Episode 141: When I'm 85 - an interview with Madeleine Kunin
/“It doesn’t end at 80 or 85. As long as you’re still curious, as long as you’re still interested in new things, you can be happy.”
A few years ago I spoke to former Vermont governor Madeleine Kunin for a show called Politics is Power. When I took some of her career advice and wrote it up in a LinkedIn post, it got hundreds of (positive) comments. So when I heard she had a new memoir out about being in her eighties, I couldn't wait to speak to her again.
In this show we discuss what it's like to officially be an old woman, and talk about some of the highs and lows of reaching your eighties. We discuss how Madeleine has changed as a person and go back in time to her childhood, to parts of her career, and to the time she became a single professional woman at 60, after many years as a wife. She found love again at 71.
Being 85, she says, 'is not what I pictured in my mind.' It’s better.
You can also read a transcript of the show.
Further reading: You can read more about Madeleine’s marriage to John Hennessey in this New York Times piece.
Here’s an obituary of John from the Burlington Free Press and an appreciation by staff at Dartmouth College, where he spent much of his career.
Madeleine’s previous two books are Pearls, Politics & Power and The New Feminist Agenda.