Midlife can be broken down into three phases: early midlife (35-50) which is often the challenging Sandwich Generation period, core midlife (50-60) when you’re joyously emerging from your “midlife chrysalis,” and later midlife (60-75), when life satisfaction grows precipitously because a newfound freedom has emerged. Of course, there are so many variables in our lives that this life stage theory doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s been a model we’ve seen with more than 6,000 graduates of our MEA program.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, while everyone else was reading the latest Stephen King or Danielle Steel novel over the holidays, I was reading an obscure white paper, “Emerging Elderhood: Transitions from Midlife.” And, all of a sudden, I digested an alternative life stage model based upon the impressive scholarship of the authors, Karen Skerrett, Marcia Spira, and Jasmine Chandy. They see “emerging elderhood” as comprising both “core midlife,” “later midlife,” and maybe beyond.
While they pay tribute to development psychologist Erik Erikson’s adult life stage model, they believe it may be outdated due to our increasing longevity, more complex modern life, and the fact that there’s so much more diversity in how we live our lives today compared to when “The Game of Life” board game was created. Their research subjects expressed confusion and angst given that there’s no 21st-century roadmap for our 50+ years. Recurrent themes they heard revolved around fears of isolation, invisibility, and loss of purpose. They quote my friend, Dr. Louise Aronson’s description that a person’s arrival at older adulthood is “less a switch thrown than a series of ill-defined thresholds crossed.” As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but believe that part of MEA’s mission is defined by this white paper as we help people to navigate their transitions, cultivate purpose, and own their wisdom while embracing what gets better with age.
They suggest “Emerging Elderhood” (55-75) “is defined as a perception of and reaction to the realities of the aging process. Emerging Elderhood is the time when individuals navigate the reworking of family and sociocultural identities, inclusive of losses and in anticipation of older adulthood…We identify six unique tasks that we have found to represent both the challenges and opportunities for continued development.
- acknowledgment and acceptance of the realities of aging;
- normalization of associated concerns about the future;
- active reminiscence and possible longing for the past;
- accommodation to physical, cognitive, and social changes;
- search for new emotionally meaningful goals; and
- an expansion of the capacity to manage ambiguity and complexity.
The potential outcome of these tasks is a future orientation with a more realistic, accommodating, and hopeful perception of aging for both Emerging Elders and overall society.”
In reading their paper, I couldn’t help but feel a kinship with these three women academics as I realized MEA is a living laboratory for everything they’ve written. They say, “As family and work life shifts, many individuals emerge from midlife with questions about personal identity and sense of purpose. Individuals face uncertainty as the rhythms of their lives change, and they realize they have accomplished many of the goals around which they had organized their lives. Emerging Elderhood is the time of life that transcends the concept of a social clock. It is a transition that is associated with psychological and social disequilibrium but frequently ends in enhanced well-being.”
Reading their paper has encouraged me to learn more and to potentially create an “Emerging Elder” workshop in 2025 in Santa Fe. What do you think? Would you be interested in such a workshop?
-Chip