This is 85: Irwin Epstein Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

"Love the ones you love—unstintingly."

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”

Here, retired social worker, academic researcher, and author Irwin Epstein responds. -Sari Botton

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Irwin Epstein and his wife Fran dancing to Sinatra on his 85th birthday.

Irwin Epstein, MSW, PhD is Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York (CUNY) and at the Silberman School of Social Work (Hunter College) where he held the Helen Rehr Chair of Social Work Research and was Adjunct Professor in Community Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital.  

Before that, he was Professor at the University of Michigan School Of Social Work.  During his tenure there, he was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Wales (Cardiff) and Visiting Professor at the University of Warwick. He’s conducted workshops for practitioner-researchers and mentored PhD students from Australia to Singapore. At the University of Melbourne, he was the first social worker to be awarded the prestigious Miegunyah fellowship award. 

Author and co-author of many research texts and articles dealing with everything from fetal abnormality in London to “good death” among Hong Kong Chinese cancer patients, his most recent text is Clinical Data-Mining: Integrating Practice and Research, (Oxford University Press, 2010). Now sort of retired, his passion is as “partner-carer” for his courageous wife Fran. Perhaps ironically, that inspired his forthcoming memoir about the importance of male friendship, entitled Men as Friends: From Cicero to Svevo to Cataldo.<menasfriends.com> He has two children—Dan and Rebecca Epstein—both writers.  

How old are you?

I recently turned 85.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?

The answer is no. I yam what i yam. 85. And it’s a wonder how I got to be.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?

I feel young for my age. I feel old in body, but youthful in mind. Poor eyesight but vision clearer. Physically slower, but mentally more alert and playful. Who are my peers? Many have passed. Or are they young people who appreciate me? Or are they the children I meet in the park? Recently, I passed one in a stroller. Hair-braided meticulously, she was practicing speaking and singing, loudly and softly, high pitched and low, the word “No!” I turned to her mother and with a smile said, ”She’s practicing. You have some hard times ahead.” Her mother, with iPhone plugs in her ears, scowled at me, wondering what the hell I was saying and what right did I have to say it? I didn’t bother to apologize or try to explain. She wouldn’t have removed her ear plugs anyway. But I thought about that little one and heard her song of “NO” and smiled and occasionally laughed to myself all day. I tried not to think about her mother.     

What do you like about being your age?

I like being me. I don’t think about my age. It’s not even a number.

I feel young for my age. I feel old in body, but youthful in mind. Poor eyesight but vision clearer. Physically slower, but mentally more alert and playful.

What is difficult about being your age?

My vision is poor and I am both challenged by, amazed by, worried about, and resentful of the digital age. When someone digitally facile says, “It’s Intuitive,” I want to puke on their shoes. Instead I politely say, “Intuitive to you, not to me.”

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

I had no expectations. I’m a “retired” American academic researcher but am writing research articles with colleagues in Hong Kong. I’m presenting at research conferences via Zoom. (Who knew from Zoom?) I wrote several academic texts in my career, but I never expected to write a personal memoir afterwards. It made me a pariah at the university where I taught for 30 years and held an endowed chair, and in elite American research circles in which I traveled. But by the look of my book’s international endorsements, it’s made me a hero of honesty elsewhere.

But I was always funny. Humor is like water to me. Necessary for life. “L’eau de vie.”    

Epstein at the beach.

What has aging given you? Taken away from you?

Age has given me the confidence to cook imaginatively with leftovers. It’s robbed me of porn-star aspirations. But I’d still love to be a short-order cook in an old-style, chrome diner—like in a Hopper painting—getting the eggs and burgers and home-fries exactly right for each stool-sitting customer watching me in action.   

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

It’s only made me more insistent on being me. Not at others’ expense, hopefully. Not without awareness of consequences for others. Like a fine old, but only borrowed viola to be played with nuance, tenderness and sometimes fire. And then returned. But to whom?

I am both challenged by, amazed by, worried about, and resentful of the digital age. When someone digitally facile says, “It’s Intuitive,” I want to puke on their shoes.

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?

My only intended milestones were to host an international conference just before I retired so I could invite friends from abroad to my retirement party. I hired a country western band based on the Lower East Side of New York to play. Their original theme-song was “Don’t Dwell on Heart Breaks.” After that, when my wife, Fran, was diagnosed with end-stage cancer, my hope was to finish my book in time for Fran to see it completed, dedicated to her and with her life-embracing picture in it. That’s it. I achieved it.

Order Irwin Epstein’s book, Men as Friends

What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?

I was a single dad for several years. I loved 1973 when I took my son and daughter (9 and 7) on sabbatical with me to the United Kingdom and every other country to which I was invited to speak. It was not the sabbatical I envisioned for myself which would have been a sabbatical from parenting as well. But I introduced them to the world. And I happily gave up my “freedom” to gift them with London, Paris, Amsterdam and the wonder of French fries served with mayonnaise, and saved them from the dread hamburger avec oeuf. I’d love that year again. I can’t remember how old I was. I could figure it out by why bother? Holy shit, I was 35! 

When my wife, Fran, was diagnosed with end-stage cancer, my hope was to finish my book in time for Fran to see it completed, dedicated to her and with her life-embracing picture in it. That’s it. I achieved it.

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?

Easy-peasy. Mel Brooks for his sense of the absurd and Jimmy Carter for his inherent goodness and humility. I still think of Nelson Mandela for his capacity for forgiveness.

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?

I pee at night but stylishly out of bed. No beauty tips. Virtually all of my “adjustments” are to Fran’s health circumstance. I make them freely and without resentment. I know how to be a “partner-carer.” It isn’t easy but I love it. It’s what I do.

Left, Fran and Irwin before chemo; Right, Fran more recently

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?

I refuse to be condescended to. I remember sending what I thought was a very significant email to a 40-year-old I know quite well. When I later saw him and asked about his non-response, he scoffed and commented, “No one my age reads emails anymore!” I responded, “Are you too young to remember what ‘fuck you’ means?” BTW, I later apologized.   

I was always funny. Humor is like water to me. Necessary for life. “L’eau de vie.”  

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?

I have no philosophy. I loved treating family and friends to a trip to Mexico to celebrate my 80^th.  My 84^th was celebrated with a birthday cake and our singing the Beatles’ “When I’m 64” to Fran—“When I get older—will you still be sending me a Valentine?” My 85^th was no production. Chemo is taking its toll on Fran. My kids came from California and Kerhonkson. We ordered take-away Cuban-Chinese and I ordered a Burnt Basque Chocolate Cheesecake with no writing on it for dessert. Fran and I danced a bit to Frank Sinatra. That’s my philosophy—it’s written on a Burnt-Basque Chocolate Cheesecake. More generally, it’s love the ones you love—unstintingly.