Don’t Patronize Products that Patronize You

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At a time of life when my income is increasingly limited, with a set monthly amount from Social Security, a small pension from my years as a newspaper journalist and whatever I can scratch up from contract work, everyone is pitching me to spend money on stuff I neither want nor need.

The neighborhood newspaper I subscribe to invariably has advertising inserts for pricey senior living buildings that deliver less than what they promise, if my late mother’s experience is any example. The spam calls from people wanting to sell me burial insurance have morphed from being a joke (talk about feeling old!) to merely an annoyance, especially after I’ve told the caller that I plan to be cremated.

But the most egregious examples of unwanted sales pitches are the omnipresent ads in my personal Gmail account. Every time I check email, which is multiple times a day from my iPhone, at least two new “sponsored” emails pop up, many advertising products or experiences I have never purchased or even searched for online.

Recent examples include:

  • An ad for a women’s “three-wheel e-bike” by a manufacturer that clearly views the word “tricycle” as a turnoff, though that’s what it is;
  • A promise of “$5,000 off any trip” from Overseas Adventure Travel, which specializes in expensive luxury group tours, including for solo (read: widowed and well-heeled) travelers;
  • Ads for Eileen Fisher’s “responsibly made” tops that offer “the right mix of comfort and style” — flattering, just-below-the-waist designs meant to hide the thicker midsections women develop after menopause; and
  • Skechers slip-in shoes, all flats, with catchy names like “Classy Cruiser” and “Reggae Slim.” This may be the most practical example of all, given that no woman I know in her 60s wears high heels for any but the most special occasion, and even then, she likely packs her walking shoes in a discreet cloth bag.

Despite living in an Amazon-influenced era, I don’t like to shop online. Plus, I’ve grown increasingly impatient with advertising now that I record the TV shows and women’s basketball games I want to watch precisely so I can zip through the commercials — a shocking number of which are for prescriptions with a litany of scary or smelly side effects.

But that’s not the problem. What disturbs me is advertisers’ assumptions about seniors, which rarely line up with the realities and reflections of my post-career life. Or with the passions, politically fueled anxieties and inevitable physical afflictions that dominate conversations with my friends.

“The public’s perception of aging is . . . antithetical to how most older people feel and what experts in the field know to be true.”

National Center to Reframe Aging

Not all of us want to travel abroad, pamper our pets, fix up our homes (we’re lucky if they’re paid for) or attend cultural events that occur downtown at night. Yet that is what the sponsored ads in my Gmail account push: new windows, cheaper internet, a dinner theater 23 miles away, a Tai Chi walking program that looks laughably slow for a fitness walker who moves 18,000 steps a day.

What I want from Gmail is no ads at all. I’m no one’s target market anymore. Or at least push the products and places I care about: good face cream, artsy earrings and glasses frames, locally owned bookstores and bike shops. By this age, I know what I want and need.

I understand, sort of, how algorithms work. That an ad not just for L.L. Bean but for their fleece-lined bedroom slippers and winter-walking Stabilicers will show up as banner ads on other websites after I’ve scrolled the Bean site for just those items.

So, yes, I get it that many of the sponsored ads in my personal Gmail — which, oddly, never show up in my work-related account — relate to some web search or another. I don’t want an e-trike (at least not yet), but I do read “Bicycling” magazine online. Maybe the ad for shapeless shirt dresses from Maye, a company I’ve never heard of, is there because the algorithm knows I’m 68, an age at which many women have developed enough self-confidence and common sense to prioritize comfort over body-hugging fashion.

Or am I giving the faceless algorithm too much credit?

A recent article titled “Marketing to Seniors,” which promised “transformative insights” into reaching my digital-wary demographic, manages to be both heartwarming and offensive — not unlike the senior-focused ads I see.

  • On the upside: The urge toward “straightforward language” and “offering customer support through phone calls rather than automated messages” strikes me as practical and respectful. Whatever our level of digital savvy, or lack thereof, we Baby Boomers are comfortable and conversant with a telephone.
  • On the downside: The article’s call to feature photos of people “5 to 10 years younger than your target demographic” because “it’s how folks tend to see themselves” may be accurate, I’m sorry to say, but it also is blatantly ageist and emotionally cruel.

Employing younger people to sell products and services to seniors plays on the insecurities and fears of older women, in particular, who for decades have been barraged with the fiction that only youth can be attractive.

Photo by Rosa Rafael on Unsplash

In the United States alone, the beauty industry is expected to garner $106 billion (yes, B for billion) in 2026. And now the folks who are marketing senior housing, flowing clothing and expensive foreign trips are instructed by advertising experts to employ models whose only sign of authentic aging is coiffed white hair.

I’d like people my age — women, especially — to fight ageism by boycotting products that imply growing old is a shameful condition to be hidden and denied. Older Americans Month in May urges us “to recognize the contributions of older adults” and “to raise awareness concerning elder abuse and neglect.” Let’s also grant older people the dignity of portraying us as we are, even if the advertising art directors think their necks will never wrinkle, their eyebrows won’t thin and their thighs will forever remain smooth.

Shopping can stimulate cognitive processes, provide physical benefits, and function as a leisure pursuit that promotes social engagement. 

Comfort Keepers, “Benefits of Shopping for Older Adults“

It isn’t that I dislike spending money. I’m as susceptible as anyone to the dopamine fix of treating myself to things and experiences, whether new walking shoes or a weekend getaway. But as I grow older, I am both more philanthropic — if by “philanthropy” you also count generosity with your grown children — and more intentional about where I invest my finite resources.

Age has shifted my priorities and patterns.

I enjoy shopping, especially for groceries, and try to support the shops and restaurants in my neighborhood, especially after seeing several go dark during COVID. Recently I learned that elderly folks (not quite where I am yet) benefit from in-person shopping because it gets them outside, keeps them moving, prods them to make decisions and handle money, and forces interactions with others younger than themselves.

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

Less need or desire for stuff, an aversion to online shopping and a commitment to supporting my own community all make me a poor target for the products that companies are pitching me online. Except maybe this one: The You Are Enough Co. spammed me with an ad recently for “Dear Person” T-shirts and sweatshirts.

Curious about the concept, I clicked through and learned that You Are Enough aims to boost and normalize mental health awareness through clothing that proclaims to onlookers: “The world needs you” and “You are great.”

I may buy one and gift it to an older woman who needs a reminder that, no matter how much society tries to convince her to hide her age, she is fine just as she is. She’s earned her wear and wrinkles.

Then again, maybe I’ll keep that T-shirt for myself.

Retirement Offers Opportunities for Giving Back

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­April is National Volunteer Month, a chance for people to celebrate and explore community involvement and engagement. For those of us born and raised in Minnesota, it’s a given that this liberal oasis of the Upper Midwest — the state with the most progressive politics, consistently high voter turnout and a nation-leading Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund — would also rank highly in volunteerism.

According to Minnesota Compass, a nonprofit affiliate that provides “credible, easy-to-access data” about the state:

  • 42.4 percent of Minnesotans age 16 and older volunteer, placing us behind only Utah and Vermont and outranking neighboring South Dakota by 1.3 percentage points, Iowa by over 5 points and Wisconsin by 11 points (though the Dairy State bests Minnesota in voter turnout).
  • Fundraising and food collection top our volunteer activities, followed by clothing distribution, providing transportation, youth mentoring, and tutoring or teaching.
  • And here’s one from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: On any given day, adults (especially women) age 65 and older are far more likely to volunteer than older teens or young to middle-aged adults. No surprise: We have the gift of time!

At this stage of life — post-career, my parents gone, my two sons launched and thriving — working for a cause rather than a paycheck has become more possible and palatable. “Never give away your time for something you can get paid for,” an attorney once told me as he was setting up a consulting business toward the end of his career. In short, don’t write and edit for free if you can land contract work or freelance gigs.

But that dictum matters less to me now that I’m retired. In fact, one motivation for volunteering since I left full- and part-time employment is to make use of the professional skills that I honed for decades. Having the luxury of less structured time and the opportunity to stay engaged with both peers and younger people are other good reasons for retired Boomers — “the wealthiest generation to have ever lived,” according to the Michigan Journal of Economics — to get out there and give back.

Photo by Elissa Garcia on Unsplash

The Golden Rule of volunteering? Put others first.

What do we owe?

The rewards of a professional, managerial-level career tend to be long term, and realized through your leadership and mentoring of others. Volunteering, by contrast, lets you make a tangible, immediate impact in a two- or three-hour shift.

  • Our clients at the warehouse and food shelf in my neighborhood have to meet federal poverty guidelines to qualify for one monthly visit. I do my best to ensure it’s worth their while. Because of my recent work as a warehouse greeter, people saw a well-stocked display of expensive protein drinks next to the bottled water. And got a shot at fancy popcorn varieties that I hustled onto the floor after opening boxes of donations from Target. And had the chance to take home cans of cat food, which rarely is supplied, and the extra-large jars of peanut butter that always move quickly because each family is entitled to only one jar.
  • The exhausted grandmother who drove a family member from South Dakota to Planned Parenthood North Central States in St. Paul may not have found a bathroom for her restless granddaughters had I not worked an escort shift last week.
  • The woman suffering from a UTI wouldn’t have been shielded from the invasive press of protestors on the city sidewalk outside our building, who assume that every visitor to Planned Parenthood is there for an abortion.
  • The young woman whose face looked drained following her clinic visit would have had no one to wave down her Uber and get the driver to pick her up beyond earshot of the white-haired men and stern, determined women shouting unsolicited advice.

I like to walk, bike or take the bus home from these volunteer gigs, so I have time to reflect on the satisfaction of helping others, with no expectation of payback. I was born into privilege and, more importantly, given the tools — higher education, investment skills and acumen, the modeling of my father’s work ethic — that have allowed me to build and sustain a comfortable life.

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

“Of whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:58). Although I’m not prone to quoting Bible verses, in part because I’m not among the 78% of U.S. seniors who identify as Christian, I do believe that privileged people are obligated to make a difference in their community and the wider world.

And we are: Over half of all volunteers in Minnesota have annual household incomes of at least $75,000 and nearly 47% of volunteers are non-Hispanic whites, a population whose household incomes outstrip those of all races except Asian Americans.

Better now than never

Given the life shift that retirement represents, the benefits to seniors of volunteering are the best argument for getting involved: increase your physical activity, meet new friends, stave off loneliness and isolation, regain a sense of purpose. Indeed, numerous studies seek to prove how volunteering can improve physical and mental health as we grow older.

“I don’t know how I found time to work” is a common refrain among those of us who are recently retired. Just under 40% of volunteers in Minnesota are 65-plus, says the Compass data, placing us fifth among U.S. states for the percentage of older-age volunteers.

I first toe-dipped into authentic volunteering, which I distinguish from job-related community involvement, in January 2018. I signed up online at Planned Parenthood, eager to work on behalf of reproductive freedom — a cause that I consider essential to women’s equality and empowerment.

Soon I was staffing tables at various events and working at phone banks, often to stump for pro-choice legislative candidates. Since retiring, I have upped my activities with Planned Parenthood — helping to pack abortion kits, serving as a clinic escort — even though my reproductive years are over. I want to remain in touch with social issues and riff off the energy of people less than half my age.

Volunteers at the Keystone Community Food Center in St. Paul — which houses a food market, a sizable warehouse and several foodmobile trucks — tend more toward folks like me: white, well-off retirees who are past the demands of full-time careers but physically agile enough to work on our feet and cart around heavy boxes of food and supplies.

Quote by cellist Pablo Casals, on a bridge over Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis.

Some of the causes may affect us older volunteers less directly than they once did, and the outcome of issues like climate change and threats to America’s democratic experiment will harm our children and grandchildren’s generations more than ours. But that speaks to what, I believe, is the most worthy reason to volunteer: to leave the world a better place.

“Your legacy is the world you leave behind for the people you love the most,” says climate activist and Third Act founder Bill McKibben. We proved ourselves up to that challenge in Minnesota during the federal government’s violent occupation earlier this year.

That makes me proud.

From Skinny to Strong: A Lifetime of Physical Fitness

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I’ve belonged to some manner of fitness club since my parents had a family membership at the YMCA, primarily to ensure we kids learned how to swim in a small town with public pools and nearby lakes. Back then, we called these facilities “gyms,” not health clubs or workout studios; and men seemed to use them more often than women.

At least that was true in my family: Dad exercised at the Y, playing racquetball, jogging on the circular track above the basketball court, doing calisthenics in an era when Jack LaLanne was on TV. In lieu of exercising, Mom would starve herself occasionally on the two-week Mayo Clinic Egg Diet and seemed to perpetually be battling her weight.

My father’s example looked more fun to me (plus, I like to eat), but I credit both of my parents with my instinctive need to move — as much for my mental health as physical strength and stamina. Dad set an example of daily exercise, whether golfing and running or taking us skiing and sledding at Ski Haven (since renamed Mount Kato), which still used towropes when I was a girl. Mom put me in dance classes from the age of 5, pushed us to “play outside” and outfitted all of us kids with bikes, which was how parents back then expected their children to get around.

Almost a quarter of adults engage in no physical activity outside of their jobs, and sedentary lifestyles are an important reason that two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. 

U.S. Department of Transportation

As an adult, I morphed my physical activities from fun and games into practical purposes: walking, bike riding and using mass transit to get around before I bought my first car at age 25. I still tell my peers about how daily dog walks and active transportation — replacing car trips with human-powered mobility, such as walking or biking — are relatively effortless, enjoyable ways to stay in shape.

Those habits serve me well in my late 60s, at an age when thinning bones and prediabetes are a real risk, even for those of us who pay attention to our health. Like many women of my era, however, I’ve seen exercise primarily as a way to stay thin, a priority I internalized after gaining an unwanted 30 pounds during an unhappy period in my teens.

It’s not too late to get stronger, but it is time. No longer can I deny the physical weakening that comes with age.

Our bodies, ourselves

Of all the celebrities who flew in for the No Kings rally at the Minnesota State Capitol on March 27 — Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez — I was most excited to see Jane Fonda, still looking fit and energetic at 88. “She taught my generation of women to exercise rather than starve ourselves,” I told a friend.

The fitness studio craze took off in 1983, the year after Jane Fonda’s Workout video sparked a revolution and earned enough to support her political causes. I started attending classes at Leslie’s Shape Shop in Minneapolis with a friend and colleague. We’d squeeze into our tights and Spandex leotards, move and sweat to invigorating music, and afterward bond over office gossip, white wine and fatty appetizers. Elizabeth and I remain great friends to this day.

When I turned 40, with two young boys, a demanding career and a long commute, I decided to juggle more balls and become a step-aerobics instructor. Blessed with a natural sense of rhythm, I stole routines from classes at the Life Time Fitness in a former men’s athletic club across the street from my office in downtown St. Paul.

“Physical fitness is a three-legged stool: strength, aerobic capacity and flexibility.”

Jane Fonda’s Workout Book

Word spread, and middle-aged women began to fill my 8 a.m. Saturday classes back home at Olympus Athletic Club in Northfield. Drawn to the camaraderie and the beat of disco-influenced aerobics music, they also seemed to appreciate my mantra: Exercise is fun! The key is finding an activity that you enjoy.

That’s when fitness became not just a personal pleasure but a cause. A way to help myself and other women enter middle age with more agility and confidence and less shame. Not for us the deprivation diets and speedy pills of our mothers’ generation. Exercise would help us own and accept our bodies and claim our place in male-dominated spaces.

But however much I preached to my students about the three-legged stool of fitness (muscle strength, muscle length and sustaining a healthy heart rate), my busy brain and obsession with thinness have always led me to prioritize aerobic exercise. A recent unneeded and unexpected drop in weight, which my doctor and I concluded is a loss of muscle mass, has pushed me toward lifting weights in earnest.

Dumbbells sit side by side in a workout studio with a woman in the background lifting weights.
Photo by Danielle Cerullo on Unsplash

Gaining weights

Being thin is not enough anymore. At 68, I want to be strong enough to pick up my grandson, lift myself off the floor with no railing nearby, carry groceries, help move furniture around the house. That has meant setting aside my ego (and fear) and investing both time and money in getting stronger, which includes:

  • Paying the hefty fee for three sessions with a trainer, who has helped me focus on gluteal and hip strength and on rehabilitating an injured shoulder.
  • Learning how to use bands, kettlebells, TRX straps and weight machines for muscle work as well as conventional dumbbells.
  • Listening to my sons — both serious weightlifters — when they instruct me to eat more protein, lift heavier weights with fewer repetitions, and strengthen my bones with beginner plyometrics, a series of jumping exercises that has me jump-roping for the first time in decades.

The average 30-year-old can expect to lose about 25% of his or her muscle mass and strength by age 70, and another 25% by age 90. 

Harvard Health Online

Getting stronger has also meant finding a workout studio that helps seniors feel comfortable and welcome. Not the community center that had a great bone-strengthening yoga class, but where my strength trainer didn’t create a program specific to my needs. Nor the CorePower studio where I reveled in heated yoga classes for nine years, but which clearly was tailored to a younger generation.

Instead, using the Silver Sneakers benefits that come with my Medicare Advantage Plan, I’ve rejoined Life Time Fitness in a neighborhood with a growing amount of senior housing. The Aurora Program, launched in January 2022, offers specialized classes, opportunities for seniors to socialize and dedicated hours for us to work out.

At first, I balked at the limited hours — weekdays, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; nothing on Saturday before 2 p.m. — and wondered whether Life Time, a for-profit company that markets itself to a young, fit, athletic population, wanted to make money off aging exercisers but keep us out of the way.

Image by freepik
Image by pch.vector on Freepik

Now I appreciate the chance to work on my weights program among people my own age. Invariably we older women exchange smiles and glances, acknowledging one another and offering unspoken encouragement.

I recently saw a white-haired woman walking with a book bag to the city library near my house. Slightly stooped, she moved with a shuffling gait, seeming to favor one foot. “That’s me in 15 years,” I said to my husband. Then I made the conscious decision to admire her determination. Instead of pitying the woman or — worse — turning away from the preview of my own inevitable decline, I kept watching.

“Rock on,” I whispered. “At least you’re out there.” Facing an uncertain future, and moving toward it.