Lina Ko September 29th, 2009
I read with interest Candace Bushnell’s article in the October issue of More magazine. For an author with her Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle fame, I’m surprised that she’s a beauty scrooge. She welcomes Botox but draws the line at surgery. She doesn’t like cosmetic surgery because she’s too lazy. You have to interview doctors. You have to get blood tests. Then you have to undergo surgery yourself and then lie in bed with ice packs on your face for a week. It’s too much time and effort even for somebody as famous as Candace Bushnell who just turned 50.
But I do agree with her that we boomer women will have to get by in life without being perfect. ‘Change your looks and you can transform your life’ is not always true. I always say that women who keep changing their hairstyles every other three months are bored with their lives. They can’t find their own identities and, therefore, hope that their hairstyles will help define who they are. I agree with Bushnell that age itself is the great transformer. Over time, everything about us is going to change – from the shape of our faces and bodies to the hair follicles on our heads. But most importantly, age transforms what we feel inside. As we enter our boomer age, we should have a sense of what matters and an ability to let go of what doesn’t. As Bushnell said, “Personality and accomplishment and empathy seem much more interesting, and achievable, than the pursuit of a flawless visage.”
I agree that women should decide to spend more time doing what they want to do and less time doing what they don’t want to do – like keeping fewer, quality friends instead of acquiring more superficial companions. And we should stop worrying about how we look. Of course, we should still care about how we look; but stop worrying about whether we are still looking young or perfect. There’s no such thing as permanent youth and perfection. Instead, what we now have, at a boomer age, is more focus, concentration and drive than we’ve ever had before. That will transform our lives in a way that cosmetic surgery never could!
Lina Ko September 24th, 2009
According to the Globe and Mail, Canada is heading for a mini-baby boom as the offspring of boomers enter their childbearing years and women put their careers first.
Canadian women gave birth to 367,864 babies in 2007, up 13,247 babies from 2006 – the fastest annual increase since 1989, according to Statistics Canada. Analysts attribute the surge to two colliding demographics – ‘baby busters’ aged 33 to 41; and women born to boomers, the ‘echo’ generation aged 12 to 32, and now poised to give birth.
Professor David Foot, demographer and author of Boom, Bust and Echo, was quoted as saying that the children of the boomers are getting into their late 20s now and that’s when some people start having children.
The data revealed another shift: Women in their 30s bore more babies than women in their 20s, for the second year in a row. Women have been postponing their childbirth. Ten years ago, the highest fertility rate was between 25 and 29, and since 2006, the age group is 30 to 34. The increase of older motherhood points to the fact that most professional women choose to postpone their motherhood to pursue their career. According to StatsCan, total fertility rates – the average number of children per woman – increased to 1.66 in 2007 from 1.59 in 2006 – which is good news for an ageing country like ours.
Boomers’ grandchildren are also giving their grandparents a second chance to be more involved. There were a lot of boomers who were so focused on their careers that they might not have been the best of parents. With their grandchildren now, they get another chance to be more aware of the roles that they play and become more actively involved.
Lina Ko September 17th, 2009
I’ve just returned from Minneapolis visiting a very dear friend and can’t stop singing in praise of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. If you think this is just another small town in the mid-West U.S.A., you’re wrong.
Minneapolis/St. Paul is full of pleasant surprises. Historically, it has been a trailblazing city in so many ways. The Mary Tyler Moore show was produced there; Billy Graham started his first following in the two cities; Walter Mondale, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts characters, all used to live there.
From a business perspective, 20 of the Fortune Top 500 Companies are headquartered in Minneapolis including Best Buy, Cargill, General Mills, Target and 3M. The twin cities are also among the top five U.S. cities in corn and soya bean production.
Culturally, Minneapolis has a lot to offer for a city of its size. I visited the Weisman Museum designed and built by Frank Gehry in 1993 at the University of Minnesota campus. The building is almost as stunning as Bilbao. The 20th century art housed in the Walker Art Centre was equally interesting. But what struck me most is the Walker Sculpture Gardens which feature gigantic, larger-than-life size of open air sculptures. In the performing arts sector which is really my passion in life, the Guthrie Theatre downtown has Ella (a play about Ella Fitzgerald) and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest on their playbill. No wonder Minneapolis/St. Paul has been voted as one of the top 25 U.S. cities with the best architecture and culture.
The spotlessly clean city puts Toronto to shame. Minneapolis is now ranked the number-one cleanest city in the entire U.S. It is also such a foodie city although it lacks the Michelin star-rated restaurants in both New York and San Francisco. My friend took me to many delightful restaurants over the weekend and I’ve never had one bad meal. Wolfgang Puck’s 20/21 on top of the Walker Art Centre offers an eclectic Asian fusion cuisine and the night we were there, it was packed with beautiful people. Minneapolis is also home to talented artists such as the Prince and the Cohen brothers.
Minnesota is also known as the land of 10,000 lakes and a lot of them are in the twin cities with rivers and parks as well. The cost of living is extremely low when you look at the quality of life. For boomers, you may also want to know that Minneapolis/St. Paul is also ranked third as the best U.S. city to retire after Columbus, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, in spite of its