The later years in the lives of these “wounded” men and women can be “redemptive.” As older adults, we can do a better job in relating to our children because we may now have more time to devote to them, and because we may have also transformed ourselves in terms of interpersonal sensitivity and orientation to the issues of control and authority. In some cases, the issue is not determining when and how we serve as parents to our grown children; rather, it’s about the ongoing responsibilities we have as active parents to a child who is disabled, who faces profound emotional problems, who is struggling with addiction problems, or who has simply never left home and parental attachments (“failure to launch”). Unlike the temporary challenge of Generativity One parenting that faced Sally, we find other parents like these who must engage in an ongoing manner with their adult children.
Generativity One Lingers: Six Options
There are essentially six ways in which senior men and women address the issue of “retirement”; in our framework this involves finding how to engage or disengage from the major projects in our lives. Several books and articles have been written on this topic. Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald Miller make profound observations about the process of moving from “age-ing” to “sage-ing” (Schachter-Shalomi and Miller, 1997), while Marc Freedman describes the “encore” careers in which mature men and women engage (Freedman, 2008).
We commend the inspiration and insights offered by these authors, but we propose there are more options than they identify—and that the decisions being made by mature adults are often much more complex and challenging than the processes they describe. We here briefly identify and analyze each of the six options and connect each to the challenges of shifting Generativity One roles.
Option One—Shifting Careers: This is the option being described by Schachter-Shalomi, Ronald Miller, and Marc Freedman. It involves shifting the skills and knowledge that one has acquired during their “working years” to a second career (often moving from a for-profit organization to a not-for-profit organization). This often involves a transition from Generativity One to Generativity Two, Three or Four.
Option Two—Remaining in Same Professional Career: This is the option chosen by many mature adults who operate within a specific profession. They continue to work as physicians, architects, psychologists, accountants, veterinarians, etc. It is in the professions that seniority is often viewed as an asset rather than a liability. The 60-year-old physician is seen by his patients as being “wiser” than the young doc straight out of medical school (think Dr. Welby), just as the 45-year-old man seeking a psychotherapist is much more likely to choose the 55-year-old shrink than her 32-year-old associate.
In a few professions in which technology plays a major role (engineering, architecture, geology), there may be a preference from the younger person; but even in these instances those who are new to the profession will seek out a mentor or, at the very least, want to associate with an older person who has gained a strong reputation and knows the professional landscape.
The key to being successful and satisfied with this career option is the challenge of finding a way to remain professionally vital, despite often doing the same kind of work and facing the same kind of problems each day. How does one avoid burnout as a college professor who has taught history for forty years and sat on every major university committee at least once or twice?
