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Show Caught between older and youngergenerations, the middle-aged feel ignored or forgotten. * Il feel that my life has been wasted,” complains a 54-yearold suburban housewife. “T think my work is becoming meaningless. I wish I could sions that beset them. People in this transitional generation tend to have doubts about themselves; they wonder if they should have taken another path years before; they worry that they no longer havethe flexibility to be able to do something of real value,” change direction. Even though they are sighs a 49-year-old business executive. percent of U.S. personal income and Laments like these, more commontoday than most people realize, are indicative of a middle-age syndrome that is affecting a large percentage of in the generation that earns about 60 are the decision makers of society, they’re afraid they’ve been doing something wrong. the 42 million Americans who are in The oddest part of the problem is the fact that experts differ on what mid- their middle years. They feel—with good reason—that they, have been passed over, relegated to a forgotten or, at best, taken-forgranted group. Much of our national attention and energies are devoted to the needs and problems of young people and of seniorcitizens, Indeed, when the between 40 years ‘old and 60; others, citing medical advances, use a 45-65 yardstick. Psychiatrist James A. Brussel says it’s “. . . the twilight of one era and the dawn of another.” A popular theory is that middle age has arrived when you're told, “You don’t look a middle-aged are referred to as a unit, day over 40” or when younger people it is usually as an object of criticism. It at the office start calling you “Sir.” is the middle generation that has been blamed for war and the state of our ecology and has been accused of being bigots, status seekers, and materialists. But veing ignored or attacked from the outside is net half so disturbing to thewmiddle-aged as the internal confu- die age really is. Some call it the range Most authorities, however, feel middie age should be considered state of mind rather than a chronological age. Prof. Bernice L. Neugarten, a University of Chicago psychologist, who has been studying the middle-years phenomenon as a distinct stage of human development, says middle age comes muchlater to the well-educated American than it does to the blue-collar worker. For example, a construction worker who gauges his age by physical strength may sense he’s getting middle-aged by about 35, But a man who has completed his education later, has become a parent later, and feels he can still make changes in the course of his life, may not feel middle-aged until he is well past 45. which allegedly is experienced by men as well as women? The latest psychi- But whatever a middle-generation man’s (or woman’s) actual age is has little to do with his attitude towardsit. Typically, Ralph T., a 51-year-old engineer, successful and happily married, discovers that his drive and courage under tension are not what they used to be. He finds he is plagued by inde- crisis (“Who am I?”), much like that and grayer. At home, Ralph is irritable, and blameshis wife for his frustrations. He showshis resentment either in long silences or outbursts of temper. Francisco. “With the clock running ou!, cision. He notices he’s getting balder “At my age,” hetells his doctor, “I thought things would slow down and life would be easier, butit isn’t.” Ralph is undergoing what psychia- trists have tersely termed “ a second adolescence.” Is this syndrome indicative of the familiar climacteric or “change oflife,” atric thinking is that the biological-psychological impact of “change of life” is much overplayed andaffects only the emotionally immature. In a survey of women by Professor Neugarten, 96 4 percent claimed that menopause was relatively minor event for them. Some authorities have called the whole middle-age syndrome an identity among teen-agers, but with different components. i “The middle-age crisis is triggered by a realization that there is not too much timeleft,” reports Br. Marjorie Lowen thal, social psychologist at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San a middle ager must decide whether {0 keep moving outwardor to turn inward in in order to survive—a sort of death life. You can keep going, or you ca” find yourself spending more and more time in front of the television set. Jr, @ However, Dr, Orville Brim, t of leading social scientist and presiden the Russeil Sage Foundation, maintains that a “crisis” implies that something happensand then is all over. |
