How long did your parents work?

[Ramen]

As I near 53 and ponder ER, I've been thinking about the course of the average career. Not sure there's ever been such a thing, but it seems like 30 years or so has been normal postwar.

My mother worked outside the home for 24 years, with a long gap as a stay-at-home mom. My dad worked for 32 years after finishing a PhD at age 27. That's 28 working years each on average. They retired at ages 59 and 60.

I've had two careers totaling 31 years. Retiring at 52 or 53 seemed too early till I added up the family's working years. I'd actually be right on time.

Not that there are any rules about this. It's just interesting to observe patterns.

Did you work about as long as your parents did?

 

[Dtail]

DF retired at 61, but also coz he couldn't find work. Similar to me at 57.
DM effectively retired at 86 last year due to Covid shutting down places she was working at.

 

[Gumby]

My dad quit high school when he turned 17 and joined the Navy. He lost his job at 59 and never got another. So that's 42 years. My mom quit school when she was 15 and went to work. I believe she worked until she was 65, with a stretch of about 14 years as a stay at home mom. So that would be 36 years working for a paycheck. Average of 39 years for the two of them.

My 60 year old brother joined the Navy at 17 and is still working after 43 years. My 55 year old sister left home at 18 and has worked ever since, so she's up to 37 years. I am the slacker of the family. Subtracting my 4 years at the Naval Academy (although it sure felt like work to me) and my 3 years in law school, I worked for 35 years between the time I graduated from high school at 18 and the time I retired at 60.

 

[Nemo2]

Both of mine died before they could retire.

 

[P.S.]

I don’t know about work patterns. But talking about patterns->

Have you ever noticed that an individual woman’s uterus is especially fertile at a particular time of the year? As an example, my kids’ birthdays are only a couple of wks apart. Same with my sibs and I. And I’ve noticed this with random persons on social media who post HBD (happy birthday) to one kid and then another a few days later.

I’ve never read about this phenomenon in a medical textbook, and if I was in OB/gyn I would try to make a study of this. Anyways, I just post this here, in case this gets worldwide traction... you read it here first.

 

[2017ish]

Hmmm. Counting stay at home dadding years (I did work a little bit outside the home), I worked 32 years after law school. DW worked 31 years after med school.

Dad went into military right out of high school, then was a bricklayer who eventually hung out his own shingle/hod. He was still working when diagnosed with terminal lung ca at 69--so say 51 years. Mom helped out in the masonry business, as well as other jobs over the years (and raised 4 kids). So she would have been working about 55 years or so if you include all the child-rearing years.

 

[Nemo2]

Have you ever noticed that an individual woman’s uterus is especially fertile at a particular time of the year?

Gumby, and others, might suggest that's related to shore leave.

 

[P.S.]

Gumby, and others, might suggest that's related to shore leave.

 

[rodi]

Do we count the time in college if 25 or so hours a week were worked? My dad had the GI bill - but still needed income so he was a busboy/waiter at a sorority house and had an on-campus job as well. He joined the military at age 17 - did college in 3.5 years (which I'll subtract since he didn't work full time). He retired at 62. So 41.5 years.

Mom had a few jobs before getting married (3 years or so) worked part time when we were kids (which I won't count), then went back to work full time when I was in middle school - for 24 years. So 27 years total.

Average 34ish years.

My dad told me he regretted not retiring earlier. He was definitely in OMY mode. He approved of my plans to retire at age 55. (I beat that by retiring at 52.)

I worked 30 years. Hope to be retired much more than 30 years.

On the subject of birth months... My two sons have birthdays 2 days (and 2 years) apart. After the 2nd one was born I made it clear that March was a month for 'belts and suspenders' when it came to birth control.

 

[Montecfo]

Both of mine died before they could retire.

Same

 

[davebarnes]

My mother came out of the Army, got married, knocked up, and never worked. Died at age 95-½.

My father came out of the Army, got married, knocked up my mother and worked in aerospace until age 62. He retired because he could not find work. Worked for big companies for 32 years. Then spent 33 years investing—which he was very good at. Died at age 95-½.

 

[Aerides]

My parents both barely Re'd, but they did it pre-ACA, so it health insurance would have been trickier.

Dad retired around 63, had been planning and gave 2 weeks notice when he was ready. They talked him into about 6 weeks. He was on Mom's HI. Mom retired at 63.5, and went on Cobra, by then Dad was on Medicare.

They both have a few small pensions, which, +SS cover their living expenses. But they also saved very well, with balanced investments, and love to gripe about RMDs. I'm constantly trying to talk them into blowing their dough.

 

[MRG]

My mom worked until she got married then she was let go because "it's your husband's job to support you". I guess that was common back when they married. DF worked till he was 60 when he retired with a pension and health care. He never said if he was pushed out, perhaps?

He wasn't happy when I retired at 56, but he was 95 and really wasn't doing well.

 

[VanWinkle]

Dad worked until 68, 7 year longer than I worked.

 

[Koolau]

My dad only retired (officially) from the family business at 65 so that he could add my little sis to his SS benefits (she was in college.) BUT he continued to come into the business even though my DW (now part owner/mgr) eventually refused to pay him. She pointed out that any pay he got would be "taxed" by SS very heavily. He didn't like that so he took odd jobs until he could physically/mentally no longer do so. In his late 70s, he was a night "guard" in a half way house for "troubled" teens. From time to time, he had to back a few boys back into their rooms (not locked). He was 5' 6" and 120 but not one ever took him on.

DW finally had to retire mom from family business when she could no longer do the work due to Alzheimers.

Essentially both parents worked from childhood until incapacity. They both wanted it that way - I never did. YMMV

 

[Walt34]

My father died at 62 while still employed at the local electric utility, I'm not certain when he started working but I'd think it was around 18. He did finish H.S. (not a given back then). I know he had a 35-year pin from P.E.P.Co. and was probably close to 40 years but I don't know when he started there. Likewise my mother finished H.S. but didn't have any college so she probably also started working at 18 and retired from NIH at age 65. She did have a long stint as a SAHM, so call it 30 years.

I worked 35 years full time, but only 29 of that was at the job providing the pension. And I didn't count the part time work while in school.

 

[HI Bill]

At age 58, my dad had an unexpected 5-way bypass surgery. He never returned to work. Post-college, he probably worked around 28 years. My mom worked until I was born, and returned to work after I started kindergarten. She worked until around 65, for a total of about 30 years. She was teaching school, and had previously retired, but went back to teaching half-time, until her teaching partner died mid-year. She was forced to stop working, as rules prohibited her from working more than half-time. Leaving her students in the middle of the school year nearly killed her!

 

[ncbill]

Mom really never worked...got married after high school, had me a few years later, divorced in her early 40s, lived on alimony (lifetime) until dying in her mid-60s from dementia.

Dad served in the Army for several years after college, worked for a friend for a few years after that, then bought out of bankruptcy a business that let him essentially retire by his mid-40s, though he didn't officially sell for a couple of decades after that.

 

[anothercog]

Mine are still working part time. My mom is 73, my Dad is 74 and my step-Dad is 75. Though my step-dad no longer gets paid for working. He's a retired judge and still does mediations. He gets some additional perks though like paid conferences and reimbursed travel.

 

[braumeister]

Dad worked about 40 years after getting out of the Army, and Mom worked intermittently after I entered high school, about 20 years total. Both retired at 65.

While still a teenager, I saw everyone from that generation retiring at 65 (Social Security FRA) and set myself a goal of beating that by ten years. I was lucky enough to do it.

 

[jimbee]

My dad completed 8 grades of formal school. He never attended high school, and retired at 60 years old. My mom graduated high school, and is still working at 83 years old.

Our first house didn't have indoor plumbing, so I find flush toilets to be great!

 

[MichaelB]

My dad worked around 35 years, including WW2 and part time work during college and law school. My mum worked at least that long. After he lost his job she went back to work ‘til age 70, and I suspect partly to be away from him.

I’ve got 36 years of paid employment. 25 years in Megacorp, 3 years after that, and, according to SS records, 8 years before that.

 

[Walt34]

Our first house didn't have indoor plumbing, so I find flush toilets to be great!

Being a spoiled child of 1950's and '60's suburbia, I never knew the joys of the outhouse or not having electricity so it was little more than a novelty on the rare occasions when we went somewhere where that was common. But the idea of having to live full time with it gives me an appreciation for what we did have.

 

[jimbee]

Being a spoiled child of 1950's and '60's suburbia, I never knew the joys of the outhouse or not having electricity so it was little more than a novelty on the rare occasions when we went somewhere where that was common. But the idea of having to live full time with it gives me an appreciation for what we did have.

This was the '50s/'60s ...

 

[W2R]

My father was a surgeon. On the day he was moving out of his office to retire, at age 70, he had a doctor appointment. So, he told my brother (who was helping him move all that furniture out) that he'd be back in a few minutes.

The doctor told him he had metastatic cancer and gave him two weeks to live.

I had arrived at the family home (in Hawaii) for a one week visit the day before, thank goodness. So, I was able to be there for my mother who, like the rest of us, was devastated. My father wanted privacy and did not want interaction with friends at that time, so we did what we could to help him with that.

He didn't die for a year, but he was in excruciating pain and I wouldn't call that a retirement in the normal sense.

As for my mother, she had been helping him at the office so that ended her job too, at age 71 in her case. She didn't die until age 98, but she never worked again.

My father worked for 57 years, 45 years as an MD. My mother was mostly a stay-at-home mom, working off and on, so I'm not really sure how long she worked.

I don’t know about work patterns. But talking about patterns->

Have you ever noticed that an individual woman’s uterus is especially fertile at a particular time of the year? As an example, my kids’ birthdays are only a couple of wks apart. Same with my sibs and I. And I’ve noticed this with random persons on social media who post HBD (happy birthday) to one kid and then another a few days later.

I’ve never read about this phenomenon in a medical textbook, and if I was in OB/gyn I would try to make a study of this. Anyways, I just post this here, in case this gets worldwide traction... you read it here first.

Let's see: My brothers were born in October and February, and I was born in June. NOPE, pattern does not hold up.

As for me, I don't know what season I was most fertile in. When we decided to have a kid, I got pregnant in about 10 minutes and that was that. We intentionally limited ourselves to just one kid.