Hope Meadows. Why Can’t the Whole World Be Like This?

Rantoul, ILLINOIS.  Okay. This blog is about being on the road and telling you what I’m hearing as I work with people in different communities to help them start a Coming of Age initiative. 

I confess.  I didn’t really go to Rantoul, which is in rural Illinois.

I heard about Hope Meadows, a community there, when I was in Las Vegas (Now, that counts as being on the road, no?) at the recent American Society on Aging/National Council on Aging Annual Conference. 

But I was so moved by what I heard that I wanted to tell you about it.

In Hope Meadows, all the residents live in former military housing.  Most of the kids, predominantly African-American, have been in the juvenile justice system or foster care.  Many of the parents, fairly evenly split between black and white, are young mothers with young children who have faced hardships or couples who are foster parents and want to adopt.

And adopt they do.  Sometimes as many as six of the kids.

A Race-Blind Community

From what I heard and saw about Hope Meadows, it looks like these adoptive parents are race-blind.  A child’s need for love, warmth, tenderness, a home, and to have someone guide him or her, are all that matters.

Wait, it gets better. 

The seniors (That’s not a term I use often, but it’s what they call the older people who move into the community—so when in Rantoul…) come to Hope Meadows after applying to do so and passing background checks.  They move into modest accommodations at a low rent, and commit to doing 24 hours a week of volunteer work—though most do much more.

And they love the children.

How could they not?  They see these formerly troubled and/or abandoned kids beginning to thrive in their new environment. 

They’re with them hours and hours every day as the school crossing guards, enjoying community celebrations, mentoring or tutoring the kids, and become so much more than surrogate grandparents.  They become grandparents in the most generous, nurturing, human and substantive way possible.

Talk about a win-win-win.  The benefits seem endless: children’s lives are righted; parents who want to care for a family create and build those families; older people who want to be generative and who get so much back from doing so, do just that.

Community as intervention

I’m not one for what I call “non-profitese”—words like infrastructure and service delivery and replication models.  But the folks here have a term that seems perfect.  They say what they’re about isn’t “intervention in the community”; it's “community as intervention.”

It’s the community’s being and working together that makes all this happen.  It would appear that a village can do much more than raise a child.  It can make strangers into family and bond generations— deep-sixing racism and ageism in the mix!

Hope Meadows was established in 1994 with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Aren’t you glad you ate your “Wheaties” now that you hear with what they’ve done with some of the money they made?). 

It was the brainchild of Brenda Eheart, whose nonprofit, Generations of Hope, developed the concept. 

Word has it that Eheart  was the one who huffed and puffed and blew down the Pentagon’s reluctance to turn over this former military housing to serve this loving, progressive purpose (Talk about turning weapons into ploughshares!).

In 2006, the Generations of Hope folks formed a new organization, a holding corporation, again with support from Kellogg, and this time added Southshore Bank to the mix to provide low-interest loans to help get other communities like Hope Meadows established in other parts of the country.

Other people’s children?

These other communities will benefit from Hope Meadows’ 14 years of experience.  For example, they will be encouraged to build housing that makes sure that people’s front porches face each other and allows neighbors to keep watch not only on their own children when they’re playing but other children as well.

Though in places like Hope Meadows “other people’s children” doesn’t seem an apt phrase, does it?

How does this “intentional community” idea strike you?  The idea of “community as intervention?” 

Maybe more importantly, how does hearing about Hope Meadows make you feel?  And could you see applying some of the principles exemplified there in your community?

And if you’d like to know more about Hope Meadows of the Generations of Hope Development Corporation, just click those hyperlinks above.

Grow Old With Me—Is the Best Yet to Be?

RICHMOND, VA.  I was one of the speakers here recently at a Symposium on Boomer Engagement.  The speaker who followed me was Dr. E. Ayn Welleford, a gerontologist who asked a provocative question:

“What kind of an older person do you want to be?”

The reason it was provocative is here we were talking about high energy, engaged people in their 50s and 60s and she was asking us to think beyond that time and see our 70s, 80s and 90s as places we were aiming for, and the near term as a means of getting there.

How Can I Age Optimally?

“Will I age well?” she asked us to ask ourselves. “How can I age optimally?” I really like the juxtaposition of “optimal” and “aging.” It suggests to me doing the best one can, not measuring oneself against some arbitrary standard.

By your 50s and 60s, Dr. Welleford suggested, it was likely most of us as we age would become “more so.” She wasn’t saying the die is cast, but that the likelihood of some major change in behavior, interests, or world view was not so great.

She also gave us some new language (well, new to me anyway):  “midlife evaluation.”  It’s a more accurate term, she suggested, than its predecessor, “midlife crisis”—so frenetically depicted in that Bruce Dern movie, Middle Age Crazy." And it used to occur, or so they said,  in your 40s.

Gentlemen—and Ladies—Start Your Mulling

But now that many of us are living longer, it does make sense that whatever-it-is that would happen, happens a little later too, and I like the thoughtful tone of "evaluation" instead of the frenzy of "crisis" or "crazy."

I think I could manage that.  And I think I am— evaluating— which does seem like an appropriate activity to pursue before tackling the question, “What kind of an elder do I want to be?”

It’s nice that (some of us think) we have a say in the matter.

Am I destined (condemned?) to become "more so?"

What about unrealized dreams? 

How do I make what-I-never-did into what-I-have-yet-to-do?

Clearly, the mulling has only just begun.

What Do Men Want?

LAS VEGAS. At the recent American Society on Aging (ASA)/National Council on Aging (NCOA) Annual Conference here, I was on a panel with three other men age 50+ who talked about “The New Older Man: Perspectives on Transition.” The other panelists were Bob Atchley, former Chair of the ASA Board; Jim Furman, NCOA’s CEO; and Ron Browne, founding director of The Years Beyond.

There’s an expression in almost every culture I’m familiar with that whatever the number of vocal people in a group, multiply that number by a five, and that’s how many opinions you’ll get.

And we were no exception.

Plus we were abetted by the provocative nature of the topic and an enthusiastic q & a session with the 180 folks in the audience, fairly evenly split between men and women.

Ron and Bob had had the most experience working with older men—Ron had run all sorts of groups, including with men who have dementia; and Bob runs intensive weekends for men dealing with spirituality.

Who Am I?

My contribution to the conversation emanated from the fact that most of my professional life—as a playwright and TV and screen writer and now to some extent with Coming of Age via our “Explore Your Future” series—has focused on the question of “Who am I?”

The variation on this question that I hear most often from other men these days has to with work: Who am I going to be when I’m no longer a teacher or a lawyer or a plumber or whatever? How much of that identity can and will I take into this next phase of my life?

Bob Atchley said a good bit, but I dunno.

The most powerful negative response to this question that I ever heard was in a focus group we conducted to develop the “Explore Your Future” curriculum. It came from a lawyer, a litigator, who said “I’m a warrior. When I leave the law, I’ll be leaving the battleground.”

Yikes! “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away” anyone?

Do Men Who Are Feminists Have an Advantage?

I feel that those of us men who are 50+ that were a part of the feminist movement and other civil rights movements, including gay liberation, have a distinct advantage. We saw what it means to seek a new identity, talk about that with others and come out on the other side of the conversation not only changed but energized by a new sense of who you are.

Another benefit we have in becoming a “new older man” is erectile dysfunction medication. For many men who I know being able to perform sexually is a critical part of one’s sense of oneself as a man and having the insurance policy that these meds provide is really important—something our dads and grandfathers didn’t have.

(Though I have yet to figure out what you’re supposed to do with those twin bathtubs—outside no less! Is one of you supposed to climb into the other tub? Do you then get out and drain that tub in your altogethers? Seems like even if “you’re ready,” all that draining could dampen the mood, so to speak. But I digress… though I enjoyed doing so.)

Two of the other men on the panel felt that guys were never going to sit around and talk about their feelings, in essence, just be with other men and have kaffeeklatsch. Guys, they felt, had to do something together—play sports, hike or play cards, and that was what would trigger conversation about feelings, lives, and what they were thinking regarding the future.

Can We Talk?

Again, I dunno. What about college bull sessions? All right, those late night (and often all night) discussions may have been fueled by beer and not a kaffeclatch or high tea, but wasn’t that just sitting around talking. (To be fair, I have to admit I’ve had some of the best “real talks” with my running buddies on long runs.)

What do you think it would take men to have this conversation about what kind of lives they want for themselves in The Third Age?

Jim Furman told a story that captivated the audience. He had been given tickets to the Obama inauguration. He and his 15-year-old son were en route to the area where they were to stand to see the ceremony, when he realized they would need to run to get there on time to see the swearing in.

A "Come to Moses" Moment

Jim had bypass surgery a year ago and is getting in increasingly better shape, but he knew that though his son could run fast enough to get there on time, he probably couldn’t.

He had been carrying the tickets for both of them, but at this moment handed his son his and told him to run on ahead so the boy could see the ceremony even though Jim thought he wouldn’t—and wouldn’t be able to savor this great moment in history with his son.

Jim’s voice broke when he came to this part. It felt like a “Come to Moses” moment for me—“You go forth to the Promised Land. I’ll see what I can from where I am.”

What a powerful instance of what it means to be a man, a dad, pass the torch, accept limitation, have mixed feelings about it, but deep down understand that something really powerful was happening.

And What of Cialis?

Is that an epiphany of the “new older man?”

Are we really that different?

Do those who are feminists have a decided advantage in learning how to grow older?

Does Cialis or other erectile dysfunction medication really figure into the mix?

Can we do the talk without the walk… or do we need to walk, run, dribble, tackle or pin the other guys first as a means of getting there?

Maybe it’s not “What do Men want?”

Maybe it’s “What do the New Older Men need to do to get where they need to go?” The really good, empowering, engaged and contributing places we need to go?