Benefits and Rewards of Becoming a Golden Girl!

What is a Golden Girl’s Home? It’s where mature adults share a living environment. Sometimes, it’s two women sharing an apartment; sometimes it’s four women (and men) sharing a house. You need some compatibility and an ability to respect each other, that’s all. Each house develops its own culture and style, and each member of the household makes it feel a lot like her home.

Who are we? Our common attribute is that we are single mature adults. Some of us are working professionals, others are retired or semi-retired. Many are parents with grown children; others have never had children. Some of us are messy, others are very neat. Some are straight; some are lesbian or gay. We all need a place to live, friends, and we’re healthy and are not ready for a retirement community.

There are a whole lot of benefits and rewards to the idea of mature women living together or homesharing. Mostly, the benefits are Companionship and Financial Security! Which one speaks to you?

Changes occur in your life all the time, right? It used to be called ‘mid-life crisis’ but now it’s ‘any-time crisis’…it’s when you question the circumstances, meaning, and direction of your life…and resolve to do something a little different and reinvent yourself.

As younger adults, we created a direction for ourselves…a spouse, children, education, and maybe a career…whatever it was that we needed to do to jump headlong into adulthood.

Then one day, it starts to happen…education is completed, spouse leaves, committed relationship ends, children grow and leave home, career goals go sideways…

…and you are no longer growing up, but you are growing older and not only counting birthdays, but the number of birthdays left. It becomes important to find new ways of caring for us and other people in our lives.

Gone are the days when a woman was expected to fit into the role of mother, wife, secretary, or teacher, and she was expected to spiral downward when she didn’t meet expectations and fit into the traditional social rules…when you were expected to become a spinster (remember that word?) if you wanted a career…when a woman was disgraced by a divorce…when you were expected to either become a burden on your family or become a little old lady who took in cats as you aged alone. We, as women, are no longer trapped by these expectations and can be open to new ideas and ways of living.

We’ve learned to make decisions and look out for ourselves. We’re earning our own money and owning our own homes. We look inward and notice how we feel. We assert ourselves when something seems wrong. Yet, caring for ourselves is only half the solution because it becomes self-absorbing and stagnant. Has your job become the only thing in your life? How many designer outfits can you wear? Do you still fit into them? How many cats do you need? How often do you really need to clean? Are you giving help that others don’t want or need, just to feel needed?

Caring for other people in our lives is the other half of what is important to us. It’s a sense of “community” that makes our lives meaningful and worthwhile. It’s family-like connections, close friendships, and meaningful projects.

In the communities of our lives, we usually have one person with whom we share everything, or someone difficult who commands our unconditional love. It’s a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a child. Sometimes it’s a close friend. When that person no longer needs (or wants) our undivided attention, we feel a sense of loss and we need to look elsewhere as a replacement. We need to find a new community.

Are you feeling a lack of “community”? Would you be interested in building a new “community” using the resource of your home?

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1 Comment

  1. Penny Somer-Greif

    May 20, 2014 at 12:35 am

    So glad people are doing this as an alternative housing arrangement and a way to save money and to learn that it is working out. Remember that interview with Bea Arthur talking about the Golden Girls and saying how it could never happen in real life, four grown women sharing a house and getting along! She would be surprised!

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