I didn’t get it then. I am getting it now. Thank You Capitalists.
Now I recall my parent’s demise in their fifties with great sympathy. I didn’t get it then. When my Dad passed in 1981 and my mom’s life overwhelmed mine I thought the root cause for their problems was them. My father was functionally illiterate and timid. My mother was a full blown manic depressive. Along with those horrible, shattering depressions she also performed brilliant work at a fantastic rate during her manias and was a highly sought employee even before the women’s movement.
I just assumed my parents faced poverty and isolation in their last years because of the choices they had made and the difficulty they had remaining functional in our society. I don’t think that anymore. How talented they both were, my father was a cabinet maker (and sometimes sculptor) and my mother an artist and writer. They were vibrant thirty something’s in the 60’s and so very sharp, leading edge really for their generation.
But, one job loss here or a bad investment there and somehow it all slipped away in an instant. That instant was of course when each lost their jobs in the recession of the 1970’s. The timing was terrible for them, both in their late forties and with little savings. I don’t know if they knew that after it was over, when it was time to hire again the market would have passed them by mercilessly.
Waiting it out then, like now, was the only option and they scraped by. When the economy did finally turn around and hiring began again t was too late for them Each were now in their early fifties and without a solid resume for the past four or five years, a negative at any age, but a death knell for those on the downside of the age curve. I didn’t understand then. I knew how talented and reliable they were and I blamed them for their inability to get a job. Ah, foolish child! I regret that belief. I hope I never told them that.
Any jobs they had after that final "downsizing" in the 70’s were contract labor services. In the end my Dad was doing "piecework" – drilling 1mm holes in small turquoise nuggets for jewelers. The day he died the little drill press had been wiped clean... along with his fishing tackle box, which also had new felt placed in the small compartments and the lures laid out in a line. That scene I include because it remains in my mind as the ultimate expression of my father’s quiet and enduring desperation. He was 53 and died of a heart attack that afternoon. I won’t belabor the sad picture of my mom’s remaining life and from my viewpoint, one none of us should have to live.
I am think today I understand. I have a story of education, hard work, employment, success, as does my husband. But we woke up three months ago to find that pretty much that is taken away even though we are quite fiscally conservative. With my job loss and my husband’s pending loss (a 40/60% chance today) we can only hope time will not be so cruel to us so quickly as my parents. We will have been married 27 years this January, He is 56 and I 52.
Based on the past behavior of our free market economy/government along with a study of our future economy based on the now revealed (at least to some degree) complete corruption of unregulated financial markets I am afraid the over 50 crowd with the not so recent resume lose. In "Cheneyese." we lose BIG TIME. And, an even greater loss for those in the 60 plus crowd. This could be a future that none of us imagined. I am preparing now to accept it and adjust, not fight it. Just accept less and try and find another life to pursue.
Even if Obama can pull off international resolutions to our wars, provide an infrastructure stimulus, fix healthcare, fix public education, fix social security, fix loss of manufacturing, fix immigration, fix social conservatism... it doesn’t sound like there is any fix for age discrimination. Or the situation we find ourselves in personally. I would like to see legislation to make ‘age" a protected class requiring strict judicial review rather than the current midlevel scrutiny. I don’t hear anything at all about our aging class in any inclusive way besides how to keep the pharmaceuticals flowing.......ouch.