Monday, March 07, 2005

getting older

The American government is weighing the possibility to raise the age of retirement again. They're making all sorts of excuses, but the real reason is that my generation took their time in having kids, if they had them at all. Of course, I'm speaking statistically.

I remember in the summer of 1972 we were visiting the states. Our eldest was a toddler, and I was in the beginning of my second pregnancy. In Israel wherever you went you saw babies, toddlers, kids and pregnant women. In New York, it was rare, very rare. I don't remember seeing any pregnant women, until we met some other friends who were visiting from Jerusalem, and we exchanged confidences that we were both expecting. (Those two kids are friends to this day.)

So the American Social Security is stretched, supporting people like my parents, and my peers will have to wait until they're much older to retire. I'm sure nobody thought of that when they were in their twenties and thirties.

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