“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
That’s a question I was asked more times than I can count from the age of 7 through college. When I was growing up I would go with my father as he volunteered. It was a safe environment where he would go see patients and I would wander around and visit with people. I loved it. They would pinch my cheeks and make me feel special. I would hear fascinating stories. And I could always count on the question: What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

This “place” happened to be the Menorah Home in Brooklyn, New York. I must not have been born with the DNA to fear old people and to denigrate aging. In fact, it has always fascinated me. I’ve always kind of liked the idea!

In the early 1980’s I got a Masters degree in the relatively new field of gerontology. Again, people asked, why? Let me tell you why. We have a problem with aging. It’s not just aging - we have a problem with becoming grown-ups! We need to get over it because if we are lucky, we are going to age!

More years have been added to life expectancy in the past century alone than were added in all of the previous millennia combined. Up until the 20^th century people didn’t worry about aging—they died! Our life expectancy has increased by almost more than 40% over the last century. That’s astounding!

The roughly 35 years we’ve added to our lives are not at the end but in the middle. We’ve created a new life stage—only no one knows what to make of it! The midlife years from about 45-65 are actually ones of tremendous power and potential to act on behalf of ourselves, our families, our businesses, our communities and the world!

It’s time to name this new stage of life. I call it Middlescence.

Lori Bitter
Creative Director 

Lori lends her expertise as a consultant, researcher and entrepreneur in the aging space. Her new book, The Grandparent Economy was released in September 2015. She serves as publisher of GRAND – the digital magazine for grandparents, and as Co-Producer of The What’s Next Boomer Business Summit and The Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit. Learn more from Lori here. 

Molly Inglish
Designer

Molly is a User Experience Designer whose aim is to help clarify and delight. Molly helps by developing the visuals for the web and presentations. She also helps by occasionally going crazy with post-it notes. You can find her working on other projects and drinking far too much coffee here.