Not sure when it started, but it feels like once I left home in my late teens, I always had the fear of becoming a bag lady. And when I’ve shared this fear with women friends of my generation, they admit that they too experienced this anticipatory grief throughout many years of their adult lives. We realized, in a system where money is what’s needed to prevent such an outcome, the deck was stacked against us. In the 60s and 70s women earned 50% of what men earned doing the same job. In my case, the man I supervised at the university made more money than I did. Without being able to get a credit card or a mortgage in our own name, and with a 50% chance of
marriages ending in divorce, most women were one responsible man away from becoming what we now refer to as “unhoused.”
The economic picture for women and most people in the US is much improved a half century later but as I walk the neighborhoods and attempt to hold phone conversations with potential voters, anxiety about the future is a major source of people’s uncertainty and indecision about what will best prevent their anticipatory grief which they already have begun to feel.
Uncertainties in the marketplace are not new. We’ve had periods of inflation, high interest rates, recessions, and corporate downsizing where jobs and even whole industries have been eliminated. For voters in Pennsylvania memories are still vivid of when the Pittsburgh Steel mills disappeared in the 1980s. Global steel production had shifted to China and 150,000 workers lost their jobs and their livelihoods. Now, 40 years later a Japanese company is attempting to buy US Steel, promising they won’t move any jobs overseas. But is it a good idea for an industry vital to our national security to be owned by another country?
Big questions we don’t know the answers to. And who do we trust to answer them? Since the lockdowns and isolation of the pandemic, and the conspiracy theories spawned by misinformation and disinformation through social media, trust in government and in one another
has been sorely tested. Change is the only constant, but this can be small comfort when new technology causes another class of workers, those with creative white-collar jobs to question, when will AI eliminate our jobs?
So, life’s scary with many big changes outside of our control. Our anticipatory grief is telling us to pay attention and learn how to marshal and manage our fear. Turning to the arts, I remember a song from the King and I, a show I performed in while I was still in high school. Anna teaches the song to her son who is nervous about moving to another country. Lots of important truths embedded in her advice.
It’s best to not let people know how afraid you are–
“Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect I’m afraid.”
Acting differently can change feelings–
“The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well.”
Perhaps – Fake it till you make it?
“Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are.”
Finally, after a news broadcast that often contains horrible news, (Warning: the report you are about to see is disturbing), Lester Holt signs off with the following advice – “Please take care of yourself and one another.” For me, this is the only answer that makes sense.
