60 on Up: The Truth About Aging in America | 
| Author: Lillian Rubin
Publisher: Beacon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 220424
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0807029289
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.26
EAN: 9780807029282
ASIN: 0807029289
Publication Date: September 3, 2007
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Condition: NEW! clean & crisp!
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Product Description
The Golden Years? You've got to be kidding. Part serious, part comic, these words reflect our ambivalence about aging in the twenty-first century. Is it a blessing or a curse? With refreshing candor and characteristic wit, best-selling author Lillian Rubin looks deeply into the issues of our graying nation, into the triumph of our new longevity, and the pain, both emotional and physical, that lies right alongside it.
Through thought-provoking interviews, research, and unflinching analysis of her own life experience, Dr. Rubin offers us a much needed roadmap for the uncharted territory that lies ahead. In a country where seventy-eight million Baby Boomers are moving into their sixties and economists worry that they're "the monster at the door" who will break the Social Security bank and trash the economy, where forty percent of sixty-five-year-olds are in the "sandwich generation" taking care of their parents while often still supporting their children, and where Americans eighty-five and older represent the fastest growing segment of the population, we cannot afford to pretend that our expanded old age is just a walk on the sunny side of the street, that "sixty is the new forty," "eighty the new sixty," and that we'll all live happily ever after.
In this wide-ranging book, Dr. Rubin examines how the new longevity ricochets around our social and emotional lives, affecting us all for good and ill from adolescence into senescence. How, she asks, do sixty-somethings fill another twenty, thirty, or more years, post retirement, without a "useful" identity or obvious purpose? What happens to sex as we move through the decades after sixty? What happens to long-cherished friendships as life takes unexpected turns? What happens when at seventy, instead of living the life of freedom we dreamed about, we find ourselves having to take care of Mom and Dad? What happens to the inheritances boomers have come to expect when their parents routinely live into their eighties and beyond and the cost for their care soars?
In tackling the subject of aging over a broad swath of the population, cutting across race, class, gender, and ability, Lillian Rubin gives us a powerful and long-overdue reminder that all of us will be touched by the problems arising from our new longevity. The best hope is to understand the realities we face thoroughly and to prepare?as individuals and as a society?for a long life from sixty on up.
"In eleven books spanning more than three decades, Lillian Rubin has eloquently described the hopes, fears, and sometimes the anguish that people feel as they negotiate their way through major social changes, such as the revolution in gender roles and sexuality and the destabilization of work-life by globalization. Now she tackles the personal and social consequences of our extended life spans. Perceptive, compassionate, and painfully honest, this book will enthrall readers of any age."
?Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
"The thing about Lillian Rubin?and this book is no exception?is that you can depend on her, as a writer and thinker, to tell the truth. If you want the real, insightful, unvarnished, necessary, truth on aging, it's right here in 60 On Up. And, as always, it's a treasure."
?Peggy Orenstein, author of Waiting for Daisy
"Once upon a time we had rites of passage to ease our way from adulthood into old age. Now we have Lillian Rubin. 60 on Up is everything most books on aging are not. It is not sentimental, not filled with stale advice to keep busy, avoid calories, and think young. Instead, it offers authentic wisdom about the complexities of aging. Its fiercely realistic but tender explorations are strangely comforting because they relieve us of the burden of denial and give us a vision of facing our later years with dignity and courage. It is a wonderful book, filled with the poignant beauty of all transient life."
?Sam Keen
"Fiercely honest, bracing yet compassionate, 60 on Up begins a national conversation that has been waiting to happen. We Baby Boomers NEED this book!"
?Michael Kimmel, Professor of Sociology, SUNY, author of Manhood in America
"For anyone in their fifties, sixties, or beyond, a new way to think about the rest of your life."
?Alix Kates Shulman
"Rubin's masterful account of growing old in the United States is as insightful as it is troubling. She explores topics we would rather not think about with the unflinching honesty that is her trademark. From the loss of beauty to the development of social invisibility, nothing escapes her analytic eye."
?Katherine Newman, author of The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America
"A desperately needed antidote to our ever-growing cultural aversion to aging."
?Rick Taylor for Feminist Review
"Once you get past media-fed fantasies about aging, you see that in our society, getting old means turning invisible. And Rubin, 83, should know. Author of 11 books on an array of human predicaments, she's now written a sharp, brazenly honest expose for the 78 million baby boomers who will grow old over the next two decades and can reasonably expect to survive into their 90s."
?Cathleen Medwick, O Magazine, September 1, 2007
"Rubin, in her early 80s and a very good writer, explores the good news/bad news about greater longevity of today's Americans."
?David Mehegan, Boston Globe, September 4, 2007
"A skillful writer, Rubin writes of herself and her husband in an honest, sympathetic way, keeping her humanity and a sense of humor but at the same time maintaining her psychological and research-oriented focus."
?Story Circle Book Reviews
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Don't waste your time May 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I decided to read this book to learn helpful ways to think about aging and to develop ideas for how to grow old with grace, but realism, too. Ms. Rubin's "truth" appears to be: die young if you can; people who are reasonably happy in old age are either lying, demented or part of an extremely small minority; beware of younger people, most of whom hate the aged; and get ready to watch your body die. She offers nothing positive, no insights into how to make life better during our later years. Absolutely no ideas or hope. The book is humorless and utterly depressing. I think Ms. Rubin, sociologist and psychotherapist, needs some care and love and therapy herself!
 Skillful Writer, A Book With Hard Questions December 30, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Psychologist Lillian B. Rubin is in her early eighties; her husband, over ninety, has early stage dementia. In 60 On Up, Rubin gives us an honest, hard look at the realities--especially the physical difficulties--of being old. She feels that Americans are in denial about the difficulties of aging. She wants to shake her husband when he says,"I'm lucky to be able to do as well as I can." I, on the other hand, would want to hug him and give him credit for his positive attitude. I focus on what we are able to gain as we age if we seek it in spite of the inevitable physical difficulties. I am not eighty, however, and my spouse is not ninety.
That said, 60 on Up is a book worth reading. Rubin focuses on the prevalence of ageism in America... "Until ageism comes under some kind of public scrutiny with a political movement to match, euphemisms like 'senior citizen' will be met with disdain by both the old and the society in which they live." Here is a battle that needs to be fought.
Rubin points out that our new longevity has costs, not only to those of us who are considered old, but to our children and our grandchildren as well. We may have wisdom, but who, she asks, wants to hear it? (Perhaps she has also unconsciously accepted some of the premises of ageism.) She acknowledges that seeking a spiritual life, a transcendent life, is a valid goal; however, she questions whether we, as sum totals of our whole life experience, can easily turn toward an introspective life. (Carl Jung and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in From Age-ing to Sage-ing, say it is imperative.) As we live longer, Rubin says, "We are now in uncharted territory, a stage of life not seen before in human history."
When Rubin writes of friendship, she talks of those who have drifted away, died or grown frail and unable to continue a full social life. "Something happens on the way from there to here," she writes. "Suddenly our lives don't fit together the way they used to." Friendships change with age, she suggests, because we begin to pull back. We become introspective and conscious of the limitations that our future may bring us. While we want to be in the world, we need more solitude than ever and "have withdrawn...some of the energy that was once given over to our friendships." We move to a quieter, contemplative place that is "all too often, lonely."
The title of Chapter Nine is self-explanatory: "Hey folks, you're spending my inheritance." Because we are living longer (healthier or not), we are using our savings on ourselves, not our children. Yet as we realize that our time is finite, we tend to value our children, grow closer to them, and, yes, become more dependent upon them. Paradoxically, we fight for our independence and our right to live alone, to drive and make our own decisions until circumstances require that we relinquish the fight, if only to ease the concerns of our children and grandchildren. But it is hard, and those of us who live long enough will inevitably come to depend upon others.
A skillful writer, Rubin writes of herself and her husband in an honest, sympathetic way, keeping her humanity and a sense of humor but at the same time maintaining her psychological and research-oriented focus. She says,"For old age tiptoes in on silent feet, taking a little here, a little there, none of it big enough to get our full attention, until one day, it's there, and we're left wondering, 'What happened?'" Here is a book with hard questions, even philosophical questions. Eighty in 2007 is very different from eighty in earlier decades, Rubin says. Eighty in 2025 will be a new adventure.
by Judith Helburn
for StorycircleBookReviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women
Poignant reflection on the view from age 82 November 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
At age 49, with 2 kids (8 & 10) and a full-time job, I have a ways to go before I join Lillian Rubin in old-age-hood - which she notes that people experience at different ages, and which for her didn't feel real until her 80th birthday. But I love this book. It speaks to the experience of people my age, who balance incredibly busy lives with concern for their aging parents - and also to the experience of the parents, whose greatest fear is becoming dependent on their kids. It gives perspective on the experience of retirement, which many folks my age envision as a wonderful break from the daily work grind, but which may feel (after an initial blissful year or two) like an unexpected search for new meaning and social connections... and which may be less of a break than expected, if at age 70 we're caring for 95-year-old parents. Above all, this book illuminates the ambivalence with which many of us grow older, welcoming the time to reflect and slow down but mourning our losses both physical (decreased energy & strength) and social (friends and partners growing ill and dying). I did find it interesting that there is no mention in this book of the passion some folks have in their after-60 years for getting involved in the big issues of this planet - environmental, political - in an effort to improve life for their grandchildren. But: Rubin notes in passing that she and her husband (90 and suffering from early dementia) have been politically active for years, so maybe this issue doesn't merit a special focus in the last 1/3 of her life. Nonetheless, i highly recommend this book. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I don't find it at all "gloom & doom" about aging. I think it's a wonderful read - thoughtful, honest, and constantly provoking small shocks of recognition about myself or others i know.
 "80 on up" maybe, "60 on up" NO WAY! October 19, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Lillian Rubin has been a well known and well respected sociologist. However, she has become a bitter
old lady at age 83. The references in this book are rarely scientific or well documented. Dr. Rubin seems to have
forgotten that the years between 60 and 80 can be personally fulfilling and a wonderful adventure in
freedom. If I were 59 and read this book, I'd probably shoot myself. I can't speak for 80 and up, but at 77 I'm
having a great life!
Realistic And Not Optimistic October 12, 2007
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Books about aging fall into two categories: gloom and doom (like Mary Pipher's Another Country) and chirpy and cheery (like Marc Freedman's Encore).
Rubin's book falls mostly in the gloom and doom category. She seems determined to debunk, "Sixty is the new forty."
Sometimes she misses the mark. "When I was forty my friends weren't dying," someone says. But in fact,we're not comparing our 60-year old selves with our 40-year old selves. We're comparing with 40 year olds of an earlier generation, who often watched their friends die at the same rate as 60 year olds do now.
The best part of the book was the section on retirement. I once knew a 64 year old man who had retired from a demanding, prestigious profession. He claimed to be happy with his hobbies, but his neighbors knew he was bored. Sadly, they saw him as a crankly old busybody who pried into everybody else's affairs with unwanted advice. He deserved more.
As Rubin points out, sixty-somethings aren't taken seriously in the working world. Regulations and laws limit meaningful volunteer work. Not everybody wants to be a greeter at Wal-Mart, a job happily espoused by an ex-executive in Marc Freeman's Encore.
I also appreciated Rubin's frank discussion of friendships that become harder with age. After years of enjoying friends who were 20 years younger, she herself finds common interests disappear. I've found that as I work on the Internet, I have less in common with many women my own age. After a classmate invited me to bring "samples" of my ebooks to a college reunion, I decided to forego future gatherings with my age-mates.
The real lesson of books on aging is that cohort groups become more diverse as they age. At 60, you might be running marathons or having trouble walking around the block. You might be ready to sit on a porch and let the world go by or you might want to build a business. At 75 you might be ready for assisted living or you might be Sandra Day O'Connor, who played a leadership role in the US Supreme Court until she retired.
In the end, this book was strangely compelling. I'm struck by the number of long, thoughtful reviews. Rubin strides confidently into topics where most authors tiptoe. My favorite part of the book comes when Rubin quotes a New York Times food critic: If living to 99 means "cutting the Porterhouse into thirds," maybe 85 is okay. Give up Haagen-Dasz? Maybe 79.
Yet, as other reviewers note, Rubin doesn't offer suggestions either for activism or personal empowerment. She's trained as a therapist and I'm reminded of stereotypical "you have to accept" therapy responses, delivered with a philosophical shrug
She gets it. I get it. I get that she gets it. Now what?
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