VICIOUS SENIORS TARGET CHILDLESS BUT WIDOWED EX WOMAN EXECUTIVE - SHUN HER
Vicious?
I have a bad memory of visiting many times at an "exclusive" senior living building where the new resident was a ex woman executive from New York City, who had married late in life and then been widowed.
The senior I was visiting was male and NMNK. He was pitied.
The other women - her generational peers - were very mean spirited to this childless woman. When their children and grandchildren came to visit this ex-executive was friendly and talkative with them. She was trying to fit in and acknowledge their families. After all, they all sat in the common area with the fancy decor much of the day.
The traditional stay at home mother senior citizens who were living there would accuse her of jealousy and resent her friendliness to their "loved ones." I spoke to this woman several times before she moved elsewhere. I HAD TO WONDER HOW MEAN THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN IF SHE HAD ALSO NEVER MARRIED. WOULD THEY HAVE ASSUMED SHE WAS QUEER?
She was very proud of her career and had career advice for me. She dressed very well compared to these other women, who were also coming from wealth, in that she still suited up every day. Criticism of what she wore and pretty much anything she did was so prevalent, I doubt there was anything she could do right. They despised her - her type - right away and it went downhill from there.
She had money, money she earned and put aside, as well as money from her husband's estate, enough to live elsewhere and she made that choice, and I felt sad for her that these other women were so unfair to her and hoped the next exclusive senior building she went to had kinder people. She struck me as the most intelligent woman among them.
I also learned during my visits there that a lot of these women were still supporting some or all of their children and that many of them had been generous to their children but rarely got visits... That reinforced for me that no person should be motivated to have children based on the idea that these children will "take care" of them in old age.
I WONDER IF THE RESENTMENT THAT TRADITIONAL STAY AT HOME MOTHERS OF THAT GENERATION FEEL IS WORSE than generations following when women overall have had more choices.
I have a bad memory of visiting many times at an "exclusive" senior living building where the new resident was a ex woman executive from New York City, who had married late in life and then been widowed.
The senior I was visiting was male and NMNK. He was pitied.
The other women - her generational peers - were very mean spirited to this childless woman. When their children and grandchildren came to visit this ex-executive was friendly and talkative with them. She was trying to fit in and acknowledge their families. After all, they all sat in the common area with the fancy decor much of the day.
The traditional stay at home mother senior citizens who were living there would accuse her of jealousy and resent her friendliness to their "loved ones." I spoke to this woman several times before she moved elsewhere. I HAD TO WONDER HOW MEAN THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN IF SHE HAD ALSO NEVER MARRIED. WOULD THEY HAVE ASSUMED SHE WAS QUEER?
She was very proud of her career and had career advice for me. She dressed very well compared to these other women, who were also coming from wealth, in that she still suited up every day. Criticism of what she wore and pretty much anything she did was so prevalent, I doubt there was anything she could do right. They despised her - her type - right away and it went downhill from there.
She had money, money she earned and put aside, as well as money from her husband's estate, enough to live elsewhere and she made that choice, and I felt sad for her that these other women were so unfair to her and hoped the next exclusive senior building she went to had kinder people. She struck me as the most intelligent woman among them.
I also learned during my visits there that a lot of these women were still supporting some or all of their children and that many of them had been generous to their children but rarely got visits... That reinforced for me that no person should be motivated to have children based on the idea that these children will "take care" of them in old age.
I WONDER IF THE RESENTMENT THAT TRADITIONAL STAY AT HOME MOTHERS OF THAT GENERATION FEEL IS WORSE than generations following when women overall have had more choices.
(First published October 13, 2012)
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