Planning for old age

Get wiser, or at least give God something to laugh about

You could get wiser, if you wanted to.

I have a plan for retirement: Sell our house, downsize, and use much of the money that we take off the table to travel. When our daughter-in-law gets her PhD and tenure, we will buy into a continuing care retirement facility near wherever they end up, sell our downsized house, and move there. I love to write and plan to do it forever, although the ratio of creative writing to bill-paying writing is likely to change over time. I will supplement my income with my savings starting at age 59 ½, followed by my small university pension, Social Security, and a deferred annuity as I get older and my writing income falls.

I’m set. Of course, my husband has not bought into this plan.

He has plenty of company with this. The real obstacle to a good retirement isn’t money, or health, it’s inertia. When you have a child, you know that you have a legal obligation to care for them for 18 years. Your role is specified by clear legal and societal norms and your deadline is in place. (A friend who has worked with homeless youth says that one of the biggest risk factors is turning 18, when parents can legally kick their kids out of the house.)

The obligation to retire is completely different. For most people, it is something that happens to them, not something that meets a specific plan. Dianne Feinstein made it to 90 without ever retiring, but most people end up retiring earlier than they expect to. Some people make it to their 90s with few health problems. Some people don’t. Even if you have a plan, life interferes.

I just finished a book by Steven Petrow called Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old: A Highly Judgmental, Unapologetically Honest Accounting of All the Things Our Elders Are Doing Wrong (Amazon affiliate link). The first part of it is a list of things to avoid doing, starting now, no matter how old you are. Don’t limit yourself to friends your own age. Don’t lie about your age, even on dating apps. Don’t talk about your aches and pains; change the conversation when your friends do.

The second part of the book has profound advice rooted in Petrow’s experience of dealing with his aging parents. The TL;DR is to address the reality of aging because inertia leads to problems. For example, it’s better to deal with hearing loss head-on rather than lose social connections. Get the cane or walker if you need it rather than risking a debilitating fall or staying home because it’s not safe for you to leave the house.

Ageism and ableism are real, but they won’t go away if we live in denial. I picked up Petrow’s book thinking that it would be funny, and instead I found that it inspired a bunch of new items for my to-do list.

I love the Yiddish phrase “mann tracht, un Gott lacht”: man plans, and God laughs. The rhyme is lost in the English version, but the sentiment survives. But maybe God could use a good laugh. Maybe our attempts at plans will make Him so mirthful that the world will end up a better place.

What’s your plan?