The State of the Nation – Breakdown or Happiness?

Rebecca Huntley is a researcher on social trends, broadcaster and the author, most recently, of Still Lucky. On Wednesday 22 February 2017, Rebecca Huntley joined psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed in a discussion of the nation’s mental state – happiness or breakdown, pessimism or optimism – and the reasons for it. As Rebecca Huntley sees it, “While Australians find it hard to talk about what the future might look like, the questions they pose in discussion groups are undoubtedly future focused. Their concerns about the future are not entirely economic either.” 

 THE STATE OF THE NATION – BREAKDOWN OR HAPPINESS?

REBECCA HUNTLEY

Why don’t men have friends?

It is a deliberately provocative question but it is one I asked myself a lot over the nine years I was director of The Mind & Mood report. Instead of conventional focus groups of strangers, we would recruit discussion groups of friends. Men in their 30s and 40s were also hard to recruit. One 30-something host of one of these discussion groups (where only three guys turned up out of eight) tried to explain it to me in these terms: “Guys our age just don’t have the time for friends”.

Lack of time isn’t really a convincing reason. Women’s groups at that same age are much easier to find and they are just as busy, if not more so. The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling in their 2011 report for the financial services company AMP entitled “Race Against Time: How Australians spend their time” found that men, regardless of age, spend more time on recreation and leisure than women, an extra 30 minutes on average per day. Interestingly, it also showed that women spend slightly more time on voluntary work and social and community interaction. Men appear to have the time for friendships, indeed more time than women have. Much like women, the ability of men to thrive socially and emotionally in their later years is shaped by the decisions they make in earlier decades. In my experience, men who have maintained friendships throughout the difficult years, the peak unhappiness decades of their thirties and forties, seem to fare better through the semi- and full retirement decades of their fifties, sixties and seventies.

In 2014, the mental health charity Beyond Blue funded a study on Australian men and friendship. It included fourteen discussion groups and an online survey of 4100 men. It found that one in four (the equivalent of 1.1 million men) have few or no social connections, and loneliness and isolation is common in men between 30 and 65 years of age. The peak time for men to neglect their friendships, the research found, was between the ages of 35 and 54.

It also found that men often lacked the skills and impetus to remedy the situation, and tended to approach it all with “stoic, masculine pride”. Half of the respondents reported they rarely talked about deeper issues with their friends. Just over 30 per cent reported they didn’t spend much time talking with friends at all, even about shallow issues. There was some dissatisfaction about this among the men surveyed, but perhaps not as much as expected; 31 per cent wished they could open up more to their friends and 28 per cent wished their friends would open up more to them.

Thirty-seven per cent reported being unsatisfied with the quality of their relationships. Interestingly for me, as someone whose main experience with the lives of men has been through peer-based friendship groups, the Beyond Blue research showed that only five per cent of the men surveyed would get together with other men just for a chat (something women do all the time). This was in contrast to the most popular activity among men, which was going to the pub (accounting for 22 per cent of men’s social activities).

While our culture might throw up Bridget Jones stereotypes of “pathetic” single, childless career women choking to death in their apartments and being eaten by their cats, in my experience single women are far, far better at creating support networks of friends and colleagues than men (single or otherwise) are. The different approaches the genders take to friendship start early. In the 2007 report “Becoming a Teen” I secretly hoped I’d see a shift in the quality of friendships in teen boy and girl groups. Not so. In both Hugh Mackay’s 1988 report on teenagers and our 2007 report sex differences in the dynamics of teen peer groups were clear. Girls appeared to have far more close and intimate relationships with each other than boys did; while these friendships could be intense, girls found it easy to share everything with their friends. In contrast, boys’ relationships were characterised as simpler, less complex and less emotional, focused more around “doing things”.

The research findings on men, women and friendship for the book I wrote on Generation Y were in the same vein.

In fact, the men that I talked to one-on-one for that book seemed to envy the quality of female friendships. These young men tended to confirm that their male friendships were structured around activities like sport (playing and watching), going out and drinking, or going to a pub to see a band. It stands to reason that if your relationships are focused less around talking and more around “doing”, then if, once work and family responsibilities escalate, you have no time to do things, your friendships are bound to suffer.

Because of the centrality of the workplace in men’s lives, changes in social activities associated with paid work have contributed somewhat towards the greater loneliness of men. In a 2006 Mind & Mood study on Australians at work, it was men in particular who lamented the demise of the tea break, the smoko or after-work drinks as a common feature of working life. To them, social events organised around work seemed less common because employees were so time-poor; tougher policing of drink-driving laws also cools workmates’ enthusiasm for a post-work catch-up at the local pub – “When I did my apprenticeship it was fun; going to work was like being in a big social club. We had a great time. Now industry just wants performance, and everyone is dragged screaming along. It’s too bloody hard now. It’s no fun. You’re just laying bricks, not chatting to someone and having a laugh.”

In keeping with the unequal distribution of unpaid work in the home, women still largely organise and control the social life of the family. When death or divorce hits a couple, it seems the man is often at a loss as to what to do with his time. Women report this: “I’ve got a brother-in-law; his wife died eighteen months ago. He’s nearly 69. He’s struggling. He’s really struggling with loneliness. Most of his friends have still got partners.” Another – “I know a few [men] that have to have a lady friend. They can’t manage by themselves.” And every now and then I’ve met men who confessed this: “Now that I’m divorced I haven’t got that feeling of comfort when I go home. It’s empty. Black. It’s just a place.” Another – “Now that I am home on my own, I spend a lot of time sleeping for the mere fact I don’t have anyone to talk to. How much TV can you watch? You look at the dog and wish that he could talk.” In my experience, no woman is an island, but sometimes a man is.

I have seen the devastating impact of retirement on men who haven’t managed to maintain healthy friendships throughout their lives. I have seen it destroy their marriages, relationships with children and grandchildren. Before becoming a researcher, I used to wonder how couples who had been married for decades, raised children and paid off mortgages, could suddenly divorce in their sixties or even seventies. Now I know why. If retirement comes at 65, most Australians can hope for another fifteen years of life, a last chance to do new things unencumbered by a wet blanket of a husband who isn’t coping with the loss of identity and purpose work always provided.

In 2010, one dramatic moment in a discussion group in Adelaide brought home to me just how much of a barrier to a woman’s life satisfaction an unhappily retired man could be. It was a sweltering summer’s day and I was sitting in a circle of women in their early seventies. The quiet suburb we were in was ten minutes from the centre of Adelaide, the street lined with those gorgeous sandstone houses with porches and English-style gardens.

The women in the group were neighbours who also ran a knitting circle at their local church. The research we were conducting focused on retirement. I asked them what their plans were for this stage of their lives. Did they have any goals? “It’s not so much a goal but a dream,” said the host. “The dream is that all our husbands will die at the same time so we can all go on a nice cruise together.” “Yes!” said another, “we want to play up a bit when our husbands die.” I looked up from my notebook expecting giggles at the joke. Everyone was deadly serious: they were simply sipping their milky tea out of china cups and nodding.

These gentle, church-going grandmas wanted their husbands dead so they could go enjoy daiquiris on the deck of the Fairstar. And, indeed, most of the conversation to that point had been about how their husbands were not coping with retirement, about how these women wanted to travel and enjoy time with their grandchildren, but their husbands were resisting and rejecting their attempts at fun. Some of these comments:

 

My husband stopped working. When he was working he was a very, very nice man. Since he is retired, he asks me too many questions. Whatever I do, there are questions. Where are you going? What are you doing? Who is on the phone? It makes me sick. Even if I go to the laundry, the questions. It makes me mad. He blames me for his high blood pressure.

It’s how men are. The woman is different, she always has something to do. The man, when they finish work, they don’t know what to do.

I would love to travel but my husband and I are incompatible. Things have to go his way. He is inflexible. If something goes wrong it’s a big drama. So it’s better to stay at home.

 

The stereotype of the grumpy old man may have some basis in fact, but I haven’t met too many in my time as a researcher. In fact, some of the more memorable and inspiring groups I’ve ever conducted have been with retired men devoting their last few decades to family, friends and community. These groups give me not just the hope but also the conviction that men can change.

I conducted one such group in Dubbo in 2010. I arrived on a dry and hot afternoon at a big house with a huddle of utes parked on the front lawn. The host welcomed me warmly and led me to an old but clean kitchen, where he introduced me to a collection of long-standing mates, in their sixties and early seventies, sitting around a table. They were drinking beers and eating what the host told me was his own homemade hummus and a platter of chopped up vegetables. I told them I was impressed at their efforts, which led into a conversation about their efforts at healthy eating. “We did a healthy-heart course at the gym. That’s what got us motivated about eating properly. We found a dietician who took us shopping, showed us how to shop right, how to read the labels.”

These men were ex-coppers, ex-truck drivers and one guy was ex-army. They were all husbands, fathers, grandfathers and mostly retired, Dubbo born and bred. They were loving retirement, but it hadn’t been easy. Most of them had had all-consuming, stressful jobs that had kept them away from family for long periods of time. All of them recognised the burden this had placed on their wives during that time. For them, retirement was a chance to make up for lost time and revitalise their marriages. Among their comments were:

 

A lot of people don’t retire because there are arguments and blues. It’s a transition for both parties. I’m fortunate my best mate in the world is my wife, so I don’t have to wake up in the morning and think, What’s it going to be like today? You know it’s going to be beaut.

Retirement is a wonderful phase of my life. I renewed my life, got to know my wife a lot better than I ever had time to do [while] at work.

My wife and I have never talked so much since I have retired.

You finally realise where you went wrong. It’s an opportunity to put things right, as much as you can.

 

For these men, giving back meant devoting lots of time to their wives, their children and being actively involved in care for their grandchildren:

 

My wife still works. I am at home with the grandkids. I got the afternoon off today to come here.

Babysitting. I relish doing it actually.

I have them in school holidays almost every day of the week.

My kids grew up without me [due to work]. Now that I have grandkids it is the best thing in the world. There is a very, very competitive streak with myself and my granddaughter. She talked me into joining [a swimming club]. Every time she gets in the water she has got to beat me!

I’d suggest for the next few years, this year anyway, we’re going to look after a couple of babies a couple of days a week. I mean we love it. We weren’t forced into it by any means. We volunteered and we’ve done that over the past few years.

 

These men, all members of the local RSL club, had been the driving force behind a support program at the club for those caring for frail or disabled family members. They organised activities and food once a week so these carers could have some respite from their responsibilities. I fell in love with these guys even more when they started talking about housework. Retirement meant that had started to do more – and learned how to do more – around the home, especially if their wives were still doing some paid work.

 

I was on the truck all the time. Now that I am home my wife can go away and spend time with the grandkids. I look after myself. Doesn’t worry me.

My wife was a teacher and was teaching full-time, so we talked about it and I said, “Right, I’ll retire, you continue teaching, I’ll look after the house, the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning and everything else.”

I’ve always done all the cooking but now I do a lot more stuff at home.

 

This group of domestic granddads stood out for me, but were by no means unique. As I’ve said, perhaps my sample is skewed, in that the kinds of men who participate in discussion groups have strong friendship circles, and might be more inclined to value relationships generally and put in the time and effort to maintain them. Yet the data supports the idea that men engage more in unpaid work as they get older. For example, the 2006 ABS Time Use survey shows that as men age they take on more domestic activities and more voluntary work (albeit not as much as women). We know too that both grandmothers and grandfathers are taking on more regular care of their grandchildren.^[i] While this group of Dubbo men might seem extraordinary to some, what they showed me was the capacity of men even later in life to embrace a connected, community focussed life.

Could the power of friendship encourage more men to prioritise their caring responsibilities? I believe it could. Friendship sustains, supports and influences us in many ways. I see it in groups of women who have become mums together for the first time. They bond either through existing friendships or through a mothers’ group. If friends are pregnant around the same time, they actually look forward to hanging out together once the babies are born. Because men are far less likely to take long periods of paternity leave (only one in 50 Australian men take parental leave), for those that do it can be a relatively solitary experience.^[ii]

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Australian masculinity is shifting, slowly but surely. For Australian women, the key to improvements in their lives is to take their own interests and needs seriously. For Australian men, the key to improvements in their lives is to take their own role as carers as seriously as their role as providers. It’s crucial to understand that a greater emphasis on work is not the key but the obstacle to their role as fathers and partners and social beings. Despite the pessimism women often express in discussion groups about men’s ability to change, to perform domestic tasks or care for children, men can do these things as well as women. I’ve seen them do their best to fight the relentless pressures of our labour market, where we increasingly seem to work more and have less time for domestic duties, sport, cooking, holidays, community activities and the beautiful, unhurried moments of life.

While women need to resist the path to martyrdom, men must do more to bridge the gap between what they say they want (or what they think they do) and what they actually do. As one of those gorgeous Dubbo granddads said to me, “do the washing-up, throw stuff in the washing machine, it’s not very hard to do”.

ENDNOTES

[i] See http://www.growingupinaustralia.gov.au/pubs/asr/2015/asr2015b.pdf.

[ii] See http://www.oecd.org/gender/parental-leave-where-are-the-fathers.pdf.