Remembering the Good Old Days
He is always talking about the old days when people could leave their back doors open. That’s probably why his submarine sank.
It happened again last week. I was part of a group of older people who began to reminisce about their childhoods. The conversation turned to party-line telephones and people who rubbernecked. (They listened in on other people’s conversations.) It included recalling what your particular ring was: one-long-and-two-shorts or short-long-short or some other long-short ring combination. Your phone rang whenever someone on your party-line was being called, and you knew if it was for you by distinguishing the longs and the shorts. They talked about how the world had changed—to private lines with cordless phones, then cell phones, and then smartphones.
I was part of that group, but I said nothing. I thought—somewhat judgmentally I confess—that we were sounding like a bunch of old fogies. (Yes, I used that ageist term. Sorry.)
On our daily walks, when my husband sometimes reminisces about his childhood Go-Kart or his Doodlebug mini-bike, I listen, but I do not chime in with my own memories of playing Kick the Can or Eenie Einie Over.
Increasingly, my peers have been reminiscing, while I listen—and sometimes judge.
Should I? When my father was in his final months, the hospice social workers sometimes asked him about his past, encouraging him to reminisce.
I Googled “reminiscing” and was surprised by what I learned.
I learned that we start reminiscing around age 10. Young people and older people reminisce more than people at midlife, perhaps because midlife people tend to have less discretionary time.
I discovered that perhaps my negative attitude was out of date. In the early 1900s, reminiscing by older people was disparaged as an unhealthy dysfunction. Then in 1963, aging expert Robert Butler maintained that reminiscing was universal and natural—and could be positive. He called it “life review.”
I found post-1963 articles that were over-the-top in their praise of reminiscing: They said it preserves family history, improves quality of life, reduces depression, promotes physical health, eliminates boredom, improves communication skills, reduces stress, enhances self-esteem, and more.
But still I wondered, remembering times when my older relatives angrily rehearsed old hurts. Is all reminiscing good? Then I found a balanced viewpoint that rang true for me. In the 1990s, psychologists Lisa Watt and Paul Wong classified different types of reminiscing.
Obsessive: “Everything was terrible.”
Escapist: “Those were the glory days.”
Narrative: “This is what happened.”
Transmissive: “When I was your age. . .”
Instrumental: “I conquered hardship. I can do it again.”
Integrative: “My life had worth.”
They then evaluated the effect of each kind of reminiscing and found different effects.
Obsessive: When we remember how awful some events were and stay stuck there, we fail to incorporate them into a meaningful life and feel bad all over again.
Escapist: Although it can defend our egos, remembering the good old days as better than the present is generally not healthy. It can reduce satisfaction with our current life.
Narrative: Watt and Wong reached no conclusions about the positive or negative effect of our telling a story about the past factually without coloring or interpreting it.
Instrumental: When we tell a story of surviving hardship in the past, we enhance our feelings of strength and competence. These stories include achieving goals despite barriers, and we draw from them to overcome present problems.
Integrative: When I review the story of my life and evaluate it as having value, I feel good about myself. These stories can include reconciling the difference between the ideal and reality, accepting negative life events, and resolving old conflicts.
Watt and Wong convinced me that some kinds of reminiscing are indeed good. And, though I fall silent when a group starts reminiscing, I do reminisce in other ways—and some of it has been good for me. After I had written Child of the Plains: A Memoir, I found, to my surprise that I had made peace with some painful experiences of my childhood. When my grandchildren ask for an old days bedtime story, and I tell them about being a five-year-old afraid to ride on a different school bus seat from my brother but doing it anyway, I feel good afterwards.
I am now at work writing for my heirs the stories of the mementos and artwork around my house. I am realizing through that process that also in my adult life are stories I find worth sharing.
My friends’ conversation about party-line phones was not escapist. They weren’t reliving glory days. They were simply narrating stories about the way things used to be different.
Maybe, just maybe, when the reminiscing is not escapist or obsessive, I can find a good story to share the next time a group of my friends begins to reminisce.
Adapted from Creative Aging by Carol Van Klompenburg, available from Amazon.
As it turns, out my niche turned out to be writing on SubStack. I tried retiring several times - but it wasn't the answer. Thank goodness I found something because as you say retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be.