Women’s Voices From the Vintage Years (Paperback)
Product Description
Until recently, research on late adulthood has focused on men. This book views the aging process in women age fifty and beyond in their vintage years (so named because people of this age are aging to perfection like vintage wine). Twenty-five women between the ages of 50 and 90 describe their own experiences dealing with the nine developmental tasks typical of late adulthood, revealing the “inner process” of aging not before recognized by researchers in the psychology of late adulthood. The words of these women belie the common belief that aging means catastrophe and endless decline physically and emotionally. The “voices” of these women reveal aging as the full flowering of a process of growth that started at conception.
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December 10th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
When I ask friends (over 50 years old and counting) what they are reading these days, the most common answer is,”Biographies and memoirs.” Clearly, we are all a little nosy about other people’s lives. But more than that, we’re all curious about how other people deal with the “slings and arrows” as well as those upbeat surprises that life deals across the table.
Barbara Vance’s book, WOMEN’S VOICES FROM THE VINTAGE YEARS, allows us to
overhear some direct and candid answers from twenty-five women, answers to questions (or, in scientific parlance, “developmental tasks”) that concern just about all of us: How do you handle it when that body you’ve trusted all these years suddenly betrays you? What’s the best way to enjoy your grandkids without signing on as an unpaid nanny? Is loneliness inevitable for the aging woman? Why do I have this recurring nightmare about ending up as a bag lady?
About that “scientific parlance”: one of the fine things about Dr. Vance’s book is that despite having a list of advanced degrees and credentials as long as your arm, she has turned out a highly readable, jargon-free work. Its organization is clear and useful: she introduces us to nine tasks that face all of us in the vintage years (the best term I’ve heard yet for the last third of life); next she introduces the 25 women whose voices form the core of the book; and finally, she takes on each task in turn, letting us hear a rich variety of insights from the respondents.
An unexpected and rather delightful plus is the twenty-sixth voice: Vance’s own. In her turn, she answers every question put to her subjects, candidly and personally. And one particular episode of her life story will simply astonish you.
WOMEN’S VOICES is both realistic and upbeat, leaving the impression that while the years may indeed serve up an occasional dose of bitter medicine, there is also plenty of fine champagne to enjoy along the way.