Amazing Baby Boomer Women
By Paula Fellingham

Do you know about one of the most amazing demographics alive today? They’re the amazing Baby Boomer women ~ born between 1945 and 1965. Currently, there are almost 50 million in America alone! Look at these incredible statistics:

One out of three Americans is now approaching midlife. According to the Wall Street Journal, every eight seconds someone in the United States turns fifty as the baby boom hits middle age.

More than 15 million women will have, or are already having, what they regard as a midlife crisis – about equal to the entire populations of Colorado, Massachusetts, and Minnesota combined. (from Elaine Wethington, Expecting Stress: Americans and the ‘Midlife Crisis)

Women hold nearly half of all executive, managerial, and administrative jobs in the United States.

Women today earn 58% of all college degrees granted and 59% of the master’s degrees. (National Center for Educational Statistics)

Thanks in large part to midlife women, female ownership and operation of motorcycles has risen 34 percent in the past five years! Racing Adventures, a Scottsdale, Arizona, auto-racing school, has seen a sharp increase in sign-ups by midlife women in just the past four years.

Women now comprise as much as 40 percent of the field in Ironman Triatholons. Significant numbers of women between the ages of 45 and 49 compete in this grueling event of endurance and strength. (Paul Huddle, Multisports.com, Encinitas, CA.)

Women:
- Control 4 trillion in annual consumer spending. ($4,000,000,000,000)
- Buy 2 out of every 3 cars.
- Take 50% of all business trips.
- Control 51.3% of all the personal wealth in the country.
_ Influence 95% of all US consumer spending, and make up 85% of all consumer buying. (Center for Women’s Business Research)

Women Initiate 74% of all new business start-ups in the United States.

Let’s look at some SUCCESSFUL WOMEN OVER 40:

• Lauren Bacall, who taught Humphery Bogart how to whistle, went back to Broadway at the age of seventy-six. As she put it, “I’m not a has-been. I’m a will-be.”

• Emily Post, wrote her famous book of etiquette in her late fifties.

• Gloria Stuart almost stole the show in the movie Titanic at the age of eighty-seven. In real life, she had given up movie acting in the 1950s to learn to become a painter in Europe. When she was fifty she had a gallery exhibit in New York. When she was seventy-three, she became a master printer, producing limited editions of museum-quality books. Then she returned to acting in her 80’s!!

• Grandma Moses was seventy-six when she took up painting.

• After a crazed gunman killed her husband and wounded her son on a Long Island train, Carolyn McCarthy, a nurse, ran for Congress to fight for gun control. She was elected at the age of fifty-two.

• When she was sixty-six, U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith made a bid for the GOP presidential nomination, which went instead to Sen. Barry Goldwater. She served in the Senate until she was seventy two years old.

• Golda Meir was sworn in as Israel’s premier at seventy.

• Maggie Kuhn founded the Gray Panthers at age sixty-five to fight for the rights of retired Americans.

• Pianist Marian McPartland recorded a popular jazz album at the age of seventy-eight.

• Geraldine Laybourne left a top job at Disney/ABC Cable Television and, at age 51, started Oxygen Media, an innovative network and the first completely owned and controlled by women.

We Baby Boomers are strongly bonded with one another because we’re aging together. The absolute truth is that most of us don’t like getting older because we lose things as we age!

That’s right – you know we do! We lose our smooth skin, good eyesight, strong muscles, and big chunks of our memory. But what we’ve gained is significantly more important. We’ve gained wisdom, empathy, perspective, and most importantly, an increased ability to love.

No, we can’t run as fast or jump as high, but we appreciate more and worry less. And we’ve learned that we just aren’t as concerned about what other people think or how much money we’ll make. And that gives us freedom to do what we really want to do and go where we’ve always wanted to go. Yes, Baby Boomers, it’s time to celebrate!

Paula Fellingham, an internationally-acclaimed speaker, the author of 5 books, and the mother of 7 children, has spoken at the United Nations and at conferences across the globe. Paula is a former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist. Paula is currently the CEO of The Women’s Information Network, www.TheWINonline.com. Her mission is to strengthen women and families worldwide.