Men Still at Work: Professionals Over Sixty and on the Job Read Online Free PDF

their two grown children, Leah, a news anchor in Chicago, and Rick, an artist trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who teaches in Palm Springs, California, where Richard and Alice also have a house. The magnet is their grandchild. “Our three-year-old grandson has re-ordered my life and given me new priorities, such as making time to Skype with him,” Richard confesses with a chuckle.
    Will he retire fully? “If you mean sitting in a rocking chair, watching television, and nodding off—no way. I talk about it with Alice and take her counsel very seriously, yet I will probably work forever. I have no plans to stop. First of all, it’s fun. While it is extremely gratifying to see younger people carrying on with this important work, I want to continue doing what I can to expand horizons and improve intercultural, interracial, and gender relations. It is important to contribute to society, even when you’re ninety, and I am only seventy-three.”
    With that, Richard is off to a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations and to wish Hillary Clinton well in her retirement.

    Of course, professionals like Dr. Hope and the other men in this book are lucky to choose between retiring or continuing to work. Many older men who would prefer to retire at sixty-five or earlier have to keep working for a variety of reasons, usually financial in nature, whether they like it or not. As we shall see in the next chapter, landing on the desired career path and finding job satisfaction and personal satisfaction over the years can be a real challenge for any man.

3
    A Man’s World
    I had run with him once before when I was eight years old. . . . I’d run two miles and when I stepped inside our cool, dark house, I yelled up the stairs to Mom, “I ran two miles with Daddy, Mom! I’m strong. I’m strong !”—Andre Dubus III, Townie: A Memoir
    Many an adult male can recall a father or grandfather who set an example that influenced his understanding of manhood and a grown man’s responsibilities, including the career he would choose (or reject) and how long he would keep working. For the quintessential all-American boy coming-of-age story, consider Gay Talese’s New Yorker profile of Joe Girardi, forty-nine-year-old former Major League Baseball (MLB) catcher and current manager of the New York Yankees. Read about Girardi’s Midwestern roots, religious training, devotion to family, education, love of sports, especially baseball (he played catcher in high school and college and in the major leagues for fifteen years), competitiveness, and close relationship with his father. Mr. Girardi was a bricklayer on weekends, bartender at night, and during the week a traveling salesman for a gypsum manufacturing company. According to the profile, young Joe tagged along on road trips and helped his dad on bricklaying jobs, building muscle in the process. In turn, his dad was the one who played catch in the backyard with Joe and took him to Cubs games. Girardi says his dad was always there for him, and he never wanted to let his dad down. 1
    Joe Girardi was fortunate to have two parents who set positive examples in so many important ways, not only as paradigms of hard work but also of nurturance, guidance, and constancy. Many men in their sixties, seventies, and eighties today learned from their fathers about work and the economic responsibilities of a family man but were shortchanged when it came to paternal nurturance, guidance, and constancy. In the words of legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden: “Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating . . . too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.” 2
    As Wooden well knew, mentors and role models can play an important part in career decision making of both professional men and professional women with respect to career choice , conduct , and duration . There is a difference: a mentor serves as an advocate,