"Women Live Longer By Keeping Going’

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29766, 8 March 1962, Page 16

"Women Live Longer By Keeping Going’

“Men who haven’t learned the secret of retirement don’t wear out they rust out. Women manage things better, and live longer as a result,” says Dr. R. Kemp in “Family Doctor."

"I have some simple rules for the retired man,” he says. “First he must learn to read books. It’s an odd thing that well over 50 per cent, of people can’t or don’t read books. Some of them haven't mastered the art of following a story and others have just let the reading habit die The person who goes to the library several times a week is never bored.

“Second, he must keep up his appearance and follow a civilised timetable just as he did during his working life. To let your personal life slip really is fatal. Things just go from bad to worse.” he says.

“Third, he must make new friends and keep up old friendships. Having thrown off old w’ork chains he must find others other duties, other obligations, other disciplines. He must, in other words, furnish his life again “Finally, he must not start to worry about health or the many little things that inevitably remind him that he is no longer young. If a person reaches 70 it is guarantee enough that he is fundamentally healthy and has many healthy years ahead.”

Dr. Bush adds: “All this, and no doubt much more, the retired man knows. The question is whether he is going to do anything about it or is going to enter a vicious downward spiral.

"It might help to point out that everything I have said has been about men. There are hardly any problems where women are concerned because they hardly ever retire They rarely have any urge to sit down and gaze hopelessly into the fire Women keep going. At 70 and 80 they are doing most of what they were doing all their lives —not, possibly, because they like housework or because they are against retirement, but because their satisfaction comes from doing their job They know this instinctively, just as we all do.

“The trap of retirement is that there is such a risk of losing this satisfaction and never regaining it. It seems highly likely that women live so much longer than men just because they keep going, just because a woman’s work is never done. Anybody who persuades an old lady to stop working is doing her a very great wrong It is the women who have by far the best chance of living right to the end of their lives. I wish we could persuade the men to do the same,” Dr. Bush says.