It took Bernice Bratter two tries to retire.<\/p>\n
When she left her job as executive director of a Los Angeles health clinic for lower-income older adults in 1995, Bratter felt rootless. Like many high achievers who retire, \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to do with myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt like I was not accomplishing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
So she went back to work the next year, this time as president of the Los Angeles Women\u2019s Foundation. When she left that post in 2000, she teamed up with Helen Dennis, a retirement consultant she knew, on a project to help people like them \u2014 women who held leadership roles in business, academia and nonprofits \u2014 transition more easily into postwork life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no role models for career women to shape their next chapter of life, commonly called retirement,\u201d says Dennis, 85, who writes a syndicated column called \u201cSuccessful Aging\u201d for the Southern California News Group, a regional newspaper chain that reaches more than 1.2 million readers. She recalls telling Bratter, \u201cBernice, we\u2019re not on anyone\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n
They came up with a new name for what comes after work: renewment. They coauthored a book, Project Renewment: The First Retirement Model for Career Women.\u00a0And they started hosting monthly meetings in West Los Angeles for a small group of like-minded women retirees \u2014 a theater producer, a corporate public affairs officer, a computer scientist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not ready to sit down and eat bonbons,\u201d says Bratter, 87. \u201cThey want to keep going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now their model has spread to about 40 groups across the country, comprising eight to 10 women apiece, and they are in the process of establishing a nonprofit organization<\/a> called Renewment to further expand the movement.<\/p>\n Anyone can start a chapter with friends and colleagues or join an existing group \u2014 the Renewment site has details and advice<\/a>. There\u2019s no application required and no fee (although contributions to maintain the website and support other organizational activities are accepted).<\/p>\n On a practical level, the groups provide networks for women whose social connections were often based largely on their office life, Bratter says. But Renewment can also meet a broader need for women who sense something missing in a conventional retirement.<\/p>\n \u201cSociety is saying to you, \u2018You are kind of finished,\u2019\u2009\u201d Dennis says. \u201cSo how do you figure it out when you know you\u2019re not done? Where\u2019s the sense of purpose? Where do you go with yourself spiritually, intellectually, emotionally?\u201d<\/p>\n Those are the kinds of questions the monthly talks explore. Renewment groups dig into topics such as how to relinquish the power that came with rank, how to be comfortable with spending instead of earning, the pros and cons of moving<\/a> and coping with ageism. \u201cPeople really go deep and talk about their feelings,\u201d Bratter says.<\/p>\n \u2018I feel like I\u2019m not alone\u2019<\/p>\n Women in their 60s who are nearly or newly retired are concerned not just with the financial adjustment<\/a> that comes with that transition but also with developing new goals for themselves, especially after high-powered careers, Dennis says.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the retirement decision, there are issues of purpose, resilience, relocation<\/a>, relationships<\/a> and existential concerns of legacy and\u00a0having an impact,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took Bernice Bratter two tries to retire. When she left her job as executive director of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530,215211,215212,1666,215214,215215,215216,215213],"class_list":["post-461467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-renewment","tag-renewment-groups","tag-retirement","tag-retirement-model","tag-retirement-transition","tag-transition-to-retirement","tag-what-is-renewment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}