Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America

The aging of America is upon us. Boomers will start turning 60 on January 1, 2006. To read the papers, you would think that this event is going to be the start of a long gray sunset in which older adults suck the money out of the federal treasury and life out of our communities. Freedman's lively book suggests a different and much more optimistic view in which people who have finished their midlife careers can make great new contributions. We have plenty of problems that need solving in our communities and in our country. Freedman shows us how older adults might play a huge role in meeting those challenges, and at the same time have an enriching experience in doing so. A must read for anyone who is interested in what our society will look like over the next few decades.

Freedman is a refreshing voice who puts a welcome human face on the aging of our society--a topic most often dealt with through dire statistical predictions and paranoia. Prime Time illustrates that, while the demographic revolution is real, a negative whammy on America doesn't have to be the result. The profiles of everyday heroes reveal the classic American values of ingenuity and social concern applied through a new generation of retirement-age people. The perspective on the formation of the notion of "golden years" is informative. The succinct reporting of the prevailing social value attached to older Americans from the Puritan era (revered sources of wisdom) to more recent decades (keepers of leisure time) is important. And the telling of the selling of Sun City is a hoot--an "only in America" tale that provides lots of context for understanding society's ambivalence and confusion in dealing with the opportunity and challenges inherent in an aging population. This is a good book for anyone interested in new visions for an older country.

Marc Freedman hits the nail on the head in this book: the coming wave of retiring boomers represents an asset unlike any other, with the potential to transform the American economic and social landscape in ways we have yet to even consider. In the same way this generation revolutionized youth, politics, civil rights, women at work, childrearing, and every other issue with which it came in contact, so too will boomers revolutionize what America thinks about in terms of retirement. Freedman rightly notes that if their energy can be harnessed and directed to solving the country's social ills, the boomers stand poised to accomplish what no one else could. As a young person with high hopes for the country's future, Freedman's book is a breath of fresh air. What makes America unique is its unprecedented potential for good, and nowhere has that potential been more clear than in the dynamic, thriving force of the boomer generation. Freedman's book captures that notion in compelling prose. A must-read for anyone looking for innovative solutions to society's real problems.

Marc Freedman's book communicates a forward thinking idea that is the next step in social development. Similar to how childhood was reinvented as a valid life stage in the nineteenth century and adolescence in the twentieth century, the new life stage of older retired adults represents the potential for dramatic civic renewal in our time. Those who believe Marc Freedman is advocating for further work after retirement are sorely mistaken and have missed the basic founding premise for his book. He is by no means attempting to guilt trip retirees out of taking a deserved break and rejuvenating themselves with plenty of golf and travel. Marc Freedman points out that the key is to achieve a better balance of work across generations. Our society manages to skew work into a massive time commitment, monopolizing our entire lives for the span of our careers and leaving time for nothing else. People naturally become either absolutely addicted or repelled by the idea of further service. He emphasizes that most people do need to get an R & R fix after working hard for decades but that after a certain amount of relaxation, many older people testify to needing deeper purpose and something to commit to in their retired lives. This empty place in their lives may be best filled through meaningful civic service, perhaps in areas that they had never considered before like mentoring school children or by continuing their lifelong career paths such as the doctors at the Samaritan House Clinic.Freedman advocates for a revolution of society's attitudes towards older people in order to give them the option of remaining active and contributing to society or not. His heartening message of potential social renewal seeks to "expand opportunities and option, not obligations" and to show what a massive potential resource we have at hand. I found especially inspiring the idea of "the aging of America as an impending civic renaissance." The book itself is extremely well written, and even if you do not agree with its message, it is worth reading for the first person narratives of older Americans. These are very inspiring and interesting because many of the perspectives are ones that I would never have encountered otherwise and that give me a greater hopefulness for my own ability to continue to affect change in old age.

I hope Freedman is right, and that we are on the brink of a major shift in how seniors utilize their time. Early retirement to the golf course is attractive to many after a long time in the workplace, and golf deserves its reputation as one of the most challenging games ever invented. But in the end, it's still just a game. Should grown men and women spend the final 20-40 years of their lives playing games? Prime Time offers a wide range of examples of seniors who are taking another, more fulfilling path. They are giving back to their communities in various ways, from working in hospitals as Foster Grandparents, to working in schools as members of the new Experience Corps, to founding and operating health clinics. They are trading a later life of leisure for a later life of impact, and end up happier and healthier in the bargain.