Early Wednesday morning, December 3rd, the AARP, the nation’s leading organization for those over the age of 55, released a report with a radically unexpected revelation.
You would think that the loneliest Americans among us would be teenagers who are leaving their families, going off to college, and being forced to build an entirely new network of friends.
Or it would be young adults in their twenties, who have finished school and now have to find a place to live, a mate, and a job.
Or those of us over 70, whose mates and friends are dying and leaving them in agonizing loneliness.
But, no, that’s not where America’s loneliest lie. The truly lonely are those of us from forty to sixty. People you would think are at the peak of their lives.
Look, only 22% of those of us under 40 are lonely. And only 20% of those of us over 70 are lonely. The really big lonelies are in what would seem to be the prime of their lives: the folks forty to sixty years old.
Their loneliness level is 30%. That’s 50% higher than the young and the elderly. Yes, the folks who have found their profession, have climbed the job ladder to positions of responsibility, have found their spouses, have settled in a home, and who have had kids, those are the ones among us who are smacked the hardest by loneliness.
How in the world could that possibly be? And why? Because of five factors that may come as a surprise.
- Americans are working harder than ever. We outwork the Germans, the French, and the Japanese. The only people who outwork us are the Chinese. Americans between the ages of 40 and 60 bear the brunt of that work. They have advanced to positions of respect in their companies, and their responsibilities can be fierce. They work longer hours than any other age group. And their jobs involve decision making, one of the most stressful processes humans ever undergo. Job pressures sometimes give folks forty to sixty years old no time for their friends, no time for church or synagogue, no time for community groups, and no time for volunteer work. In other words, no time to bond, no time to nourish friendships and no time to make new ties.
- But the plight of the middle aged gets worse. In 1981, social workers Dorothy Miller and Elaine Brody invented a new term, the sandwich generation. The sandwich generation is the name for those of us who are supporting our late teenage kids in high school or college and are smacked by yet another responsibility—taking care of our ageing parents. Many of us have to work half time and take care of a parent the rest of the time. Watching your parent decline can drain you emotionally. Caretaking can pinch your income just when you need to save for your own retirement. Caretaking can also make you feel invisible. What’s worse, it can stress your marriage, wear down your strength, and, most important, care-taking can isolate you. It can leave you with no time for your friends. And it can make you so worn down and irritable that you drive your family and friends away. The fact is that up to 54% of us in our forties are trapped in this hell.
- Then there’s empty nesting. Your kids hit eighteen and move out on their own. For eighteen years you’ve led a little pack, you, your spouse and your kids. Now, all of a sudden, your pack is gone. So are many of your friends. For nearly twenty years, you’ve had no time for friends. No wonder you are left in isolation.
- And despite the fact that divorce in America is down to its lowest level in 50 years, it hits those of us over 50 like a guillotine. Slashing at a full 43% of us. Robbing us of an emotional connection we’ve had for decades. Leaving us wounded and alone.
- On top of all that, the years from forty to sixty are when we are wacked by illness. Cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, hypertension, arthritis, and chronic respiratory conditions.
No wonder the years from forty to sixty are no picnic. No wonder 30% of middle agers are just plain lonely.
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About the author: Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. Bloom’s new book is The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong. Says Harvard’s Ellen Langer of The Case of the Sexual Cosmos, Bloom “argues that we are not savaging the earth as some would have it, but instead are growing the cosmos. A fascinating read.” One of Bloom’s eight previous books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom’s work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. Not to mention in scientific journals like Biosystems, New Ideas in Psychology, and PhysicaPlus. Says Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Evolution’s End and The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, “I have finished Howard Bloom’s [first two] books, The Lucifer Principle and Global Brain, in that order, and am seriously awed, near overwhelmed by the magnitude of what he has done. I never expected to see, in any form, from any sector, such an accomplishment. I doubt there is a stronger intellect than Bloom’s on the planet.” For more, see http://howardbloom.net or http://howardbloom.institute
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