BRIGHT FUTURE
Getting old isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it can be pretty wonderful if you get there in good shape, Judy Bailey tells Bess Manson.
Old age isn’t for sissies. If Judy Bailey had heard it once she’d heard it a thousand times. Once she hit her 70s, her friends and family in the autumn of their lives kept telling her how you need a bit of spine for this old age malarkey. “I thought ‘Crikey, I’d better find out how best to do it because I’m sure not getting any younger.” As it happens, Bailey, known to many New Zealanders as the Mother of the Nation for her 26 years presenting primetime news on TVNZ, had been contemplating some of those challenges that you might come across as you get older. Then publisher HarperCollins came calling.
“Out of the blue they asked me to do a book about ageing. It just seemed like a serendipitous thing.”
So she set about researching ways we can be happy and healthy in older age and the result is Evolving.
Covering everything from grandparenting and relationships to finances and retirement, Bailey hopes it will make those in their advancing years live better and at the same time encourage society to appreciate and understand this growing cohort.
Because ageism is thriving in our society, she says. And it’s toxic.
But first, what is old age anyway?
You could look at it as about 20 years older than our current age, says Bailey, who is 71.
“When you’re 15, 35 seems kind of old. When you’re 50, 70 seems old. But when you’re 70… you still think you have a bit of life left in you.
“I hope I’ll have another 20 good summers.” And that’s entirely possible, she says.
It’s possible to grow old well but people should put in the work in their 40s and 50s, she says, to prepare themselves physically, socially and financially for the years ahead. Moving, interacting and saving will make those later years good ones.
Western society needs to better understand the importance of its elder population and what it brings to a community, she says.
When older people read about themselves in the media they are often labelled vulnerable, she says. The impression is given that we are a bit doddery, past it, that we are going to be a burden on society.
“The more you hear that sort of thing the more you come to believe it but it’s not healthy. And it’s not true for a vast majority of that population.”
This baby booming cohort has a vast array of capabilities and outlooks on life, she says.
Some people are still surfing in their 90s and some people are very sedentary in their 60s “so you can’t generalise about this really large demographic”.
Bailey writes of the resentment coming from some corners of society about the amount superannuation is going to cost the country, with talk about the elderly ‘sucking up resources’.
Treasury data shows the government spent $19.5 billion on superannuation in 2023. None of that took into account what superannuitants contribute to the economy in discretionary spending, volunteer work and helping with whānau, she says.
“It’s ageism and a terrible accusation to level at a generation of people who have been paying their taxes. Many of them will have been in jobs which have been high intensity, physically labouring jobs. They may well be worn out. Then to reach retirement and be tossed on the scrapheap and told you’re a burden is appalling.
“We really need to change our attitudes around this. I think it’s terribly unfair on people who have worked hard all their lives.”
The ‘bank of mum and dad’ is the fifth largest bank in New Zealand so we are contributing to our children’s future in an enormous way, she says.
“A lot of us have disposable income at this age.”
Of course, there are people who are really struggling, particularly in these impecunious days in a cost of living crisis.
The number of over 65s who don’t own their own home or won’t be mortgage-free is growing. Currently, around 40% of retirees either don’t own their own homes or are still paying off mortgages and most of those are women, says Bailey.
In 20 years that figure will have increased to 50%.
“I think we need to focus on how to look after people who aren’t able to be mortgage-free at this age. It’s a huge problem and it will be an increasing problem over these next years.”
Bailey cast the net wide to better understand how older people were regarded in other countries and cultures.
One study, which looked at the Sardinian Highlands, found people weren’t just living
“When you’re 15, 35 seems kind of old. When you’re 50, 70 seems old. But when you’re 70… you still think you have a bit of life left in you. ”
“In Japan there is no word for retirement. They instead use the word ‘ikigai’, which is to have a sense of purpose. I think that’s key to a happy retirement – to have a sense of purpose.”
longer, they were living well, she writes. Centenarians were still chopping wood, tending their flocks, riding their motorbikes and enjoying the company of others at the local bar. Importantly, they were celebrated and played an active role within their families. Researchers suggested this enhances an older person’s sense of self-worth.
In Aotearoa, generally, older people in Pākehā culture are not celebrated in the way that kuia and kaumatua in Māori culture are venerated, she says.
“It’s similar in Pasifika communities. I really think we need to take a leaf out of their book.
“I don’t feel it’s my place to talk about the way they do things, but it seems to me we should be taking note.”
Bailey writes about the inequities between men and women as we age.
Men get to be silver foxes when they get old but women can feel invisible, she says.
“Why is it that they’re the only ones who are deemed to become sexier? It’s grossly unfair.”
Women should be silver vixens, she says. “That has a nice ring to it!”
She shares the opinion of Clare Chambers, professor of political philosophy at Cambridge University, who says our obsession with the way we look is a serious public health issue.
She writes about ‘shametenance’ – the things a person does in secret to change their body, from dyeing grey hair to wearing make-up. Whole empires are built on getting the ‘natural look’ which actually requires using a bucketload of cosmetics to get it, says Bailey.
“I’m tired of that. I just feel lucky to have got to the age I have – so many people don’t. A few wrinkles are signs of a life lived.
“[But] if it works for you and it makes you feel better, then go for it. I’m the first to admit I’ve had a bit of botox here and there. If you’re on the tele you become very aware of how you look. I got very frowny.”
She recalls a botox injection which sent one eyebrow into a temporarily surprised position just in time for the six o’clock news.
She can laugh at that now. “You shouldn't experiment when you’re on television.”
Bailey certainly felt the pressure to look young in those latter days of reading the news to the nation.
She began to compare herself to everybody else. Social media was in its infancy in those last few years of her time on the box. She never looked at it or read anything about herself in other media. “I’m way too thin-skinned to do that.”
She says it was self-imposed, but there was a subliminal pressure from society. She remembers being asked in a women’s magazine interview when she was in her 50s “how much longer are you going to be doing this?”
When she did get ‘the biff’ from telly news, a void opened up – retirement.
“I thought, I’m going to have to do something but I didn’t know what to do with myself for a year. Then someone asked me to write a book and I wrote my memoir which filled in this awful transition period.”
She’s always hated the word retirement. It’s such a passive word. We need to take hold of our ageing journey and be a bit proactive about it, not just let it happen to you, she says.
“I know a lot of people who have really struggled with that cut off from work. Suddenly what defined you, which is generally your job, is not there anymore and you begin to wonder who you are.
“In Japan there is no word for retirement. They instead use the word ‘ikigai’, which is to have a sense of purpose. I think that’s key to a happy retirement – to have a sense of purpose.”
Bailey went on to make documentaries, travel shows and presented Anzac Day coverage for Māori TV. The latter was a highlight of her career, she says.
She’s still writing but these days likes to spend plenty of time with her family – husband producer and director Chris, their three grown children and seven, soon to be eight, grandchildren.
Her own amble into older age has been helped by doing pilates – she’s evangelical about its powers – and meditating.
There are things you can do particularly in your 40s and 50s to help your ageing journey, particularly with your health, she says; steer clear of the booze as much as possible, exercise. But the key thing that came out of a Harvard study on ageing which she found in her research for the book is the importance of relationships.
You need somebody you can rely on in your older age because loneliness is a killer, she says. Everyone needs someone who understands them, who loves them for who they are, who is there for them. It doesn’t have to be a husband or wife or a partner, it can be a friend, she says.
She’s a great believer in being around young people. It’s important to have that stimulation as you age, she says, but the opportunities for that become quite narrow as you get older.
“We should be considering older people more and not just siloing them in activities for ‘older people’. Somehow we need to integrate more.”
Bailey says the physical toll of loneliness is sobering.
Loneliness is toxic and can manifest in declining physical health.
She writes about one study from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah that showed loneliness is more deadly than obesity, and that lacking social connection can be more dangerous than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Her own fears of growing old are not about loneliness, nor even death. It’s the thought of losing her husband.
“We have been together for 52 years. We’ve been together since I was 18. He’s the other half of me.”
She writes of a health scare he had with a melanoma a few years back, which made them look at each day as a gift, to be “lived to the max”.
She hopes she’ll go first. But she’d like to live to be a lively, perky centenarian like those Sardinian Highlanders, chopping wood and having a tipple at the local.
Chris’ grandmother lived to be 102, says Bailey.
“She dropped dead in a fruit and vege shop. If I can do that, I would definitely like to live to 100.”