New Passages

by SHEEHY, GAIL

• ISBN13: 9780345404459
• ISBN10: 0345404459
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1996-05-28
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Millions of readers literally defined their lives through Gail Sheehy's landmark bestseller Passages. Seven years ago she set out to write a sequel, but instead she discovered a historic revolution in the adult life cycle. . . People are taking longer to grow up and much longer to die. A fifty-year-old woman--who remains free of cancer and heart disease-- can expect to see her ninety-second birthday. Men, too, can expect a dramatically lengthened life span. The old demarcations and descriptions of adulthood--beginning at twenty-one and ending at sixty-five--are hopelessly out of date. In New Passages, Gail Sheehy discovers and maps out a completely new frontier--a Second Adulthood in middle life. "Stop and recalculate," Sheehy writes. "Imagine the day you turn forty-five as the infancy of another life." Instead of declining, men and women who embrace a Second Adulthood are progressing through entirely new passages into lives of deeper meaning, renewed playfulness, and creativity--beyond both male and female menopause. Through hundreds of personal and group interviews, national surveys of professionals and working-class people, and fresh findings extracted from fifty years of U.S. Census reports, Sheehy vividly dramatizes these newly developing stages. Combining the scholar's ability to synthesize data with the novelist's gift for storytelling, she allows us to make sense of our own lives by understanding others like us. New Passages tells us we have the ability to customize our own life cycle. This groundbreaking work is certain to awaken and permanently alter the way we think about ourselves. "SHEEHY CLEARLY STATES IDEAS ABOUT LIFE THAT HAVE NEVER BEFORE BEEN AS CLEARLY STATED." --Los Angeles Times Book Review "AN OPTIMISTIC ANALYSIS OF ADULT DEVELOPMENT IN PESSIMISTIC TIMES. . . It is grounded in the economic and psychological realities that make adult life so complex today." --The New York Times Book Review

Author Biography

Gail Sheehy is contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

Table of Contents

Note from the Author	p. ix
First Adulthood
Prologue: Oh, Pioneers!	p. 3
Updating the Passages Concept
What to Do With This Leftover Life?
The Discovery Process
New Cross-Cultural Evidence
Whatever Happened to the Life Cycle?
Mapping Lives Across Time	p. 23
Which Generation Are You Traveling With?
World War II Generation
Silent Generation
Vietnam Generation
Me Generation
Endangered Generation
Welcome to Provisional Adulthood
The Good News
The Flourishing Forties
The Vietnam Generation Hits Middlescence	p. 57
Who Me, an Adult?
Out of Control
Men Redefining Success	p. 67
Rise of the Nonworking Class
The Double Squeeze
The Pharmaceuticals Salesman, Age 48
The Auto Worker, Age 46
A Black Man's Bonus Time, Age 40
A Wunderkind's Handicap, Age 40
The Wunderkind Growing Up, Age 47
The New Midlife Man
Out-of-Sight Women	p. 85
A Woman in Early Midlife Crisis
Catch-40 for Couples
Beyond "Me"--to Another Level of Being
The Fantasy of Fertility Forever	p. 95
Late Babymania
The Great Postponers
The Psychic Fallout
What Do You Mean, My Eggs Are Too Old?
But Susan Sarandon Did It
The Facts on Infertility
So Glad I Didn't Wait
The Race
Perpetual Middlescence	p. 115
Holding the Edge
A Woman Addicted to Success, Age 52
Frozen in Time
Single Men: What Are You Doing from Five to Nine?
Single Women: Tales from the Naked City
Second Adulthood
Prologue: A Brand-New Passage	p. 137
Decline or Progress?
From Survival to Mastery
The "Little Death" of First Adulthood
Birth of Second Adulthood
The Meaning Crisis
Time to Kill?
Push Toward Authenticity
Aliveness or Stagnation?
The Time Flies Test
Safety or Danger?
Passage to the Age of Mastery
The Mortality Crisis	p. 159
Living on the Edge
Little Victories
Composing Your Own Progress Narrative
Peggy's Progress
Guides and Teachings
Flaming Fifties: Women
Women: Pits to Peak	p. 179
First, the Terror
The Vanity Crisis
The New Female Pacesetters
Working-Class Women: Finding Faith in Yourself
Surprise! You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting Happier!
Women's Historical Progress Across Time
A Survivor Who Found Passion at 50
Wonder Women Meets Menopause	p. 199
"I'm Out of Estrogen, and I've Got a Gun"
Phase One: The Perimenopause Panic
Phase Two: Over the Hump
Should I Take Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)?
The Breast Cancer Phobia
The Weight Gain Fallacy
Phase Three: Postmenopause
Call of the Wild Girl
From Pleasing to Mastery	p. 223
On the Privilege of Being 50
Moving Toward Mastery
Finding One's Own Voice
From Anger to Forgiveness
Flaming Fifties: Men
The Samson Complex	p. 243
The Male Vanity Crisis
The Aging Athlete, Age 57
The Excessed VP, Age 47
The Sociable Athlete, Age 59
Macho Men Holding the Line
But My Body is Bulletproof!
Fall Guys of the Economic Revolution	p. 259
Corporate Refugees
The Lifer, Age 53
The Meant-to-be-President, Age 55
Psychic Consequences
Angry and Anxious White Males
The New (Hostile) Dependence on Wives
Reality Testing for the Future
The Rehabilitation of the Corporate Refugee
The Company Man as Free Agent, Age 48
The Optimism Surge	p. 274
From Competing to Connecting
Men's Anguish Over Empty Nest
Father, I Hardly Knew Ye
Reinventing Fatherhood
The Start-Over Dad, Age 59
The Medlator, Age 48
The Unspeakable Passage: Male Menopause	p. 287
I'd Rather Have a Talking Frog
The Problem Without a Proper Name
Hard Statistics and Hopeful Science
Sex, Lies, and Scorekeeping
Am I Just Getting Old?
The Mind-Body Link
High-Tech Solutions
High-Technique Solution
How to Restore Vitality and Virility
Beyond Male Menopause
Men and Women: The New Geometry of the Sexual Diamond	p. 318
A Point of Harmony
Brain-Sex Changes
Take Back Your Diamond!
The Crossover Crisis
Secrets of Serene Potency
Bust-to-Boom Banker, Early Fifties
New-Age Electrician, Age 52
The Save-Your-Life Wife
The Divorce Springboard
Victoria's Real Secret--Sexual Power Surges
Finding Your Passion Without a Man
Passage to the Age of Integrity
The Serene Sixties	p. 345
Ready for Prime Time
Growing Brain
The Hunger for Harmony
Special Powers of the Sixties
Permission to Play
The Designer Who Learned to Play at 63
Self-Confident Survivors
The Wiley Widow, Age 60
Love Stories of the Sixties
Rekindling Old Flames, Age 77
Reconciliations
Men: Make My Passage	p. 369
Grand Dads
Retirement: Love it or Leave It?
The Bush Retirement (Non)Plan
The Carters' Retirement Plan
The Winner's Circle
Mr. Hat, the Company Man
Late-Age Entrepreneur
Sources of Well-Being in the Sixties
How Much is Enough?
Old Elephants' Club, Age 65
Comebacks from Hopelessness
The Cancer Survivor
Wisewomen in Training	p. 394
Dreamer Beyond Dreams
The Wit Network
A Wisewoman Model, Age 60
Survivor Sex and Extrasexual Passions
Congratulations, You're a New Grandmother!
The New Fly-In Grandmother, Age 56
Nurturing: The Second Wave
Life and Love Beyond Loss
Caretakers of the World
Master of Divinity at 63
Looking Ahead
Expanding the Wit Network
Two Species of Aging	p. 417
Choosing How to Age
Renaissance in the Art of Health
Sharpening up for the Sage Seventies and Beyond
Celebratory Centenarians
The Present Never Ages
Acknowledgments	p. 430
Appendixes	p. 433
Life History Survey
Professional Women's and Men's Surveys
Family Circle Survey
New Woman Survey
Suggested Readings on Menopause
Notes	p. 451
Index	p. 475
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