We babyboomers do range in age! Given that most of us were born between 1946 and 1964, many of us still have our parents. My own mother is 84 years old and living in assisted living but her mind is sharp and she still has quite an active life going on. This video is very clever and shows an older lady giving an invocation before a banquet. She works in a lot of other stuff!
Are We Boomers Ready to Retire?
July 19th, 2010 · Retirement
People have accused the baby boomers of being whiners almost since we were born. But just wait until we get to retirement age and discover that we don’t have nearly enough money to take care of our “golden years.” That’s going to be the ultimate generational bummer.
I’ve been gathering some data about what I’ll call, with the usual boomer understatement, the “retirement crisis.” My mentors have been Eugene Ludwig, the head of the consulting firm Promontory Financial Group, and his colleague Michael Foot. The numbers show a genuinely frightening gap between what people have saved for retirement and what they will need. And many of these studies don’t take into account last year’s stock market crash, which will make the problem worse.
Let’s start with the basic fact that only about half of Americans have any employer-sponsored retirement plan at all. The other folks will have to depend on Social Security. For a typical boomer worker, that would mean a monthly benefit of about $2,400 at a retirement age of 66 in 2020. On that, you won’t be able to afford many Starbucks lattes.
But let’s assume that our average worker is one of the lucky ones with an employer-sponsored pension. Not so long ago, that usually would have meant a “defined benefit” pension at retirement. About 80 percent of employees in medium-size and large companies had such plans in 1985, according to the Labor Department. By 2000, defined-benefit recipients totaled just 36 percent.
What’s happened is that employees have taken on the investment and actuarial risks as their employers shifted to “defined contribution” formulas. Employers now contribute to 401(k) plans that are managed by the employees. Unfortunately, workers often don’t do a good job as investors. They underestimate what they will need in retirement, and they underfund their 401(k) plans. And as for shifting out of stocks before the market tanks, well, let’s just forget about that. . . .
How bad are baby boomers at financial planning? Extremely bad, according to Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia Mitchell of the National Bureau of Economic Research. They found that more than one-quarter of boomer households thought “hardly at all” about retirement and that financial literacy among boomers was “alarmingly low.” Half could not do a simple math calculation (divide $2 million by five) and fewer than 20 percent could calculate compound interest. The NBER researchers also found that, as of 2004, the typical boomer household was holding nearly half its wealth in the form of housing equity. Uh-oh.
For a closer look at the retirement squeeze, consider a study released last month by the Congressional Research Service. Patrick Purcell analyzed the most recent data on consumer finances gathered by the Federal Reserve. He found that for the 53 percent of households that hold at least one retirement account, the median combined balance was a mere $45,000.
Hold on, you say, that figure includes some younger workers who haven’t started saving in earnest yet. Okay, for households headed by persons between the ages of 55 and 64, the median value of all retirement accounts was just $100,000. Purcell noted that for a 65-year-old man retiring last month, that $100,000 would buy an annuity that would pay a paltry $700 a month for life, based on current interest rates.
And here’s an extra bit of bad news: The Fed data used in Purcell’s study were gathered in 2007. With stock market declines since then, the median account balances are probably even lower now.
What’s going to happen? Certainly, people will try to save more. But my guess, knowing my generational cohort, is that we’ll want a government bailout to supplement our too-meager retirement savings. Unfortunately, the Treasury won’t have enough money to fund our Medicare benefits, let alone a top-up in Social Security.
A poll released in January by the National Institute on Retirement Security shows the anxiety about this issue. Because of the recession, 83 percent of those polled said they were worried about having a secure retirement; of those with a 401(k) account, only about half thought they would have enough money to retire. And 71 percent said it was harder to retire now than for previous generations.
Are you whining yet? I am. As my pension mentor Foot says: “This is a time bomb that has been building for years. The recession has made it more acute. It has pricked the bubble of hope that high investment returns could get us out of the crisis.”
The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.
RE: Our New Babyboomer Site
July 17th, 2010 · Announcements
Gigi and Catie
Hello to all my readers of Babyboomer Articles. For 4 or 5 years I had a site by this name that was hosted privately by several different people. About a year ago, it was badly hacked and could not be revived with the article submission software that I had previously used! I was really bummed out but then realized I could just create a whole new site with a WordPress Blog!
If you’re interested in submitting an article for incusion here, please just email me: chantdoc(at)gmail.com. Look forward to your articles about babyboomer health, wellness, travel, investments and retirement issues!
Thank you!!! Alice H. Cash
Babyboomers and Music: an inseparable connection
July 17th, 2010 · Uncategorized
Baby Boomers, in case you’ve never heard of us, are folks that were born between 1946 and 1964. My own family of origin happens to have five baby boomers: myself, born in 1948, a sister born in 1950, a brother born in 1952, a sister born in 1955 and a sister born in 1960. We all love music and grew up with radios, hifi’s and finally stereo’s blaring. Even though we were preacher’s kids we loved the popular music of our day. I have fond memories of my sister and me standing on the sidewalk outside our home, holding sticks as pretend microphones and singing “Standing on the Sidewalk, Watching all the Girls Go By.”
When I was about six years old I started hearing about Elvis. Now my Daddy was a preacher and in S.C. in the mid-50′s, Elvis was definitely not someone my parents wanted me listening to. I remember hearing “Jailhouse Rock” and “Blue Suede Shoes” on the radio at a neighbor’s house and feeling scandalized but I wasn’t sure why.
I turned 13 in 1961 and vividly remember listening to the Beatles sing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” I thought their music was wonderful and to my surprise, my parents let me stay home from church one Sunday night to watch the Beatles appear on Ed Sullivan. I was thrilled! I loved all the Beatles music as well as the Motown groups and most of the British invasion groups like Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five. I loved Petula Clarkand Dusty Springfield and probably day-dreamed that one day I might have a group of my own. Instead, in real life, I turned to classical music and practiced scales and Beethoven sonatas for hours a day. Still, while a piano major in college, I fell in love with the music of Elton John and Cat Stevens. I bought a book of Elton’s top hits to play on the piano when my professor wasn’t around and it brought me wicked good fun!
In 1971 I got married. You can see the wedding picture on my site http://www.babyboomerarticles.com. My husband and I both loved the music of Elton John and soon I discovered Billy Joel, the piano man, and so many others. Every decade for the boomers has had so many memorable hits. Do you remember the first time you heard “Afternoon Delight”? I do and just hearing a couple of bars of any of the above songs takes me instantly to another time and place. Music is magical! Music is mystical! Music is better than a plane ticket for taking you to another time and place when life was simpler and teenagers were in love. Let’s always remember this music and it’s messages of “Give Peace a Chance,” “Breaking Up is Hard to do,” “Up, Up and Away!”
Best Vacations for Active Babyboomers
May 30th, 2010 · Travel
Top Ten Active Baby-Boomer Vacations
Regardless of imminent retirement or 40th high school reunions, many adventure-loving boomers prefer bicycle seats to beach chairs and kayaks to cruise ships. If you are among the legions of boomers with energy to burn, here are the ten top picks for your next vacation.
Archeological Dig in the Southwest
Anyone who loves playing in the dirt, doesn’t mind hot days, and is fascinated about the Native Americans who populated the Southwest long before European contact is a candidate for a Southwest archaeological dig. Help professional archaeologists discover ancient cities beneath the sands, restore rock art, or gently probe for artifacts.
You can participate through the USDA Forest Service’s Passport in Time program. Spread throughout the United States, projects include the Vernon Creek survey in Utah, where both ancient hunter-gatherers and historic homesteaders lived. Volunteering costs nothing, but you must submit an application, be chosen, and be ready to pitch a tent or pay for accommodations nearby.
Alternatively, some field schools, such as the Totah Archaeological Project run by San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico, welcome paying nonstudents. Totah excavations center on the mysterious ancestral Puebloans (formerly called Anasazi), who built great communities and then abandoned them. The cost is $470 (fees and tuition) plus room and board in town. The best known permanent archaeological center investigating Puebloan culture is Crow Canyon, near Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.
This post can be found in its full format at http://away.com/features/top-ten-active-baby-boomer-vacations-southwest-archaeology.html
Cataract Surgery in the Baby Boomer Generation
May 3rd, 2010 · Surgery and other Medical Issues
Published on April 23, 2010
A cataract is a clouding of the natural crystalline lens of the eye. Many people develop cataracts as they age. Dr. Jeffrey Martin, a board certified cataract surgeon, states that he rarely tells a patient when it is time for cataract surgery. In most cases, patients will report difficulty with quality of life, as well as symptoms such as glare and blurred vision. Cataract surgery is not necessary until the symptoms of cataracts hamper a patient’s life style.
In Dr. Martin’s Long Island eye care practice he finds that the baby boomer generation is less likely to tolerate the symptoms of cataracts compared to past generations. Baby boomers are generally ready to fix a problem when it arises, and they also want better results after cataract surgery. Dr. Martin finds that more baby boomers want premium intraocular lens technology. Intraocular implants like Crystalens, ReSTOR, ReZoom, and Tecnis Multifocal allow most cataract patients to see far and near without the use of glasses and contact lenses.
With baby boomers approaching the age in which cataracts begin to affect quality of life, Dr. Jeffrey Martin feels that eye care physicians have to be prepared with better explanations of risks and benefits of cataract surgery, and better options for vision rehabilitation. Dr. Martin has welcomed this challenge.
Life Improvement Tips for Babyboomers
April 15th, 2010 · Retirement
Welcome to Tips for Baby Boomers where you will discover information and resources which will help you improve and enrich your life .
Here you will find strategies and techniques for baby boomers(and others)which will enable you to:
Before you read the information on this website let me tell you a little story :
It seems that the late Alex Hailey, the author of Roots, used to have a picture on his office wall of a turtle sitting on top of a six foot fence post.
The caption? ” You can be sure he didn’t get up there by himself!”.
And so it is with all of us. All of us (not just Boomers) need help, encouragement and information at certain times in our lives to start us off and, of course, to keep us going.
by Joe McHenry http://www.tips-for-boomers.com/
Boomers as grandparents: the name-calling begins!
March 26th, 2010 · Grandparenting
According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, the latest thing boomers have to worry about is what their grandchildren will call them. Grandpa and Grandma just won’t do. And you can just forget about Granny and Gramps. These names may have been OK for the Silent Generation, but boomers are anything but silent about how they abhor names that make them feel old.
Some boomers object to old-fashioned names simply because they conjure up a stereotype. Let’s face it, when you hear someone call for “Gramps,” you probably aren’t thinking of a motorcycle-riding vegetarian who still plays baseball on the company team. And yet that’s exactly the image many boomer grandfathers would like to have. In fact, one man in the article was quoted as saying he wanted to be called “Grand-dude.”
I’m not a grandmother yet, although I have a twin who will soon be a grandmother for the fourth time. She became a grandmother at 47, which happens to be the average age of first-time boomer grandparents. When we were very young, I called her K-K (her given name is Marikaye) and I had thought maybe she would revive that. But, she’s Nana and seems to like it.
Many boomer grandparents see their grandchildren as friends. They travel together, visit one another often and even communicate through social networking sites like Facebook. So, it only stands to reason these boomers would reject traditional names – there’s little that’s traditional about their relationship with their grandchildren. Add in the fact that many children now have at least four grandparents (often more, depending on divorces, remarriages and unconventional relationships).
Ten years ago, it was a liberated author who taught our kids that “Heather Has Two Mommies,” so it was only a matter of time before kids like Heather would need new terms of endearment for multiple grandparents who came in all kinds of flavors.
It would be tempting to assume that the whole name game is a consequence of boomers refusing to acknowledge their aging. But the truth is we’ve redefined everything from our jobs to our communities to the way we retire. Why shouldn’t we redefine the way we see ourselves in one of the most important roles we’ll ever have? I say “go for it.”
I still remember my own grandmother deciding upon the birth of her first great-grandchild, that she would NOT be called great anything. Never mind that she was in her late 70′s – she felt much younger and thought being called a great-grandmother was tantamount to putting up a billboard announcing she had one foot in the grave. She was known to her 12 grandchildren as Grandma Mary. So we coined a name for our children to call her: GrandMary. It worked for everyone!
Ralph and I are years away from becoming grandparents (though we do have a grand-puppy) and we sometimes tease about what we’ll be called. In fact, Friday night we talked about it because we had both read the WSJ article that day. I’m thinking I’ll go for the straightforward and fun “Boomer” as my name. I’ve dubbed him GrandBubba.
The Power of Music with Alzheimer’s Patients
March 22nd, 2010 · Surgery and other Medical Issues
For the past 20 years I have worked actively with elderly patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias as well. Let me tell you that the treatment and methods have really changed and improved during that time too.
BUY DR. CASH’S AWARD-WINNING ALZHEIMER’S CD
What brought me to this work was actually an assignment from my department chair and mentor, Dr. Joel Elkes. We were a part of an Arts and Medicine program at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and were researching the use of music and other arts interventions with a variety of illnesses and health challenges.
Dr. Elkes decided that he wanted me to do a formal scientific study on the “Therapeutic Use of Music with Alzheimer’s Patients.” We were able to get into a state-of the-art Alzheimer’s unit in Louisville, KY; a facility that was brand new and had a special locked area for Alzheimer’s patients that allowed them to safely wander and pace (as they tend to do) in a garden area outside and in a circular area inside!
Over the course of the next six months we worked with 30 actual subjects, but we also had the participation of family members who were visiting as well as medical and support staff. At the end of the study we had learned that although music certainly will not cure, or even slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, it definitely does provide a wonderful quality of life intervention that allows people to enjoy and remember the music of their “courting years!” Yes, we found that even in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s disease, after patients no long recognize their friends and family members, they can still hear the music from their “courting years” and sing-along, tap their toes, nod their heads in time to the music and sometimes, get up and dance for a minute or so with their spouse. Music is a beautiful way to temporarily “get back” some of the person’s former self…even if just for a few minutes!
So here are seven of my top tips for using music with an Alzheimer’s patient:
1. Determine what decade (approximately) would have been their “courting years.” I usually define this as the time they were 15-25 years old and were dating, falling in love, getting married and so forth.
2. Go to Google or any search engine, or any university music library and find some of the popular music for that particular decade. For example of I Google “top 40 hits of the 1930’s” I get things like “Over the Rainbow,” “Begin the Beguine,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and lots more. I get not only the names, but links to those on iTunes, Rhapsody and other sites. I also have a whole CD of this music on my website.
3. Once you have found the music for your patient or loved one, you play it for them during a quiet time during the early part of the day…before or immediately after lunch are very good times.
4. If possible, play the music for them live on a piano, guitar, autoharp or other such instrument. Live music is always more powerful than recorded. If not possible, a CD or MP3 is also good.
5. Begin to interact with the patient as you listen. sitting across from them, taking their hands, making eye contact and singing along to the music is very beneficial.
6. If possible, get the patient up out of chair or bed and move to the music with them. You don’t have to formally dance, but get them walking or stepping to the rhythms of the music.
7. Finally, repeat these same 5 or 6 familiar songs with them several times a day for at least a week. The next week you can take a different 5 or 6 songs.
You will begin to see the benefits almost immediately. Our study showed that patients who had an individualized 30-minute music session each day:
*slept better
*ate better
* were more sociable during the day
* were less combative during the day
and
*required less sleeping or calming medications
Is it worth the trouble? Absolutely! I have seen Alzheimer’s patients literally “come to life again” during their music session. Give it a try and let me know if I can help you in any way.
NOTE: These patients do NOT have Alzheimer’s.
Why Does Music Give Us Shivers of Pleasure
March 21st, 2010 · Health and Wellness
For a willing music audience, the art of drawing emotion from notes is classic.
Composers play with subtle, intricate changes and rates of change to try and elicit emotion. In recent studies, scientists found that people already familiar with the music are more likely to catch a chill at key moments:
•When a symphony turns from loud to quiet
•Upon entry of a solo voice or instrument
•When two singers have contrasting voices
People covered in goose bumps also tend to be driven more by rewards, and less inclined to be thrill- and adventure-seekers, according to research conducted at the Institute for Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine in Hanover, Germany.
“Our results suggest that chills depend very much on our ability to interpret the music,” said Oliver Grewe, a biologist and musicologist at the institute. “Music is a recreative activity. Even if it is relaxing to listen to, the listener has to recreate its meaning, the feelings it expresses. It is the listener who gives life to the emotions in music.”
The researchers’ latest findings are currently being reviewed for journal publication, while their previous research has been published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Music can do more than just give you goose bumps. A melody can:
•Ease labor pain
•Reduce the need for sedation during surgery
•Evoke strong memories
•Lessen depression
Listening to your favorite hits can shift your breathing pattern and speed up your heart rate.
Shivers down the spine even show up in brain scans, according to research at McGill University. As chills grow in intensity, bloodflow increases between areas of the brain associated with euphoria-inducing vices like food, sex, and drugs.
In the near future, the German research team plans to further study the central nervous system’s reactions to music that gives fans the chills.
By Corey Binns, Special to LiveScience
