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THE LONG WEEKEND: TRANSITION AND GROWTH IN RETIREMENT
M Cecil SmithDepartment of Educational Psychology, Counseling, & Special EducationNorthern Illinois UniversityTalk presented at the NIU Annuitants’ Association meetingApril 26, 1990
 
2THE LONG WEEKEND: TRANSITION AND GROWTH IN RETIREMENTI’d like to talk to you this evening about retirement and the preparation for retirement,from the perspective of a developmental psychologist. Psychologists such as myself, whostudy developmental events occurring across the life span, are interested in the process of retirement because it is one of the hallmark passages in the life of the individual. I speak of- retirement as a process, rather than a single event, because retirement occurs not onlyat that moment when the individual receives his or her gold watch from the company.Retirement occurs, rather, over a lengthy period of time and the process of retiring ismarked by several developmental tasks. These tasks must be recognized, negotiated, andresolved in order for the individual to find personal fulfillment.I’d like to begin by asking you to respond to a couple of questions. First of all, for thoseof you who are thinking about, or actually planning for, impending retirement:
What are your ideas about what your retirement is going to be like?
For those of you who havebeen retired for some time:
 Have your retirement experiences thus far met your expectations of what retirement is “supposed” to be?
 Nancy Datan, a prominent psychologist in the study of adult development, refers toretirement as “the long weekend” (Datan & Thomas, 1984). This metaphor suggestsseveral views of retirement. I’d like to elaborate on each of these views for a few minutesto set the stage for the ideas that I wish to discuss concerning what I refer to as transitionand growth in retirement. While transitions or changes are inevitable throughout ourlives, growth can only occur through the resolution of various developmental tasks.
 
3What images come to mind when we think of retirement as a “long weekend”? Just as thearrival of the weekend signals the end of the workweek, so retirement signals the end of the worklife. This metaphor strongly suggests that the end of one s working life is alsothe end of one’s life.Unfortunately, in my view, this is how retirement is generally perceived in our society. Itis this aspect of retirement which psychologists and social gerontologists have devotedmost of their efforts in examining and attempting to understand.The “long weekend” metaphor also symbolizes the transition from working, from beingproductive and making a contribution to society, to inactivity, inertia, and stagnation.Retirement is seen as a sort of “less than” condition: the retiree is less productive thanwhen he or she was working, and so, is considered to be less important and less valuablethan the worker (Miller, 1965). This view, like the first, is obviously a quite negativeattitude about retirement. Perhaps this mind-set has something to do with the mythic“Protestant work ethic” under which most of us toil throughout our productive years(Weber, 1958). This attitude assumes that the retired individual will be inactive, or will--at best--lead a life of non—directed leisure activity.This transitional aspect of retirement, from full time productivity to relative inactivity inthe economic marketplace, has also been the focus of much research by bothpsychologists and sociologists. The questions of interest are: what effects does retirement
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