55 And Faking Normal: An Ongoing Conversation With Elizabeth White
I first learned about Elizabeth White when I read “Unemployed, 55 and Faking Normal,” an article she wrote for NextAvenue using the same say-it-all title as her self-published book. As White says to pretty much anyone who will listen, it’s time for millions of people to go public about their financial struggles at a time when they are expected to be ticking off items on their bucket list, and yes, having encore careers about something bigger than themselves.
“No one I knew was traveling the world,” White told me. “If the only models are those who have the means, access and resources, then what does purpose and meaning look like for the majority who don’t have that? People are grieving and scared about what’s happened, but in this climate now, any kind of failure brands you as a loser.”
Any time I talk about the encore movement and the power of older people to be change agents, people ask about how to marry the idea of purpose and impact with making a living. So I know White’s work hits a nerve. It certainly speaks to me.
Since her book came out, White has had a TEDx talk with more than 100,000 views and three appearances on the PBS NewsHour (most recent here). She’s become a public voice and a counselor for the millions of midlifers who relate to the sense of shame and fear she’s identified. In this new work, she has clearly found her own purpose and impact.
White and I were introduced about six months ago and have had an ongoing conversation via telephone, social media and email ever since. Below is an edited version of these conversations.
You talk about “opening up the kimono” and having honest conversations about how hard this life stage is for the millions who haven’t saved enough for retirement. Why is that kind of honesty important?
All of this pretending to be all right when we’re not is just crazy making. Many of us in our fifties, sixties and beyond put on a brave face because we think we’re the only ones facing these life-altering financial challenges — when, in fact, there are millions of us. The media likes these cheery midlife reinvention stories. All of this positive-aging happy-talk keeps people in the closet.
The truth is most of us just don’t know any lawyers-turned-pastry chefs. A lot of the people we know are looking at downward mobility and a work-for-life proposition. But we’re not talking about it or what our real options are going forward. Shame keeps us silent and isolated. It also disempowers. And we can’t begin to address what we don’t acknowledge. That’s why honest conversations are so important.
What helps?
One of the things that has helped me is having a Resilience Circle, a small group of people I can go to without my mask on. Every Saturday, for example, I meet one of the people in my circle at Potter’s House, this little café I love and think of as the neighborhood living room. We check in with each other, tell the truth about what is going on with us — the beautiful and the unbeautiful.
This friend and others have made a huge difference in my sense of well-being and not feeling alone. I am sturdier because of them. The scaffolding they provide has allowed me to see and act on possibilities I might not have been able to see or act on otherwise.
You say that race, ethnicity and gender are important pieces of this reality. Can you elaborate a bit?
The economic risks for women are magnified in old age. Our lifetime earnings are generally less than men’s. And this wage gap is worse if you are a woman of color. Women also typically live longer than men and thus have more “retirement” years to fund so we’re often faced with living longer on less. And if we lose our spouses or partners to disability, death or divorce, we face a much greater risk of being old and poor in America.
And for people of color, the racial and ethnic divide in retirement security is widening. Black and brown families are among the least prepared for retirement due to both the pay gap and wealth gap. Black-white wage inequality, for example, is the worst it’s been in four decades. And with fewer financial resources to depend on, there’s just less to set aside for retirement savings. Sixty-five percent of white families have retirement savings compared to 41 percent of black families and 26 percent of Latino families.
And when a family lives close to the edge as many families of color do, all it takes is one unexpected event — a major car repair or medical emergency — to use up what little money a family has managed to save.
I’m really attracted to the idea of “smalling up,” the silver-lining approach you suggest to those struggling financially at mid- or later- life. Can you give a few examples of how to do that?
A lot of us over 50 will never again earn the kind of money we did in our younger years. The economics of aging is forcing millions of us to rethink our consumption choices, and to reconsider what is enough. The question I pose in my book is how do we, in this new normal of financial vulnerability, live richly textured and connected lives on modest incomes? How do we “small up?”
Smalling up is more than just living within our means. Lots of us are already doing that. Smalling up is figuring out what we need in our lives to feel truly grounded and content and then figuring out how to have some of those things, even if only in small doses. If we are used to a certain standard of living, this change can be stark and uncomfortable, especially at first.
Smalling up is really about determining what matters and what our real priorities are. It’s also about doing what we need to do survive. And it is looking at those choices through the lens of strategy not failure. I took in a roommate for a couple of months last year to make ends meet. Do you think I wanted a roommate? I didn’t. I did what I had to do.
I smalled up recently when, I took a 10-hour Greyhound bus ride to a (practically free) conference I really wanted to attend. I am not going to tell you that taking that bus ride was better than the Acela train. It wasn’t. But the truth is it wasn’t bad either I got to do something I wanted to do at a price I could afford.
It’s the same with the tacky little free gym I go to to work out. Is it as nice as the boutique gym I used to go to? Not by a long shot, but being fit and maintaining my weight is important to me and that gym (and jumping around to free Youtube videos) helps me do that. Smalling up is focusing on outcomes and the minimum you need to have good quality of life. And it allows that what you need may be very different than what I need.
What does purpose, meaning and impact look like for those who are worried about their own economic futures?
The conversation about the future has to start where people are. For some of us that means mourning the loss of the lives we thought we’d have, but now know we can’t afford. For others it means facing some hard realities about downsizing or accepting that job offer that pays a fraction of what we’re used to earning.
But I don’t think we each have to walk this path by ourselves. There are millions of us grappling with the same questions, the same challenges. That’s why I am a big proponent of us coming together in small groups to share resources and information, to see that we’re not alone, and to explore ways we can support each other and work together. I believe that from this base we can rediscover what has meaning for us and what is ours to do at this stage of life.
And when I say work together I am including entrepreneurial endeavors. There’s so much sidelined boomer talent. Just because we’re facing a “don’t- want-you job market” doesn’t mean we have to reject each other too. In my own work I am always looking for ways to collaborate with other older adults.
What’s your hope with this book?
I’ve just come back from Encore Grand Rapid’s “We are the Experts of Us” conference. There I got to hear first-hand from many people who have read my book and the new conversation on retirement it sparked. I am just over the moon about that. I couldn’t know what would happen when I wrote this book and it means a lot to me that so many people seem to resonate.
What I hope for is that everyone who could benefit from my book is able to access it. I don’t want cost to be a barrier. That’s why I’d like to see my book carried in more libraries. Libraries have done this total pivot and turned into these wonderful community centers. I’d love for libraries to become the go to venue for the Resilience Circles my book promotes.
I’d also like to work with workforce agencies and job centers to get my book into the hands of long-term, unemployed older adults who are feeling beat up and beat down looking for work, despite the stellar job reports.
Marci Alboher is a leading authority on the changing face of work and a Vice President at Encore.org, a nonprofit making it easier for millions of people to pursue second acts for the greater good.
Elizabeth White is also featured in this recent story by Debbie Galant in NextAvenue about Atlantic’s recent New Old Age conference.
