Sure, there are rocks, and spears, and bows, and arrows, and bullets, and cluster bombs, and the splitting of atoms; yet, none of these horrifying weapons of war even come close to the damage we can inflict upon one another simply by “nagging”. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but nagging will bring me to my knees, and within minutes I will find myself shivering in emotional turmoil, collapsed on the therapist’s couch.

Webster’s dictionary defines the word nagging as follows: continually faultfinding, complaining, or petulant: If the definition of the word still remains unclear, it goes on to list a fantastic example of how to use the word in a sentence: a nagging parent.
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Was there any other example they could have gone with that suitably explains what “to nag” really means? A nagging girlfriend, maybe? A nagging wife? Of course, Webster’s could have gone with my nagging kids, yet, interestingly enough, to properly convey the complexity and overall power of the word, Webster’s went with “a nagging parent”, and I firmly believe that they made the right decision. I can almost picture the brainy wordsmiths sitting around a table at Webster’s International Headquarters, debating the best example of how to use the word nagging in a sentence when, all of a sudden, their cell phones went off in unison. I can picture them gazing down with trepidation at their vibrating blackberry’s, only to see those two frightening words flashing across the screen in pixels …Mom calling. …Mom calling. …Mom calling. Why, whatever could she want this time? “Don’t forget to pay your bills.” “Are you going to come to your nephew’s birthday party four months from now, because I need to know?” “Did you RSVP to that wedding, because it’s very rude if you didn’t, and you don’t have to go but Dad and I are going, so…?” “Oh, and you left a glass of water out on the kitchen table, and your clothes in the washing machine, and…” if you’re still reading, then surely you get the idea. Witness the awe-inspiring power of… the nagging parent.

It took me until the ripe old age of thirty years to entirely understand the complexities of “the nagging parent.” Now, coming to this understanding at the age of thirty either illustrates my newfound maturity and profound ability to deal with “the nagging parent”, or, it simply shows my stunted growth from the years of 1 through 29. Either way, after trial and error, after years of torment and the therapy that follows, after endless phone calls with my friends that began with “I’m going to kill her”, I have come to a rather comforting conclusion. See, it isn’t about the “nag” itself, because certainly a little thing like a “nag” can be brushed off, ignored, or simply dismissed off-hand. No, I now understand that the “nag” is a symptom of a larger, more troubling theme: it’s about control. It’s about being a parent, no matter how old a child may get. Children inevitably devolve into these immobile appendages that burn through your finances, destroy your ability relax, and entirely eliminate the option of a good nights’ sleep. Therefore, in return, Mom and Dad have earned the right to occasionally “nag”, or so goes their theory. I am simply arguing that the “nag” is so powerful a tool, with its ability to crawl up into the subconscious and live somewhere deep inside the human brain, that it should be used only on the worst of enemies, and should no longer be reserved for the torment of loved ones.

After dinner last night, my mother decided to walk me around the house so that she could point out the glass I left on the coffee table, the clothes I left unfolded in the washing machine, the tea bag still in the sifter, the trash not properly disposed of, the uneaten food left in wrapped up paper-towels by the computer, and somehow my father miraculously escaped any accusations that any or all of these messes could have been created by him. So, I stopped and I took a long, deep breath; a major departure from my usual behavior of hopping in my car and driving back to my own house, stopping only at the nearest liquor store with my therapist on speed dial. This time, however, I realized that the “nagging”, the rapid-fire repetition of the rules of the house, the endless parenting, that this is all my mother and father have left as they watch me grow into a responsible human being, capable of free-will and the occasional rational thought, no longer in need of parental guidance. And I imagine that there is nothing like watching your children grow old, get married, and move to a new, far-away state, to remind you that you are also aging, and you’re the one with the head start. Therefore, “nagging” has become a psychological sport to Mom and Dad, a verbal volley of “do this don’t do that”, an Olympic competition for which they shall receive nothing less than the gold.

If “nagging” is one of civilization’s most feared weapons, the atom-bomb in the war between parent and child, than what is the best defense? Certainly driving home and not answering mom or dad’s calls will only leave one sleepless and guilt-ridden. Taking it out on a friend will leave one entirely alone, and yapping about it while on a date will make one sound totally infantile. Therefore, the only way to fight the “nag” is with a strong, swift “I’m not a child anymore!” Yeah, fire that baby right back at them and see how they respond. Sure, maybe I did leave the toilet seat up, Mom, and I truly am sorry that you fell in. And no, I did not rsvp to that wedding and as far as my nephew’s birthday, let’s cross that bridge four months from now, but hear me loud and clear once and for all: I am NOT a child anymore. I am a grown adult. Yeah. A grown, responsible adult, and you think I can I borrow a quick fifty bucks?

 
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Anyway, the point is, resistance (or le resistance, in French), seems to be the only suitable defense in the wake of a “nagging” attack. As a child gets older, Mom and Dad will use the “nag” as the last torn thread of attachment, and/or ownership they have over the child. The constant need to parent, to teach, to impose rules, no matter how Stalinist this all may be, is simply an extension of Mom and Dad’s love. And though it may technically be considered an act of torture as far as the Geneva Convention is concerned, Mom and Dad will use the weapon of “nagging” time and time again, until your nothing but a shell of your former self, out fifty bucks.

The bottom line is, never underestimate the power of a mother’s nag. See, nobody knows how long we will stay in Iraq. And yes, finding Bin Laden may take a miracle. But we ought to re-evaluate the weapons we use, for maybe it’s time to introduce a mother’s “nag” into the theater of warfare. One “Osama, is that your dirty dish in the sink” and he’ll turn himself in at the nearest army despot. One “Zarqawi, I hope you don’t think you’re going to wear that ratty T-shirt and flip-flops to dinner”, and he’d have blown himself up. In fact, I wonder if Saddam Hussein turned up in that tiny spider hole out there in the desert because he was hiding from the powerful and almighty United States war machine, or was he simply trying to get away from his own nagging mother?

 
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My poor mothers’ body temperature rises and falls like gas prices. At this point, the thermostat is practically shaped for her hands and fingers, the dial constantly shifting between sixty and eighty degrees. There have been times when my father waited for her to fall asleep, so that he could sneak out and adjust the thermostat to a temperature suitable for humans, only to turn around and see my mother, half-asleep and furious, her nightgown blowing under the air-conditioning vent creating the image of a very angry, incredibly upset ghost. My mother’s own, personal climate change has nothing to do with clear-cutting, or the release of carbons, or the decline of the Ozone Layer. It has to do with good old-fashioned hormones. Apparently, when a woman turns forty, these hormones decide to get drunk and dance around inside of a woman’s body like Mick Jagger soaring across a concert stage. Again, fluctuating body temperature, irritability, moodiness, IRRITABILTY; my mother is going through what the great scientists of our time have defined as menopause. Me, I’m no great scientist. Nor am I some inspired theologian. Call it menopause if you’d like. Call it aging. Blame it on global warming if you want. Yet, as far as I’m concerned, there is only one word that justifiably wraps up the experience my mother and her poor, supportive family has been going through during the last decade. The word, in short, is hell.

From crankiness to irritation to random aches and pains and fluctuations in body temperature and irritable bowel symptom and loss of appetite and extreme gain of appetite and nausea being just a few of the symptoms of menopause, I can’t imagine what my poor mother must be going through. However, for me, her loving son (so long as she never reads this article), the mother I loved and cherished quickly evolved into a fire-breathing monster, the angry villain in a superhero comic book, simply if she can’t find her TIVO remote (which usually is under a cushion right next to her, yet still my father’s fault). They say there’s a troop shortage due to our extended stay in Iraq. Again, neither a foreign policy hack, nor does my military expertise extends beyond watching SAVING PRIVATE RYAN nearly a thousand times, but I have a solution to this shortage. Catch my mom and her equally menopausal friends (imagine those gatherings) on an off day, and she’ll serve up Bin Laden who will be begging for the death penalty. Be it a loss of appetite and therefore a drop in her blood sugar level; or be it my kind dad saying the wrong thing, like “good morning, you looked lovely”;, or be it me, her loving, caring son not putting a coffee mug away, or leaving a plate of food out that I am still eating, well, even Will Smith on a 4^th of July couldn’t save the world from my mothers’ preemptive menopausal strikes.

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However, my perspective is beginning to change. I am writing this article for men, husbands, and sons, even adopted ones begging to go back to poverty-stricken, war-torn Africa rather than suffer through their new mothers’ menopause years, as both a warning of things to come, and a survival guide as to how to make it through these tortuous years. I mean, yeah, my new perspective is all about making her feel better. Yeah.

Start with the word. Menopause. Break it down. Men. Oh. Pause. I think who ever defined It was trying to tell us something (hell, I bet there is a hidden message in a Da Vinci painting giving us clues how to make it through, and going even further, maybe Van Gogh yanked off his hear so as to not have to hear the complaining anymore), but my new theory, or point of view, is this: Men of the world, pause. Just for a moment. Just to regroup and decide how to best battle the demons unleashed from the woman you love during these fiery ten years.  The first step is to identify that your mother, wife, sister, of girlfriend is really is going through menopause, and isn’t simply a terrible woman. Hell, I’ve had a date cancelled because or a girl telling me her menopause was “acting up”. She was twenty. If your mother is the sweetest, kindest, and most caring woman in the world who, over the past ten years has transformed from the heroic Beowulf to the evil, frightening Grendel, you must pause and take heed. She is, most definitely, suffering from the M word. In this case, the following are a few tips:

1. Stay the hell out of her way. I mean it. Move! A simple shoulder bump in the hallway can unleash an unexpected, emotionally bruising breakdown on how you dress like crap, oughta get a better job, and for chrissakes, meet a nice Jewish girl and settle down already. All from a simple shoulder bump. Think about it.

1. Fall asleep, stay asleep, and under no circumstances, shall you awaken in the middle of the night and go out to the living room to watch a little TV. If the woman has menopause, she will likely be suffering from insomnia as well. Unless you want to find yourself watching the ladies of “The View” yakking away, or worse, some late night, sexually graphic cable movie that came on after said mother or wife or sister finally conked out on the couch,, under no circumstances, shall you awaken in the middle of the night.

1. When commenting on how she looks, there is only one answer. Wonderful. Ignore the dark circles under her eyes. Don’t stare at her wildly un-kempt bed-head hair for longer than a second, and unless you want to get beheaded, tell her it’s okay that she has been wearing the same tattered nightgown now every single night for a good month and it is stained with tomato sauce from last weeks lasagna. You know what? Doesn’t matter.  She looks wonderful, or so you tell her, and your head stays firmly fastened to your neck.

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1. Finally, and maybe most important, try to understand. Now, if you’re a man reading this, than you share my frustration when the words “women” and “understand” fall into the same sentence, which is why I specified “try to”. However, menopause is a truly brutal phase that all women go through, which serves as a cruel, physical reminder that she is getting older, and that with aging comes new conditions, abnormalities, overall unease, with only one guaranteed finish line. Try to understand. Try to stay the hell out of her way. Try to stay asleep, and tell her she looks wonderful. Do all this, and maybe the blow of menopause can be lessened for us. I mean, right. For her.

In conclusion, Climate Change is happening at a rapid rate. Whether your concern is for the survival of our planet or the physical comfort of your ice-pack covered mother or wife, take a pause, and just think how lucky we men are, not to have to go through periods, and child births, and menopause. Try not to think how unlucky we are for often being the unwilling victims of it. They should give out medals for those of us who survive. And, you know, yeah. For her, of course. For her too. God speed.

I am concerned. Very, very concerned. My therapist calls it anxiety. I have anxiety about the therapist telling me I have anxiety, and I have anxiety about you reading this sentence about anxiety right now. As a young twenty-nine year old, it feels like the world is on my shoulders and my vertebrae could slip at a moment’s notice. With a maniac in Iran supposedly proliferating Nuclear weapons, a maniac in the White House trying to convince us that everything’s A-okay, I can barely sleep through night. Insomnia, says my therapist. Now, when I go to bed, I get anxiety about insomnia. Anyway, we have a war in the Middle East with no end in sight, and course, a supposed cache of weapons of mass destruction that David Blaine couldn’t make appear in some mountain or desert bunker in Iraq. We are in the midst of a recession, which causes me depression (and insomnia and anxiety), and if you haven’t already lost our job, your pink slip is in the mail, right under your foreclosure notice. And be careful on the way to the mailbox. At the continually rapid rate in which our global climate is heating up, it’d be nothing less than a miracle if you make it back to your porch without bursting into flames. We face complicated, conflicting, and incredibly pressing times, and I didn’t think that things could ever get any worse.

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Then my mother bought a cell phone.

Yes, after years of internet shopping and consumer reports research, she found out the truth about who killed Kennedy, and she bought the world’s simplest cell phone ever created, tested on Chimps who were able to send texts to their long lost relatives in Namibia with no problem at all. Then, my mother pressed the POWER button; the world spun on its axis, the earth shook, and so began her voyage into the future. She tried to call me this morning, and instead somehow reached a surprised Jimmy Hoffa before figuring out how to properly dial the area code first. She’s the smartest woman I know, my mother, that is until it comes to the simplest of things, like say, I don’t know, a cell phone. I went through the basics with her, and she looked on through her bi-focals as though she were studying the human genome project. Yet, Darwin had an easier time coming up with that whole “we were once monkeys” theory than my mother has had with this phone. Once we moved past the lesson in pressing the power button to turn it on, we moved into making outgoing calls, which eludes her to this day. Frankly, the chance of achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is far greater than my mother learning how to use this device (at least the leader of Hamas can send a text message if he wants. Apparently he has “Bodyguard” by Whitney Houston as his ringtone). Like I said, tough times, tough times. Just call my mom. She’ll tell you. Once she learns how to accept incoming calls.

Now, my father has his own battle of sorts; a battle not nearly as heroic as those soldiers who bravely stormed the beaches in Normandy, or those brave men we sent into Vietnam. He is no Braveheart, Hannibal or Johnny Depp as that weird pirate, No, his fight is a personal one; and one in which he is dreadfully losing.

My father bought a Tivo.

And so began the great war of 2008: Dad vs. Tivo. TIVO, a plastic box of wires and circuitry in one corner, and in the other corner my father, an incredibly educated, successful doctor who’s a born genius when it comes to easier things like say, I don’t know, reconnecting heart valves and oh yeah SAVING LIVES. But when it comes to Tivo, this “recommended for ages twelve-and-under” machine has slapped him around like an angry pimp asking for his cut from last Saturday night. In fact, his inability to program, communicate with, and make peace with his TIVO is so severe that he now just watches whatever the machine tells him to. Speaking of which, he strongly feels that last years’ winner of AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL was an outrage.

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The point is, we live in a society that is globalizing faster than we can adapt. Technology is advancing at a rate whereas we humans ourselves have nearly become obsolete, our eyes no longer able to make out anything that is not in High Definition.

So, aging vs. new technology. Understanding how to operate our new and understandably complicated machinery that runs are lives. The cable man is tired of staying the night at my parents, and my father hates Tori Spelling’s new show (but of course, can’t change the channel without turning on the fireplace and starting the car.

So what do we do?

Your kids will whine like a dying cat if you ask them the simplest question. Your coworkers frankly don’t want to hear it, lest they be taken away from surfing the internet. If you type your question into Yahoo or Google, you’ll get a million answers on what to do, and then three weeks later a years’ supply of Viagra shows up in the mail.

So again, what do we do?

Fortunately for parents and children alike, an inspiring new company, LiveOn, has come up with a way to aid and assist consumers like your mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., in this massive transformation from pen and notepad to computers that run nearly every aspect of our lives. LiveOn is an online, virtual assistance living portal that can offer support and solutions in a multitude of fields, for ma multitude of problems. If I could figure out another sentence to use the word multitude in right now, I would. Liveon is freedom. Freedom for mom and dad to learn how to use their products themselves, or get consumer advice, or even medical products they’ve been meaning to purchase but can’t seem to remember the name of the store the doctor told them to go to. With the ability to buy products, read reviews, read and write blogs and articles both amusing and informative, there is finally a home for baby-boomers in cyberspace. Its liveonnetwork.com. The easy-to-use, self-explanatory site answers questions about what to do regarding certain ailments that may affect a person; how to properly set up their house so it is safe and secure; how to set up your TiVo, your telephone, your microwave. There will even be the first ever baby boom social networking site, so users can reconnect with long lost family or friends. And most importantly, the site’s goal is to make the aging process a more pleasant, stress-free experience for the people we love and owe so much to. Products can be purchased that assist specific symptoms such as night-sweating, or customized bedding, or automated pill dispensers. Advice will be given via an online doctor. Links to doctors, health care providers, and hospitals are also on the site. In fact, there will even be an assortment of blogs, online discussions, and articles that may help offer solutions to the very struggle you and your family may go to. Check out www.LiveOnNetwork.com for all your “how am I going to deal with my mom and dad” needs”. Also, if you’ve successfully taught your mother how to use her cell phone and she’s got the hang of it, don’t be ambitious and move her on to email. My mom called the exterminator last time I told her to navigate using the mouse.

Because of companies like www.liveonnetwork.com, I am hopeful for the future. Sure, we may be stuck in a recession, bogged down in a war with no exit plan, and have to sell our houses for less than the welcome mat we bought for the front door, but the more we make the last phase of life, aging, easier for our family members we cherish so deeply, the easier things can be for us. Be selfish, and let liveonnetwork.com provide you with simple solutions for our understandably complicated, futuristic lives. As for now, I’m off to spend some quality time with my father. Apparently there is a marathon of THE HILLS on MTV that I absolutely cannot miss.

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Now, with a boomer turning 50 every seven seconds, researchers and marketers are developing everything from simple gadgets to complex computer systems to ease a generation into old age.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab and dozens of other research centers around the country, scientists are working on inventions that seem destined to transport the Golden Girls into the world of Star Trek:

• A computer aid that would help older shoppers pick foods based on their medical history. Tiny radio transmitters in food packages would broadcast ingredients to the device, which would offer advice to the shopper.

• Shoes with battery-powered vibrating soles that stimulate nerves to improve balance. Researchers say the technology could cut the number of debilitating falls. One out of three people over age 65 suffer some sort of fall each year.

• Homes that would allow residents to open doors and control shades, windows and thermostats through a touch-screen by the beds. Other systems would call in orders for food and medicine when supplies ran low and would summon help when detectors sensed that the resident wasn’t moving.

For those concerned about a rapidly aging population, such products and services can’t come fast enough. Between now and 2030 — the year the last boomer will be 65 — the number of Americans 65 and older will double from 35.6 million to 71.5 million. This group will represent nearly 20% of the nation’s population — up from 12% this year.

“It’s like a tsunami coming at you. You know the tidal wave is going to hit, and it’s a question of whether we’ll be ready,” says Ed Schneider, dean of the University of Southern California’s Davis School of Gerontology.

Another reason for the rush: money. The baby boomers will be the wealthiest group of elderly in history. Although only 20% of the population, they will control 40% of the nation’s disposable income and 77% of private investments.

“It will be hard to ignore a population of this size and wealth,” says Jack Guralnik, chief of epidemiology and demography at the National Institute on Aging. “They are used to being heard, and they are the ultimate consumers.”

The boomers will need those resources. The incidence of disabilities among the elderly — everything from arthritis to Alzheimer’s — doubles every five years after age 65. Walking, driving, climbing stairs become harder tasks.

Worse, traditional care for the elderly will not be there. Finances are forcing nursing homes to close. Baby boomers had smaller families; that means fewer children to care for them. And the age group that follows the boomers, the so-called baby bust generation born from 1964 to 1983, is much smaller. It will provide fewer nurses and workers to care for the elderly.

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They prey on seniors’ financial fears, violate their trust and threaten their nest eggs. Lots of them pitch what they call high-return, low-risk investments. But in many cases, the products — annuities, oil and gas investments and promissory notes, among others — are inappropriate for seniors, if they exist at all. Regulators say these scams are increasing as the retiree population swells.

Henrietta Tolhurst, 89, was bilked of $6,800 this year when a scamster phoned her and told her she had won a $2 million prize. All Tolhurst had to do to claim it, she was told, was pay the “legal fees” on the prize.

She handed over the money but got zilch in return.

“It sounded so believable” at the time, says Tolhurst, who lives in Santa Monica, Calif. “Honestly, it didn’t occur to me that I was being scammed.”

Unregistered securities and annuities — insurance products that let you trade in a lump sum for a lifetime stream of income — are the most common financial products involved in senior investment scams, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA).

The products and pitches, though, are constantly evolving.

“What I find most frightening is the level of sophistication that these scam artists will use in targeting seniors, the array of tools they use to lure them into investment fraud,” says Mary Schapiro, the incoming CEO of NASD, a self-regulatory body for the investment industry.

Why are seniors tempting targets? “That’s where the money is, and that’s where the fraud is,” Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told USA TODAY.

The 79 million baby boomers have more than $8.5 trillion in investable assets.

Today, nearly half of all investor complaints, and about a third of enforcement actions, involve investors 50 and older, according to the administrators association, or NASAA.

Here are some ways that scamsters target seniors:

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•Free-lunch seminars. These events, held in hotels, country clubs and community centers, are booming. They may seem innocuous enough: You get an invitation in the mail or see a newspaper ad about a free financial seminar. There, an “expert” will offer you tips on how to protect your assets in retirement.

Free meals and social contact lure seniors to these gatherings. The problem is that once you’re there, the salesperson will ask for your contact information and sometimes for details about your financial assets.

“Before you go in the salad-bar line, you have to fill out the form,” says Patricia Struck, president of the NASAA.

The organizers usually follow up the seminars with high-sales-pressure visits to seniors’ homes. They often try to persuade you to buy a high-cost, high-commission annuity, so you don’t outlive your assets. Or a living trust so the state won’t divvy up your assets when you die.

Annuities and living trusts are legitimate products — but not when they’re pitched as a one-size-fits-all solution, as can be the case at these seminars, regulators say.

As more of these free-lunch meetings crop up, the NASD, the SEC and state regulators say they are stepping up their scrutiny. Regulators are looking into “the sales literature, the promotions that are being used” at these events, Cox says.

Thursday, the SEC filed an emergency action in a U.S. district court to halt an alleged securities fraud targeting retirement investors through free dinner seminars. The SEC’s complaint says the promoter diverted to his personal use some of the more than $22 million that he raised by promising to invest the money in real estate.

•Church and community group fraud. Con artists often belong to the same social group, church or gardening club that you do. And they won’t hesitate to use that connection to their advantage.

They try to gain seniors’ trust by explaining that they share the same background and interests — so why not invest money together?

Seniors are particularly vulnerable to these scams, Struck points out, because they have more time to join different organizations, and many tend to be trusting.

The financial blow of this misplaced trust can be devastating. In California this year, securities regulators issued a “desist-and-refrain” order to a Korean-American man, claiming he had defrauded 19 Korean-Americans of $2.5 million.

The state says the man promised to put clients’ money in stocks and bonds yielding 4% to 6% monthly. If clients asked to withdraw some funds, he would use new investors’ money to pay old investors in a so-called Ponzi scheme, the state alleges. The case continues to be investigated.

•Fake contests. These scams usually involve a phone call or letter telling seniors that they’ve won a sweepstakes or lottery but must pay legal fees, taxes or shipping costs before claiming the prize.

Con artists try to get the victim to buy into the scam by “getting the person tied up in anticipation of how they’re going to spend their winnings,” says Sally Hurme, a lawyer with AARP’s division of consumer protection.

“They’re very good with their snake-oil pitches,” Hurme says, because they make the same call up to 10 hours a day.

Once they’ve convinced you of your winnings, the fraudsters often urge you to withdraw money for the purported legal fees or shipping costs immediately — before you can second-guess your decision.

That was the tactic used with Tolhurst, the retiree in Santa Monica. After she received a phone call in April telling her she’d won a $2 million prize in a People magazine sweepstakes, she cashed out $6,800 from her credit card.

She was told to put the money — all single dollar bills, which are harder to trace — inside a magazine. Within minutes, she says, a courier came and picked the package up. Tolhurst called People a few days later and learned that the publication had no such contest.

She couldn’t get the credit card company to reverse the transaction because she had taken out a cash advance. So she’s having to deal with the ugly consequences. Tolhurst is paying about $150 a month on the now $7,000 credit card debt, which is mushrooming at a 24.24% interest rate.

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The key to attract boomers is to cater to each micro-segment within the group, says Jane O’Connor, president and CEO of 55 Plus LLC — a company that helps builders market products to those nearing retirement age.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to marketing condo and villa housing to older buyers,” she says.

“If you’re looking for a silver bullet, I don’t have it.” In a recent speech hosted by the Canadian Home Builders’ Association – Calgary Region, O’Connor told members they must make sure they know their buyers and their specific needs.

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Builders must look beyond marketing to baby boomers as a group, says O’Connor, adding that a 55-year-old’s housing needs will be completely different from those of a 70-year-old.

Because of that, she suggests builders avoid the term “seniors” when marketing their product, because active retirees dread being classifed as such.

“Don’t put that term out there,” says O’Connor. “That will make them run for the hills.” The key to successfully marketing housing to baby boomers is market research, she says.

This allows builders to pinpoint where customers are for a specific product and what consumers are looking for, and better tailor projects to the market, says O’Connor.

“You have to sell a lifestyle,” she says.

“They don’t have to move. Most of them are paying off mortgages already.

“Give them a reason to move. Have activities like offering social environments. Many of them golf.” Up to 40 per cent of all households in the both Canada and the U.S. are 55-plus in age.

Currently more than one million Albertans are age 45 and up.

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“They are going to want what they want,” O’Connor told builders. “It’s your job to deliver.” Although Calgary isn’t known for its seniors population, it is not a market that can be ignored, says Doug Whitney, first vice-president of the CHBA-Calgary Region.

“Calgary has one of the youngest median ages in Canada, but the trend is moving quickly toward early retirement,” he said during the meeting attended by O’Connor.

In a later interview, Whitney said knowing and marketing to micro-segments within the baby-boomer population is crucial for targeting this growing market.

“Niche, or micro-segment, marketing is a phenomenal tool for home builders to use as they focus on market research so that they can get very specific about their target market,” he says.

“They create not a very unique selling proposition, but a unique market for which they can become the market specialist.” Ultimately, O’Connor says, it comes back to selling more than just a product, because older clients, like other buyers, are looking for more than a home when they invest.

“It’s about gaining their trust and confidence,” she says.

“Sell your company, location and quality first. Remember, you’re selling peace of mind.”
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