The topic of retirement becomes increasingly compelling as the U.S. population ages. It's easy to find books about how to plan financially for those years after careers end, but Breaking the Watch focuses on the many ways of creating a life, not just making a living, as a retired person.
This book follows women and men from a rural American community as they approach and experience the first years of retirement. Joel Savishinsky focuses on the efforts people make to find meaning in a stage of life American culture often views in a confused or disdainful way.
In conversations and stories, 13 men and 13 women demonstrate a deep commitment to defining their own retirement. They bring to their mature years a diversity of backgrounds, interests, and responsibilities. They include former teachers, librarians, doctors, farmers, lawyers, bankers, mail carriers, and secretaries. Some are married, others divorced or single; many have children and grandchildren, but some have neither. Their finances run the gamut from the modest to the munificent, while their health ranges from robust to disabled.
From an examination of the "rites of passage" that marked their exit from full-time work, Breaking the Watch moves on to consider how to plan appropriately for retirement; renegotiate ties to friends, family, and community; and create a sense of passion—be it for t'ai chi, travel, painting, or politics—that will drive a new sense of purpose. These intimate glimpses into real lives allow a rare understanding of the retirement process.
Joel S. Savishinsky is Charles A. Dana Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology and the Gerontology Institute at Ithaca College. He is the author of several books, including The Ends of Time: Life and Work in a Nursing Home, winner of the Gerontological Society of America's Kalish Innovative Publication Award.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
A Note on Sources
xi
Introduction: The Poignancy and Poetry of the Everyday
1
A First Cup: At the Firehouse
31
1
The Unbearable Lightness of Retirement: Ritual and Support at the End of Work
43
A Second Cup: Life is What Happens
58
2
Zen Masters and Master Planners: How People Prepare For Later Life
66
A Third Cup: How Do You Catalog This?
85
3
At Work, at Home, at Large: The Sense of Person and Place
91
A Fourth Cup: Behind the Mirror
108
4
Looking for the Light: The Search for Passion and Purpose in Maturity
116
A Fifth Cup: Around the Lake
153
5
The Kaleidoscope and the Conspirators: Kinship, Friendship, and Meaning among Elders
160
A Sixth Cup: The Incompleat Fatalist
193
6
Death and Taxes: Dealing with Health, Finances, and Fate in Retirement
A splendid book for anyone planning or taking retirement. Breaking the Watch resonates with the lively voices, illuminating stories, and wisdom of men and women who've made the challenging transition from employment to retirement. Kudos to Joel Savishinsky for this unique guide to the art of living in retirement.
Thomas Gregor
The portraits in Breaking the Watch are nuanced, intimate, and recognizable. They reflect not only the nature of retirement, but also the far larger issues of relationship and the quest for purpose in life. Joel Savishinky's book is lucidly written and compelling, a unique and invaluable work.
Robert Coles
This book shines with the earned dignity of those whose lives (and fate) it attentively and respectfully documents. Here, for all of us to understand, are the later years some Americans have taken on—and here we learn of elderly resourcefulness, reflection, imagination, determination: life as it approaches the end becomes a spell of challenge—of humanity affirmed, achieved.
David J. Ekerdt
Heads and shoulders above the many first-person how-to books about 'succeeding' at retirement, Breaking the Watch gives us a three-dimensional, rounded view of the retirement experience. I can't think of another book on retired life that comes close to this one.
Jill Quadagno
In his wonderful book, Breaking the Watch, Joel Savishinsky follows a group of women and men as they make the transition from work to retirement. Inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking, this book is an example of qualitative research at its best.
