50-year-olds are called innovators.
Before our eyes, they invent their own canons, destroy the old ideas about what is important and right. Why is the turning point right now and who are they, the creators of the new reality?
old story
The attitude to age is dictated by the society, its history and culture. Let’s take a closer look at how old Soviet films (for example, “It was in Penkovo”, “Wedding in Malinovka”) depict fifty-year-olds: these are village grandparents with a touch of comedy. Why were they laughing?
There is an explanation for this, says psychologist Ekaterina Antropova: when the revolution took place in 1917, the youngest country in the world appeared with the youngest people who built a new type of state. Representatives of the older generations were perceived as “fragments of the past.”
The USSR was the youngest in the world, and this was even reflected in the principles of construction of the 1920s and 30s – houses were built without elevators: whoever can climb to the fifth floor with bags – well done, whoever can’t – his problems.
For the first time, maturity was deprived of such an important attribute as wisdom – new generations did not need it.
Ironically, when perestroika began, the builders of communism were already elderly. And they have already been declared ignorant retrogrades. In addition, we have experienced not only a political, but also a technological revolution: we all moved to live on the Internet, and young people master it much faster than older ones.
Our contemporary does not have to listen to her mother-in-law to learn how to raise children, bake bread and run a household. If she earns well, she will hire a nanny and a housekeeper. And if it’s not very good, then he will watch a few videos on YouTube and find out everything. It is not surprising that people do not want to grow old, so they lose not only youth, but also authority.
Why do we need new 30
“Personal development, experience and memory of the body are the trinity on which people rely in maturity and what they can share with the young,” Ekaterina Antropova reflects. – There are a lot of young boys and girls around who are very tuning themselves. And often this is done not for pleasure, but from the horror of their age.
Maturity gives you the opportunity to ask yourself basic questions: what is the most important thing in life? Without what can I not consider it held? They are difficult to answer in youth, but by the age of forty we already know ourselves well and can get answers.
We also begin to understand our limitations, to guess that we are no longer destined to become a rock star, an astronaut, a model, a nuclear physicist … We can focus on the main goals of life, but the horizon of possibilities is narrowing.
Sometimes it’s hard to accept, and we brush aside fearful thoughts, refusing to acknowledge the power of time over us.
“If at fifty we try to convince ourselves and others that we are still thirty, this indicates a lack of contact with our internal processes,” says psychoanalytic psychotherapist Grigory Gorshunin. “There are many of us who are afraid to change, start a new business, relationships, move to a new place, who postpone the decision to such an extent that it is already clear: there will never be any new thirty, or even new forty.
In my opinion, it will be useful for us to accept our age, to look at life with a sober look, based on internal changes. Age imposes restrictions, but also gives new opportunities: at fifty we are more experienced, wiser, less likely to make hasty decisions.
Psychological maturity is connected with the fact that we can take care of ourselves, become our own parents. We stop hoping that the world will be a big breastfeeding for us. Growing up, we begin to share something necessary with others, with the world, and not just wait for something good to be done to us.
Heroes of the New Age
Ekaterina Antropova draws a collective portrait of today’s fifty-year-olds, whose youth fell on perestroika. “We can distinguish two main groups,” she says. – The first is “encapsulated” people: they listen to “Retro FM”, remember ice cream for seven kopecks and feel sad. Among them, most of all are those who, by the age of fifty, have become social invisible.
The second group are fearless ringleaders who in the nineties grabbed checkered bags and went shuttle, opened their first business or found something new in their usual profession. Now they are the driving force that brings about great changes in society.”
These modern revolutionaries are ready to fight for their rights
“In many socially important areas, they have already changed the rules of the game: for example, the involvement of young grandmothers in the process of raising grandchildren has noticeably decreased,” says sociologist Alexandra Fateeva. “New grandmothers do not want to say goodbye to career achievements, reconsider habits and replace a babysitter in the family.”
This has been proven by comparative studies conducted in more than 20 European countries, including Russia. Why it happens? The fact is that the “debut” of Russians as grandparents falls on about 50 years. The difference between the end of active parenthood and the appearance of the first grandchild is only three years in Russia. At 45, Russian women stop raising children, and at 48, grandchildren often appear.
“I have two grandchildren, but there is no need to babysit them every day,” says 55-year-old Alevtina. “My daughter and her husband live separately, and they manage on their own. I come to play with the little ones, read books to them, take walks, do what we like.” The rest of the time, Alevtina plays other roles: she is a wife, a specialist, a housewife. She is three years away from retirement, but even then she does not plan to become a pensioner.
The appearance of grandchildren has ceased to be a central event in the lives of many mature women. As for 50-year-old men, they are farther away from retirement, and their social role in our society traditionally depends little on the family one.
Love and money
We are seeing a big age shift, which has many reasons. Ekaterina Antropova lists them: “Firstly, over the past 20–30 years, the quality of medical care has improved significantly, life expectancy has grown. Secondly, there has been no famine in the last half century, we are bigger and taller than our grandparents, and generally healthier. If the ancestors thought about how to find food, then we have another problem: how not to eat too much.
Full of strength, fifty-year-olds are ready not only to work, but also to love. Recently, clinical psychologist Vita Malygina, together with colleagues, conducted a study of sexuality in adulthood. It turned out that 99% of respondents aged 40 and older are having sex.
Moreover, more than 95% of them not only find the strength and time for sex (at least twice a month, and most – several times a week), but sincerely enjoy it, experiment and change partners. At the same time, the study participants (mostly women) work more than 45 hours a week, study and find time for hobbies.
Marketers from different countries noticed the active position of fifty-year-olds
“Representatives of mature age are set up for eternal youth, but these are just traps that help sell more goods,” warns Grigory Gorshunin. “It is clear that if we sell anti-aging cosmetics to women of forty or fifty years old, then we will sell it more, because otherwise the goal of looking twenty years younger is obviously unattainable.”
Today there are more and more opportunities to change the body, to prolong youth (or its illusion) with the help of hormones and plastic surgery. But if we hope to stop nature and time, then sooner or later we will be disappointed. After all, we are not omnipotent, although we use technological developments that improve the quality of life.
However, there is also the opposite phenomenon: women are no longer embarrassed by their gray hair and age-related wrinkles.
end of career: step into the unknown
Experienced professionals with a wealth of knowledge, responsible and hardworking, often find themselves unclaimed in today’s labor market. This situation is changing, but slowly. What can we do in the meantime?
According to Rosstat, from 2005 to 2020, the number of people aged 50 and over in the labor market increased by 13%. And they all try to stay in their places and in no case change jobs. Job changes among “pre-pensioners” (men aged 45-60 and women 45-55 years old) are of great concern, a study by HeadHunter showed.
52% of them believe that finding a job is difficult. Almost the same number (51%) are sure that they will not be able to find a job in their specialty with decent pay. And almost all respondents consider their age to be the real reason for refusals from employers.
Until the situation changes, we will have to take care of ourselves. How? “Get ready in advance,” answers the psychologist, goal-setting specialist Larisa Inozemtseva. – Approaching retirement age, analyze your reality, ask yourself questions: what will I live on, with whom? This is the first step.
The second is to reconsider limiting beliefs (“I can’t learn new things”). Often we don’t want to change because we don’t know what to do if our lives are no longer managed. But we can become our own managers if we learn to set ourselves goals, not necessarily large ones, and find the tools to solve them.”
But many managers, heads of corporations and departments do not know how to apply themselves. The existential crisis, which for many occurs at the age of 50+, forces us to rethink achievements and goals. You may want to dedicate yourself to an activity you love that you didn’t have time for before.
However, there is a category of “lucky ones” – sociologist Anna Shadrina distinguishes two groups of women in the Russian Federation who can afford to do their usual work until old age: “These are the self-employed, who have created their own business, and university professors, who are less prone to ageism. People aged 50 and older with higher education and high qualifications feel more confident in the labor market.”
Do not stop
Mature innovators take care of health and careers, and retirees participate in the Active Longevity program, which offers not only yoga and Nordic walking classes, but also retraining and volunteering. This is a global trend: the WHO and the leading states of the world support the concept of a dignified old age included in social processes. And along with this, our attitude towards maturity is changing.
“In the near future we will look for answers to difficult questions: how to live after the loss of a partner, how to resolve conflicts with children when they think that we make the wrong decisions and deprive us of our legal capacity, how to cope with memory impairment,” Ekaterina Antropova is convinced. “The problems of fifty-year-olds will be reflected in different types of art, and this will lead to the emergence of creative models of life at this age.”
Mature women are more determined to express their individuality, they finally have the right to vote. The glass ceiling in careers still exists, age limits for women have not gone away, and they are tougher than for men. But shifts are already happening.