Surprise! Retirement dreams fading

Whether it's because the baby boomers are all so passionate about contributing to the world--which I suspect is true about lots of us--and/or the fact is that incomes/savings are simply not adding up to "comfortable retirement" sums, the age at which people first retire is fading into the distance. Here's the scoop from the NAWBO Smart Brief:

The retirement age for U.S. workers is edging up after falling for 100 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 29% of people in their late 60s still have jobs, up from 18% in the mid-1980s. More than 25% of baby boomers plan to never retire, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors.

For many single women this isn't a surprise. Making 70% of a what a man makes for the same work over a lifetime--and having to pay for so many services that many two-earner households either accomplish on their own or have two incomes from which to pay--cuts pretty seriously into what's left to put away for savings and retirement. Combine that with the virtual disappearance from many companies of retirement plans and what used to be callled "loyalty" to long-time devoted employees, and you've got a vivid picture of people working til old age. As Oprah once said to the financial expert on her After the Show who said people will be working into their eighties, "What're they gonna be doing? 'You want fries with that?'"

But since so many single working women have been using their passion and creativity all along to survive and thrive alone against the odds, these longer working years will feel like just another "day in the life."

Hmmm. Let's see, I can apply for 50% of my Social Security benefits when I'm 62 and all of it when I'm 66. Check out your eligibility here.

On the road

The country's pretty flat between Chicago and Cleveland. Lots of farmland and barns. Wonder how different it is to live as a single woman in a small town compared to a big city? I know my mother was raised in small-town America and felt it could be a terrible thing when everyone knew your business--and felt justified in judging it. Kind of like families usually feel. And we all know what a love-hate thing it can be with families.

Guess if a city dweller feels the differences of being a single woman, a single woman in the country's almost bound to feel it more. If you stand out when you're alone in Chicago, you likely feel pretty conspicuous in a small burg. Well, ladies, SWWAN is for all single women--wherever you live, whatever your age, weight, height, or occupation. Join us--it's free, and it's freeing.

on Motherhood on National Review Online

They say if you focus on negative things in your writing you're either a pessimist, a realist or a journalist. Jennifer A. Marshall must be one of those. Her article called "Single on Mother's Day" is a downer.

SWWAN is all about bringing the day closer when single women won't be required or even inclined to feel depressed about being single on any holiday.

Starting with our new holiday!! Single Working Women's Week - first annual is this year, July 29 to August 4, 2007.

The circle of life - the mother in us all

Women. Mothers. Single women as mothers. The nurturing qualities for which women are justly celebrated are not distributed in equal degrees. But regardless of what kind of mother you yourself are so far--or hope to be--you have a mother of your own. And there's no human connection like the one between mother and child. Even when fraught with pain, it is yet the most powerful bond on earth.

Tomorrow is a day to celebrate the mother in us all. Let us stand together on this day. For just a moment, close your eyes and imagine you're holding hands with every other woman on earth--imagine your neighbor, your coworker, your friend, your sister, aunt, cousin, your mom (even if she's not here). Feel in your sister's hands the warmth of her love for you, feel the energy of your friend's pains and joys passing to your fingers. Send your coworker the peace you feel in a tender moment with someone you love, feel tension and pain ebb away in the shared warmth of your hands touching.

Feel the strength you pass between you, the courage you celebrate in each other, the laughter and the tears you share with all these other women. And just for a moment, know with absolute certainty that we are all in this together.

Go with the flow...and meet AtMP

How do you balance your time when you're trying to deliver the services you offer, keep up your marketing programs, continue to network, start a new organization (including people, websites, sponsors, etc. etc.), get in your usual single-handed household/car/pet chores, keep up your exercise, and enjoy the spring weather?

Can it be done? Well, probably some things don't get as much attention as you'd like. And maybe, like me, your choice of what's going to get the most today is randomly determined. But if you're like me on this, too, a beautiful spring day makes all things seem possible and you figure what you miss today you'll get done another.

Was delighted this past weekend to meet a bunch of members of what will soon become a sister organization to SWWAN -- the Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP). Their website is www.unmarried.org and that alone can tell you why we feel a good fit! They are committed to political action to change the unfavorable status of single people/couples under the law. Stay tuned as we develop our relationship...

African sons respecting their single moms

Can you imagine a grownup son deciding to change his name to include his mother's instead of his father's? Seems it's happening with some regularity in Kenya, according to this article, which also talks about neurosurgeon Ben Carson's book "Raising Boys Without Men," applauding the single "maverick moms" who help their sons grow up to be good men who also have an appreciation for feelings.

Apparently to use a feminine surname in Africa is highly unusual (in the U.S. our surnames don't denote gender) and invites ridicule from others. Yet more young sons of single moms are choosing to do it anyway because of the deep respect they have for what their mothers went through to raise them.

It's great to hear this. After watching a documentary last night about the 50 years that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent trying to win the vote for women--and a few other rights like abolition, and the right of married women to own property--it makes me feel that it might be easier for men to appreciate women and be willing to grant them respect and equality if the economic distance between them isn't so wide as it is in a lot of the U.S.

Perhaps there's some of the class war about women's equality...much as racism can be viewed in that way.