Bad me : - )

I have been so busy writing about politiks and aging - that I stopped posting to some of my other blogs...

I'd say I'll post more regularly - but then I will only feel guilty if I don't ...so I'll ust say I will try.

I am in a writing mode anyway as I want to get a few books out...and since one is on aging - this blog can be a place to post some of that prose...

Here is a question - what is mid-life or middle age?

Most books use the time frame of 34 to 60 for middle age...

For starters - what do a 34-year-old and a 60-year-old have in common? Why are they in the same category? Like other age based divisions I am betting that in a few years there will be so much research on people over 35 that chapters will be broken down into the 30's, 40' and 50's, etc.

The USA culture is age and calendar based - especially when dealing with child rearing issues. But now I think that we use ages and calendars for all our developmental divisions as well.

What if we used more of a transition definition for moving from one stage to another? I’m not sure how it would look or what the parts would be called - but I am working on it. Age divisions are so easy to use since we do not need to name them except by number.

But - now that families are having children into their 40's and even 50's [and 60's] it changes the idea of a common type of “middle” adulthood. Nowadays, careers for those in this age “range” are put on hold for many reasons, new careers are started; and in the last 5 or so years, jobs have disappeared, grown “children” have moved back home and what was once considered the “prime” of life can be a very different matter in this current century.

Added to all the above, people in this age range may have parents who are still alive and who may need their attention.

One reason the research has to change is that If you don’t know what to ask or look for - you keep expecting and then finding the same things. We expected older people to be gray haired, walking with walkers, sad, reflective, almost ready to die.....so that was what was found. But now we know older people who are active, in school, working and doing much the same as people in the 40's, 50's and 60's.

We "older" psychologists are still around, still mentally alert and some of us ski, kayak, sail and bike : - ) - a far different picture of an "older" person than what was portrayed not that long ago...