HE-261
August 1955
Purdue University
Agricultural Extension Service
PUTTING LIFE INTO LIVING
BY
Dorothy V. Mummery,
Family Life Specialist
Lesson I. Mental and Physical Health as We Grow Older
Objective: To develop social, mental and emotional maturity.
You Don't Want To Be Middle-Aged?
So you soon will be "middle-aged”! or perhaps, even ”O1d”! And you don't like it — or do you? If you haven't found already that first gray hair, chances are you soon will. How do you feel about it? Do you dread the approach of the forties and fifties -- of the sixties and seventies and eighties? If so, why?
Let's stop a minute and consider. You began aging the moment you were conceived. When your first tooth came up through your gums, everyone was delighted. When you took your first step alone you were delighted, too, and laughed right out loud, perhaps with joy in your new accomplishment. When you were ten, you beamed with pride at that mark on the wall which indicated that you had grown half-an-inch since the last time Mother and Dad measured you. But when you are forty, and your first gray hair (or that first wrinkle) appears, you pull it out or in some way conceal it. You have been growing, maturing, changing, ever since birth. But somewhere along the line your attitude toward changing and maturing changes. You are extremely proud when you have a baby. But you weep when you go to her wedding.

Questions: Why is it that our attitudes and feelings change about those birthdays rolling up? Why do we hear women in their late thirties say "I just hate the thought that soon I will be forty?” What are some he feelings these women have which make them so unhappy?
On the other hand, sometimes women (and men) look forward with pleasant anticipation to the later years of life. What are some of the feelings that make them happy about approaching old age? One older woman said, "My, it's wonderful to be a grandmother! You can enjoy your grandchildren without being responsible for them!”
Here are some of the reasons one group of women gave for dreading the middle years, especially.
"A gray hair! Well, I suppose that means I soon will lose what good looks I have !”
"Well, my youngest child starts to high school in the fall. It won't long before I won’t be needed any more.”
"Both children are away at college. I hardly know what to do with my time any more. Sometimes I am actually bored.”
''l had my fortieth birthday last summer. And I keep thinking of the aunt that lived with us when I was growing up. I used to hear my