Birthdays

I've been away for awhile. Sorry to let you all down. I'm sure people have been anxiously looking for an update. Here it is.

Well, I am now 52 years old. I guess I have to admit that I am middle aged now. The current period life expectancy for white women in the United State is just about 80 years. At age 52 life expectancy is about 30 years. Of course, higher education increases both of those numbers, and these are period, not cohort estimates, so they assume no future improvements in health care. We can think of them as minimums (I hope, although the situation in Russia shows that you can't always count on that.)

Still, birthdays just aren't what they used to be. I'm not sure when that changed exactly, maybe after my 21st! I remember that turning 40 seemed somewhat relevant, but all the time I was 38 I was thinking I was almost 40, then when I was 39 I WAS almost 40, then I was 40, then at 41 and 42 I had JUST REACHED my 40s....so turning 40 was like a 5 year process. I didn't feel that way about 50 at all.

There are some interesting historical accounts of age and the meaning of age. Some historians who have studied diaries and letters of "common folk" (of course, how common were they if they were keeping diaries....) find that birthdays and age are rarely mentioned. Social life was organized around what you could do, not how old you were. If, as a man, you were able to support yourself, then you were old enough to marry. If, as a woman, you were able to bear children, then you were old enough to raise them. Our whole concept of time and age really developed with the Industrial Revolution and the concomitant arrival of public education and railroads. Suddenly age and time were more relevant. Over time, age grading become important, child labor laws developed, and educational requirements were introduced. At the same time notions of a "work day" and "retirement" were developing. Now, birthdays had relevance as they marked your movement through the age system and your access to new rights and responsibilities.

Interestingly, in some ways age now is less relevant as a marker of ability, health, or maturity. There are movements to breakdown the age graded system and replace it with one that is more flexible and matches the longer life expectancy and better health of the population.