Author Archives: Karen Seashore

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About Karen Seashore

I am a sociologist, life coach, policy wonk, and tarot reader. Other than reading a book, I always prefer to work with other people. Creating small changes -- in myself and in the world around me -- is my calling. You can find my scholarly publications under Karen Seashore Louis (or Louis, K.S.).

In Praise of Postmenopausal Women

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There are lots of jokes about menopause. 

There are no jokes about post menopause. 

Is that because we have internalized scientific reports summarizing the negative consequences of losing estrogen?  Weight gain, bone loss, heart disease, depression, and desiccated vaginas…How can you make that funny?  Recent debates about “childless cat ladies” suggest that the social consequences of not being able to procreate may be even more severe:  isolation and invisibility coupled with a lack of usefulness. 

Men, on the other hand, are still producing sperm when they die.  

Social science tells a different story, emphasizing the role of older women in supporting the next generation, as well as caring for family and community members.  Older women are willing to translate emotional caring into action on a daily basis, an image that even the most traditional sexist male can support.  But let me take this in a different direction: Society NEEDS us, and not just for the most traditional roles. 

Start with my friend Jan Hively, whose Ph.D., finished when she was almost 70, investigated the productivity of older people who lived in rural areas.  Asking what they did in their communities allowed her to estimate what it would cost to replace them with workers.  The answer was: A LOT.  Meaning that most rural communities would wither if it were not for the unpaid (or underpaid) work of older people, from volunteering in the library, driving school busses, and taking care of even older relatives. And older women are more likely to work and donate unpaid work than men. 

Jan’s mantra was “meaningful work, paid or unpaid, through the last breath,” and she lived up to it. She was an activist and social entrepreneur. In the early 2000s, as we boomers started to retire, she urged us to think of our last decades as an opportunity to make a difference and not a time to drink martinis, watch TV and play golf.  In her 70s and 80s, after finding her tribe of co-conspirators, she went on to incubate or co-organize many non-profit organizations to increase the opportunities for older people to improve their own and their neighbor’s lives.  New and existing organizations drew on her never-ending flow of ideas about positive aging; two that she co-founded have grown into national and international initiatives: The Vital Aging Network, and the Pass It On Network. 

And her second admonition was to have fun working with others! She knew that her strongest skills were imagination and starting things so she collaborated with people who love making the engines of a new enterprise run fast and smoothly.  Another wisdom of age:  we often are more aware of who we are – and are happy to turn over control for the work that suits us less well.

At 90, Jan wrote long notes to the people who were important in her life and work, including me – I was humbled because I always thought of her as my mentor – I was a youngster in my mid-50s when I served on Jan’s doctoral committee!  Like many who knew her, when I find myself “sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time” I hear Jan’s voice urging me to make those reflective moments pay off, either for my own development or someone else’s. 

But Jan, although personally inspiring, is not the only one with creative suggestions.  I am taken with the idea of the “granny cloud,” which emerged from Sugata Mitra’s efforts to educate children in places where there are no teachers (or not enough of them).  The role of the grannies (real ones and people trained to think like them) was to admire and encourage children in learning – which turns out to be critical.  The powerful effect of being a granny is to reinforce curiosity and motivation.  The international granny cloud volunteer network was derailed by the global pandemic – but grannies will be there in force as we continue to re-imagine social networks in the post-Covid future.  I think that men can learn to be grannies, but they usually need some immersion training….

How about the League of Women Voters, founded in the exuberance that accompanied the passage of Amendment 18 in the US?  Relying almost exclusively on volunteers, the League continues to see its primary purpose as protecting democracy through policy advocacy and direct efforts to increase voter registration and participation.  Its membership, which declined with the increase in working women, is soaring again as the gray tsunami looks for ways to work – paid or unpaid – as long as possible. If you attend a League meeting, you will see that post-menopausal women are at the forefront of promoting non-partisan policy debates – including sponsoring events like Bad Ass Grandmas for Democracy.

Contributed / BadAss Grandmas for Democracy

But the role of post-menopausal females in sustaining community and providing intergenerational continuity is not just for humans.  Recent research claims that “Post Menopausal Killer Whales are Family Leaders,” who support the pod’s health by finding food sources.  And who can help but watch, with fascination, the video of the 60-year old Orca, Sophia, taking down a Great White Shark, top predator of the ocean, who was probably threatening a member of her community.  No jokes needed – just attention to the evidence that the world needs postmenopausal women warriors.  Who cares about a few weak, old sperm – lots of those to go around – in contrast to keeping us all safe, fed, cared for, protected, on the right bus, and registered to vote?

Photo by Valeria Nikitina on Unsplash

Vulnerable: What’s in a Word?

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“I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.”

–Adrianne Rich

Vulnerable: Susceptible to physical harm or damage, susceptible to emotional injury, or susceptible to attack.  “Vulnerable populations” are unable to care for themselves; elderly people are “frail and vulnerable”.

Most of us spend our life avoiding vulnerability. We exercise endlessly to stave off weakness; we guard what we say in meetings to avoid attacks and disagreements that could weaken our influence; when things get tough, we decide to leave our lovers before they can leave us.  We do what we can to protect ourselves – physically and emotionally. 

Of course we can’t be invulnerable in every context – we share things with our best friends or partners that we wouldn’t want to shout out to the world.  In early life we learn to admit when we are wrong, even if we do so sparingly.  We go camping, hiking or skiing without deep concerns about being attacked by a bear or breaking our leg, even when those are possibilities.  We are willing to be vulnerable because the rewards can be great – it is worth it to be connected, to be trustworthy, and to have fun.

 I suspect that each of us hones a personal, intuitive calculus that allows us to make quick decisions about when to leave our safe, self-protected space to realize something more important.  But then fear of failure and loss pushes back, demanding to reduce vulnerability to as small a part of life as possible. 

In my 30s, I believed that I needed a continuous career because I ached at other women’s vulnerability when spouses left and they couldn’t support themselves.  I wanted to stay home with my babies, but didn’t dare and chose safety over the complex pleasures and challenges of full-time mothering.  The pattern of looking for every chance to reduce vulnerability was well ensconced, although most of my choices were right for me at the time.

But then, more secure in my career (and becoming older, possibly wiser) I became more tuned in to the antonyms of vulnerability – what happens when reducing vulnerability becomes a practice and a priority.  Some are worth pondering:

Guarded: cautious, circumspect, reticent, non-committal

Protected: insulated, sheltered, screened off

Resistant: averse to, immune, unaffected by

Insensitive: inconsiderate, thoughtless, hard-hearted, callous

Indomitable: unassailable, unshakeable, intransigent

Thick-skinned: unfeeling, insensitive, hardened

I admit that I have often wanted to be all of these (well, not thick-skinned).  I hoped to control how other people would see me and how situations would affect me, and to find a relatively unshakeable balance, equanimity.  When challenged, and on those many days when I lacked self-confidence, trying to be non-committal and immune seemed pretty good.  When I was overwhelmed because I said yes to more requests than I could easily manage, being a bit more insensitive to other people’s needs felt like the wisest path.  As a young woman in a predominantly male world, being regarded as indomitable was a strategy to reduce uncertainty at work — and seemed to engender respect (acting more like a man?). 

Yet, as I look at the antonyms, I see that self-protection was cumulative.  I adopted predictable behaviors in meetings, and even with close colleagues, which shielded me – but did I gain respect at the expense of trust? I was intransigent in arguing for policies that served my students well – but did that get in the way of developing relationships that might have supported both me and my students?  Could I have accomplished the same goals with more vulnerability and less protection?

Then, sometime in my early 50’s, I found myself in a group where members developed a deep trust and shared painful details of their past and current lives.  There were two rules: you could not interrupt, and you could not offer advice.  I had to learn to listen rather than react. I read Thich Nhat Han, and absorbed the lesson that “the most precious gift we can give others is our presence.”  I had to acknowledge that I didn’t always know the solution to someone’s question or problem, but I could, if invited, join in a search.  I took in other mantras, accepting the inevitability of “failure” because I could not eliminate uncertainty.  I read Sun Tzu’s  Art of War, and took to heart “To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”   I realized that to be an effective warrior for my students I needed to see the nuances of other people’s thoughts and allow them an honorable way of leaving or amending a conversation. 

I deliberately took baby steps to became more vulnerable.

At work, people noticed.  In my marriage it was too late, but when I remarried, I saw that prioritizing intimacy and understanding was as important as love – and much more important than being right.

Being vulnerable doesn’t mean being a pushover.  It doesn’t mean being weak or unable to take care of oneself.  It means that I need to measure my days against the antonyms – were there places where I leaned on them?  If so, what did I gain and was it worth it?  Did that leave me with vague hints that a change (or even an apology) is needed? 

The only way we get deeper knowledge of another person is if we both are willing to be seen, honestly, without defenses. And, I often feel that when I make myself vulnerable, I allow others to try it out as well.  

I don’t overestimate how well I am doing: I am still vain, self-absorbed and protective.  But more vulnerability has made me happier and more connected, not frailer.  It feels like my later-in-life superpower…

Photo by Damir Korotaj on Unsplash

Decluttering Revisited– What About All Those Memories?

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Photo by Aga Adamek on Unsplash

We have memories throughout our lives.  My youngest granddaughter, about to turn 8, talks about them often – a particularly engaging dream in the past, a game that we used to play when she was “little” (last year) but don’t anymore, something that she used to be but is not now (meat eater to vegetarian).  Like me, she enjoys reading books and looking at TV shows that she liked earlier, with even a hint of nostalgia, as if enjoying a piece of childhood that is slipping away. 

Sound familiar?  Since childhood I have kept memory storage bins, each of which is like that huge box of family photos that you don’t want to throw away and can’t bear to sort.  Many are chronological, labeled high school, college, married with children, etc.  Others are topic-centered – friends, lovers, places, peak and low experiences. Significant memories are in multiple bins.  I know that these “keepers” are barely sorted…

Richard Rohr describes aging as an opportunity to return to a “second simplicity” in which we can discard useless complexity, mental, and sensory overload in favor of getting down to basics:  Who am I?  How have I been in the world?  What do I want from my relationships with others and with myself?

I confess: I am skeptical about whether a simple identity, with all the compulsions and desires of my earlier years stripped away, is within my reach.  Although I am retired, life still feels busy and complicated.  But I am willing to give it a try because I am drawn to the path…

But is it that simple?  Do I just need to Marie Kondo my memory files, finding those that give me joy or, alternatively, those that Rohr calls “bright sadness.”   And what happens to the increasing complexity that I become aware of when I unearth “old stuff” that has been buried for a while?

I could stop rummaging and just read more – friends talk about how reading is increasingly a simple pleasure.  But I like fiction, and great novels tickle my memory.  Any woman who has lived through a failing marriage will be moved by Anna Karenina, even if their own story is not an exact parallel.  I need Jane Austen to relive the way in which the constraints of our own culture shaped my earlier self – and how I prevailed (or did not…). And new books – I just finished Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood – propel me to reflect on my life, which adds rather than detracts from complexity!  I am not going to stop reading, even when it makes me dive into yet another storage bin…

But some files are dusty, and I have avoided them for years because they are
complicated.  One could be labeled “Random Regrets.”  I should just pitch them in the trash without looking…but, like the old box of unsorted family photos, the temptation is too great. 

discarded memories

Photo by Julia Oberhauser on Unsplash

At the top are moments of deep embarrassment, usually where ignorance or bad behavior stripped away a carefully constructed façade.  I still cringe at the time when I forcefully claimed that Austria was no longer a country…to a friend’s parent who was in active service in Europe in WWII.  I could put that one in the “No Longer Need” bin.

Less embarrassing but more poignant are regrets about people who were once in my life but are no longer. This hit me again as I was fumbling around in another file labeled “Living in London, 1967” and unearthed Jonathan, who has not come to mind for at least 40 years.   He was a typical, slightly damaged product of bad food, cold showers, and bullying in what the English call a “public school”.  Handsome enough, well-read in the Oxford kind of way, he could out-vocabulary me on almost any topic.  And I allowed him to kiss me when we went out and said yes when he called. 

But I didn’t really want more – I was willing to go out with him only until I solidified my relationship with a tall, rangy, and bright-eyed Cambridge graduate with floppy hair. He had recently returned from sailing across the Atlantic in a small boat and had an explorer’s spirit, only somewhat tamed. 

Jonathan was a spare. 

As I write that, I know it is true, but the discomfort is what Rohr calls a “bright sadness.”  I can see recurrent patterns of casually using people that escaped me at the time, perhaps because they were so frequent.  The memory of Jonathan (who was in my life for a short time) induces thick discomfort about how the thoughtlessness of the young adult me, whose need to be right, popular, and a bit of a smart ass, overcame my desire to be kind.

When I rummage around in the regrets file, I know that I cannot afford to toss everything if I hope to be on the path of second simplicity.  As I refile Jonathan into a new “Bright Sadness” bin, I am reminded of my increasing humility.  I still make mistakes, but I want to avoid old patterns that are inconsistent with the simpler me who gets up each morning asking how I can make that day’s actions more consistent with a loving universe.  Yet I also know that Marie Kondo-izing my memory bins is needed to reconcile with my less compassionate side, which I can now call “the Jonathan problem.”

Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash

The path to a second simplicity does not feel simple, nor do I think that Richard Rohr expects that.  To walk that path I need to confront, with humility (and often uncomfortable humor), who I have been.  No polished version; just me, warts and all.  That is closer to the curious wonder that I remember from my elementary school years than to the gravitas that I later labored to assume. 

Returning to a simpler but wiser self – a complicated job that requires regular housecleaning? 

Hope – Yet Again

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Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

The older I get, the more I rely on hope.  I last wrote about hope at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when uncertainty and dread predominated around the world and in me.  I wrote to remind myself that hope is not a gift, but a practice and a ritual, like brushing teeth or lighting candles to signal an occasion. 

But here we are, only five years later, and the world again feels chaotic.  I nurture my shrinking store of hope with a new practice: limiting my morning news consumption to headlines and then moving into meditation.  I rewrite stories of a bleak future by thinking about the promise of a younger person in my life, where younger can mean 50 or 5. I consider, like other friends, leaving my social websites.  Think of the time I will have to read more books! …and call people on the phone.  Every conversation is an opportunity to connect with hope.

However, I can’t avoid everything. I logged in to LinkedIn and confronted a despairing post about the Target corporation’s decision to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion office.  Then I remind myself that change is non-linear. A famous quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is often interpreted as a call to patience and perseverance, ignoring MLK’s deep experience with progress and predictable backlash.  If there is progress, it is like a spiral. 

Efforts to label DEI, initiated to redress historical exclusion, as discrimination are jaw-dropping: Should I rail in anguish? Now I can anticipate boycotts of Target as well, all in the name of resisting the threat of oligarchy and a retreat from what seemed like progress in confronting our individual and national shadow selves. 

Getty Images on Unsplash

But does overt resistance bring us hope?  Or, should I be reminded of Arundhati Roy’s profound observation: “the rupture exists….And in the midst of this terrible despair …it is a gateway between one world and the next.”  I need to remain open to alternative stories.

I reconsider a small investigation that I conducted with a group of students years ago, which rewrote our story of failure.  I moved to the University of Minnesota because of a new president who sought to re-energize the role of a state-funded research university, paring away historical artifacts to embrace a more limber capacity to respond to emerging social needs.  The initiative was optimistically titled Commitment to Focus.   Unfortunately, a list of recommendations from a faculty committee included sharing the Veterinary and Dental Schools with an adjoining state.  Between outraged farmers driving their tractors onto an urban campus, and the implacable opposition of the state’s professional associations, Ken Keller was blamed for insensitivity to “real Minnesota” and his position became nonviable in a state where populist legislators wanted to continue every program along with the tradition of accepting most students who could breathe (even though the result was a high rate of failure). 

When my students and I interviewed administrators and faculty a year later to understand the harm done by Keller’s abrupt departure, it became clear that the interim president had adopted his agenda with minor tweaks and a different name.  The subsequent president changed the name again but went forward with the plan (minus visible changes in Dental and Veterinary programs).

Based on this experience, how might we respond when highly publicized diversity, equity and inclusion offices are officially disbanded?  I propose hope, not because corporations (or universities) do the right thing, but because the arc of justice is not embedded in a name, but in actions.

Photo by Austin Kirk at Unsplash

Diversity initiatives have a positive effect on corporate bottom lines — even the ultra-conservative Forbes agrees — and these pre-existed DEI offices. This, has, of course, been the argument in higher ed for decades:  diversity in the opinions, experiences and backgrounds that students and faculty bring with them are the “juice” that stimulates learning and improvement. In other words, universities and corporations have self-interest as well as social commitments to keeping the spiral moving in the direction of diversity.

So, is abandoning a label and office always corrupt or a cop out?  Or is it a story of how resistance can also be a portal, allowing us to see it afresh?  We know that when lofty ideas (like DEI offices) spread rapidly, easy initiatives are adopted more often than challenging efforts.  Low-quality diversity training, on which billions are spent, has limited effects on  the individuals and groups that it is supposed to benefit.  A few universities and corporations have already taken the longer route toward changing the organizational culture to be more welcoming and supportive of difference (which is associated with better decision making and positive organizational outcomes).

If circumstances force people or groups to give up one treasured item or habit, some will quit or sulk.  But many go on and search for replacements, which may involve novel approaches, new ways of thinking.  Will that be the case with Target?  With universities in states where mandates have decimated DEI offices?

It may happen.  It may not.  But it pleases me to think about resistance as subversive innovation…. turning the spiral toward justice.  And I think about my grandchildren, just bursting with ideas and ideals, with confidence – beyond optimism – that their generation will imagine new ways of organizing, working, and changing that will allow them to carry on the family tradition of working at hope. 

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

I recently signed up for a woman’s retreat whose aim is “to free us from disillusionment, negativity, lack of imagination, anger, busyness, and more.”  Sounds like just what I need…and I will continue to find those whose opinions I value, to bring curiosity back in – along with hope.