Seriously, who manufactured it and what did it mean?
"Golden" has a positive spin to it, so there was something happy in the phrase. But what happiness was known or envisioned? Was it simply not-working, a time after retirement ... after spending a third of a lifetime in gainful employment? Was it seeing the kids out the door? If either of these are "golden," what qualities were ascribed to the times that were not golden?
It's peculiar.
Or was it perhaps a 'truth' based in the 'truth' that a thing is true if enough people say so ... or if I say so?
Was it a sop to the recognition that energies tend to flag, the body pulls in its hard-working horns and the unanswered question looms, "Now what?"
Why are these times "golden?" Is it an expression of fear and confusion or is there some positive golden-ness happy quotient the creator had in mind?
"Golden years" feels a bit like a person who has watched too many family sit-coms and become convinced that there actually are people who resolve rending issues in 30 minutes ... and how come I can't do that too? I'm not sure that's true, but it sort of feels that way.
Was the creation of "golden years" an assertion of maintaining control in the same way anyone might imagine they had had control during the non-golden days past?
Minus the crabbiness or the hallelujahs, I just wonder. Who made up "golden years" and why?
Madison Avenue meets developers, and they got the gold...
ReplyDeleteWhen you hear the phrase “the golden years,” there’s no mistaking the topic. You’re talking about retirement. A time of relaxation and leisure. The crowning achievement of a lifetime of hard work. A time to travel, play golf, take up a hobby, and make time for the grandkids. A time for anything but work.
This concept of retirement as an endless holiday, however, isn’t even as old as today’s retirees. The actual phrase “the golden years” was coined in 1959 in an advertising campaign for America’s first large-scale retirement community. It was a roll of the dice to see whether folks “55 and better” would embrace “an active new way of life,” move away from their families, and buy one of the modest homes on a $2 million golf-resort development in the middle of the Arizona desert.
A Historical Change for Retirees
The campaign was a success. On the first weekend, 100,000 people showed up to tour Sun City’s model homes and see for themselves if a lifestyle free from responsibility and the constraints of working life could actually be possible. For many seniors in the 1950s, retirement was a lonely time of decline. They had the financial support of Social Security, but once they left the workforce, they had little purpose in their lives. Retirees saw themselves as “too old to work, too young to die.” No wonder they grasped with both hands the idea of retirement as essentially a second childhood!
Sun City’s ads not only launched the nation’s first successful retirement community, it also inspired an entire industry designed to help people achieve their dream retirement. Financial planning for retirement was a key component, and for many years, retirees’ combination of pensions, Social Security income and personal savings was enough to provide them a leisurely retirement lifestyle.
http://rowleylegal.com/2014/08/03/the-term-golden-years-was-coined-in-1959-as-an-advertising-pitch-for-sun-city/
One of the residents at my moms assisted living residence used to sing this like a monk chanting a mantra until her dementia finally robbed her of her last bits of coherence:
ReplyDeleteTHE GOLDEN YEARS HAVE COME AT LAST,
I CANNOT SEE,
I CANNOT PEE
I CANNOT CHEW,
I CANNOT SCREW
MY MEMORY SHRINKS,
MY HEARING STINKS,
NO SENSE OF SMELL,
I LOOK LIKE HELL,
MY BODY'S DROOPING,
GOT TROBLE POOPING.
THE GOLDEN YEARS HAVE COME AT LAST,
THE GOLDEN YEARS CAN KISS MY ASS.