Old Army Guy said:
Personally, I feel anyone what has a DW or DH working is NOT retired. Just MHO.
A quick check on Google:
Definitions of retired on the Web:
* no longer active in your work or profession
* emeritus: honorably retired from assigned duties and retaining your title along with the additional title `emeritus' as in `professor emeritus'; `retired from assigned duties' need not imply that one is inactive
* out(p): not allowed to continue to bat or run; "he was tagged out at second on a close play"; "he fanned out"
* discharged as too old for use or work; especially with a pension; "a superannuated civil servant"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* Retirement is the status of a worker who has stopped working. This usually happens upon reaching a determined age, when physical conditions don't allow the person to work any more (by illness or accident), or
even for personal choice (usually in the presence of an adequate pension). The retirement with a pension is considered a right of the worker in many societies, and hard ideological, social, cultural and political battles have been fought for this right to be granted. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retired
Emphasis mine since it fits my situation. I don't see any mention of spouse, kids, parents or good friends.
Maybe what you are saying is that you don't consider retired people to be fully authentic or some such judgment on your part until their survival is at the risk of the market. Of course that never occurs for someone who has a pension so maybe they can never be authentically retired. I suppose that also applies to social security so maybe *real* retirement only applies to those intrepid few who build a big enough nest egg to ER before earning enough credits for SS. Now wait a minute, that might let in some neer-do-wells who inherited their good fortune. But wait a little further, don't most of us espouse getting out of the rat race ASAP - so what is wrong with bailing when you inherit?
I guess retirement, like net-worth is in the mind of the beholder. Or maybe we should simply accept the actual definitions.