Not Dead, Not Stronger: Rethinking the Phrase That Won’t Die

 

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” We’ve all heard the saying (maybe even sang along to the Kelly Clarkson tune), but when I think of the things that didn’t kill me, “stronger” is not the word that comes to mind. The problem with this phrase isn’t just that it’s inaccurate—it’s that it pressures survivors to perform strength instead of honoring their real, messy journeys. So why do we keep saying it?

Reflecting more deeply on this question, I considered some of my own life experiences, focusing on whether they made me “stronger” (they obviously did not kill me, or I would not be able to write this blog). I recall a situation from my seventh-grade year. My younger sister and I were sledding down a neighbor’s driveway on a flexible flyer sled (I would later question just how flexible this sled actually was). My sister was on top of me as we sped down the driveway.

Another kid, sledding right next to us, decided to have a little fun and veered into our lane. It was entertaining to play chicken with the kid until I realized we were headed straight toward a tree at the bottom of the driveway. I yelled for my sister to “bail,” but she either did not hear me or did not understand that I meant, “Please get off of my back right now, or we are going to crash into this tree, and I am going to break my arm.” Needless to say, we crashed into the tree, and I broke my arm. The real trauma, though, was not breaking my arm; it was what happened next. My sister and I walked home to break the news of my injured arm to my parents, only to learn that this was not a good time to summon them. You see, their marriage was in deep trouble (they would divorce a year later), and by then, my brothers, sister, and I had learned to read the room pretty well. Our reading of the room on this particular day suggested that we better not tell them just yet. So, I waited it out. My older brother and younger sister (yes, the one who refused to “bail”) doted on me and assured me that everything would be all right. I am grateful that we had one another. Eventually, my parents pulled themselves together enough for my mom to take me to the ER, where I left with a six-week cast. Did this experience make me stronger? For sure, a broken arm is never going to be stronger than one that was never broken, but I would still have to answer the question with a “yes,” although I am not sure “stronger” is the right word. This situation taught me that I can endure pain, that I can put another’s needs before my own, and that I can rely on other people (my brother and sister) for comfort. So, yes, the phrase, with some qualifications, may apply in this case. Let me tell you about another life event, though.

If the sledding accident taught me fleeting resilience, another childhood moment taught me the opposite: that some wounds don’t heal into strength. As I mentioned, my parents' marriage was deeply troubled, partly because my father was an alcoholic. My mother was desperate to save her family, evidenced by her strong commitment to attending Al-Anon meetings (which support families of alcoholics). So, when I was around 12 years old, she dropped off my brothers, my sister, and me at the mall (this was a typical thing to do in the 1970s) while she attended her Al-Anon meeting, which was about 10 minutes away. We did what kids do at a mall while my mother took care of her needs. Everything was fine until the mall closed, and my mother was not there to pick us up when she said she would. The mall security guard let us wait inside the mall doors and frequently drove by to check on us, but we didn’t know what to do. Remember, this was before cell phones. Additionally, we were all relatively young at the time, with ages ranging from 6 to 13, and lacked the life experience to either contact her or someone to come and get us. I recall feeling panicked—did something bad happen to my mother? Was she abandoning us? What if no one ever came to get us—would we end up as “mall children” (I am not even sure what that means)? Again, this experience did not kill me, but did it make me stronger? NO! It did not make me stronger. What it did was instill a fear of abandonment that I still have to this very day. A few years ago, my partner and I were coordinating a trip to campus – she had to be on one end of campus, and I had to be on the other. She said, “I will drop you off and pick you up whenever I am done.” My reaction? “No, that's not going to work for me.” You see, even now, with access to a cell phone and the ability to call a dozen people for a ride and with Uber just a click away, I am not going to put myself in a situation where I have no way out. Sometimes, the things that don’t kill us do not make us stronger. Research backs this up: trauma can rewire the brain for hypervigilance, not strength. My fear of abandonment isn’t a failure of resilience—it’s proof that survival leaves scars.

So why do we use this phrase so often? As a social psychologist, I can think of several reasons why we cling to it. For one, we dislike psychological discomfort, which social psychologists refer to as cognitive dissonance. When we or others face hardship, we alleviate dissonance (the discomfort of pain without purpose) by reframing the experience as character-building or as a pathway to personal growth and resilience. When we hear about other people’s misfortunes, such as getting sick, being in a car accident, or losing a loved one, it makes us feel uneasy. One way we ease that discomfort is by rationalizing the situation and believing that they will ultimately prevail. After all, it will make them stronger.

Another reason we tend to cling to this phrase is what social psychologists refer to as belief in a just world. People want to believe that the world is fair—that bad things lead to good outcomes and that suffering has a purpose. This makes perfect sense! We want to learn from our experiences, whether positive or negative. I want to believe that my ill-fated sled ride has meaning. And it does. I learned, at a young age, how to endure pain and how to be empathetic—traits that have served me well throughout my life. Even the prospect of being a mall child had a purpose; I now know the situations that make me feel safe. Those events in my life were meaningful. Similarly, when I learn that the flood that took someone’s home led them to a new city where they discovered a more fulfilling career and a supportive community, it reinforces that deep human desire to make sense of suffering. Even if the pain doesn’t disappear, finding meaning in it helps us move forward. However, we must be cautious not to assume that every hardship automatically brings strength. Sometimes, growth comes despite the pain, not because of it—and that’s an important distinction.

And that leads me to my point—maybe what doesn’t kill us doesn’t necessarily make us stronger; perhaps it makes us more resilient. The person who lost their house in a flood and ended up couch surfing for the next two years? Resilient. But even resilience isn't a straightforward path. It's not guaranteed, it’s not always visible, and it certainly isn’t something we owe the world after experiencing pain. Resilience can manifest in smaller ways, such as asking for help or simply surviving another day. Resilience doesn’t always come with a big triumphant moment—it can be quiet, messy, or slow. Sometimes, just making it through is enough. For some people, the pressure to “bounce back” quickly or to emerge stronger from every hardship can feel like an additional burden. We need to make space for all the ways people respond to pain without measuring their worth by how much they’ve “overcome.”

So instead of insisting that every hardship should produce strength, we might focus on validating pain, supporting healing, and allowing people the grace to emerge as they do—changed, perhaps, but not always stronger. And that’s enough.

Who Decided I’m Retirement-Ready? (Spoiler: Not Me.)

 

“Congratulations on your retirement.” Wait, what? I’m not retiring! I’m only 61 years old! 

Recently, a campus-wide email announced that I was stepping down as department chair—and suddenly, the retirement congratulations started pouring in. But the message never said I was retiring. Why did everyone assume that’s what it meant? And now that I think about it, people have been asking me about retirement for a while now—friends, colleagues, neighbors. I am not even thinking about retirement…. except maybe for retirement planning books I have been reading.  And, yeah, I listen to a podcast about psychologists who are contemplating retirement.  I also joined an affinity group for my professional organization with retiring psychologists.  But other than that, I hardly think about retirement 😊, so why are people asking me if I will retire? I am only 61 years old.  Here's the thing - we don't ask just anyone about retirement. We ask people who look like they are old enough to retire. Do I look like I am old enough to retire?  It didn’t start that way.

You see, for all of my life (well, apparently not ALL of my life), I looked very young for my age. Consider these two experiences from my rookie faculty days:  I'll never forget walking into a faculty committee meeting. Before I could even take a seat, someone blocked my path and said, 'This meeting is for faculty members.  I said, “I am a faculty member.  My name is Beth Dietz”.  I knew why she stopped me.  I did not look old enough to be a faculty member.  To be sure, this picture of me appeared in the campus newspaper when I was promoted and tenured (I was 36 years old). Looking back on it now, no wonder people assumed I looked more like a student than a faculty member. I recall

another time when I pulled into a parking space in the section of the parking lot reserved for “Faculty and Staff.”  I was no sooner out of my car when the person who parked a few spaces down was at my door, letting me know in no uncertain terms that this area of the parking lot was reserved for faculty!  But I was faculty.  Why can’t people see that?  Oh yeah, because I looked like I was 12. My appearance didn’t just affect assumptions about my age—it also played into deeper gendered expectations about authority and professionalism.

Ugh, I hated that.  It was challenging enough to be a female professor, where I was frequently referred to as Miss or, more simply, by my first name, “Beth, I missed class last week, so I need to take the exam this week.” My male colleagues rarely complained that they were called anything but “Dr.”.  When you are taught by someone who looks more like your little sister, well, no wonder I was rarely addressed as “Dr.”.   I also didn’t like that I got carded all the time. I was old enough to drink at 18, so why am I still being carded at 35?

I rarely got sympathy for my youthful looks from anyone.  “Someday, you will appreciate that you look so young.”  I didn’t doubt that someday I would appreciate it, but not that day…or the next.  I wanted gray hair.  I wanted wrinkles.  I wanted to look old.  I wanted RESPECT. That’s really what it was.  I just wanted to be respected and thought looking old would get me that respect. Instead, it’s getting me pushed right out the door.

I am not sure when I started to “look my age.” Sure, I am mostly gray now, and I have wrinkles and jowls. Being department chair for four years probably aged me more than I realized. To be fair, I do not fear aging or looking older. But I guess I didn’t expect the stereotypes to be applied so soon. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2021), the median retirement age is 64 for men and 62 for women. Okay, so maybe people assume I will retire soon because I am close to the average retirement age.  However, for professors in higher education, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP, 2020) reports that a significant portion of faculty retire between 65 and 70, with some continuing into their 70s. Yes, I am close to 65 but nowhere near 70.

It’s ironic—and infuriating—how quickly societal scripts flip on us. For decades, I fought the "young woman" label, craving the privilege that ties competence to age (and, let’s be honest, to masculinity). Now, seemingly overnight, I’ve been typecast as "retirement-ready"—not because of my plans, but because of a few gray hairs and the assumption that older faces get shown the door.

Social psychology explains this as shifting standards bias -  the same traits (youth/age) are interpreted differently depending on context. At 30, my baby face made me "unqualified"; at 61, it’s presumed I’m "done." We don’t just see age—we have a script for it, often unconsciously. And the bias is gendered: studies show men are more likely to be viewed as "seasoned" with age, while women are pushed toward "obsolete" earlier. Case in point: the median retirement age for women in the U.S. is 62 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021), yet professors—especially women—are often asked years before they intend to leave (AAUP, 2020).

So here’s my question: Who decided I’ve aged out of my career—and why does their timeline override mine? Maybe it’s time to retire the stereotypes instead. 

Here’s my plan: I’ll retire when I want to. Until then, I’ll keep teaching, keep writing, and maybe—just maybe—help rewrite the script.

My Papers Always Came First: Why I Never Had Kids, and What That Means Now

 

I always wanted grandchildren but skipped a crucial step: having children.  Clearly, the math doesn’t math.  Let me explain.

I got married when I was 29, and probably, like most married couples, the expectation was that we would have children.  As I approached 30, my doctor not so gently started sounding alarms about pregnancy – if I wanted children, I pretty much had until I was 30, and then it would be too late.  This was in the 90s, when childbearing was considered too risky after 30.  My now ex-husband and I never really talked about having kids.  I think we just assumed that we would have them, but we didn’t make any plans for when. I knew in my head that I was dragging my feet about childbearing, and for good reason. I had concerns about whether my husband would be a willing partner in parenting. Financially, our paths diverged early on—while I took on the responsibilities of a breadwinner, bill-payer, and the one making sure we had more than cereal for dinner, his approach to work and household life was very different.  Would I also be a “single mom”?  And I think we had fundamentally different views about parenthood.  I thought he would be too much of a disciplinarian and too conservative in his views about how children should be.  To be sure, I remember when we saw a teenage boy with purple hair and nose piercings.  He said, “If my kid ever looked like that, I would disown them”.  He thought I would not discipline our children and would be too liberal in my views about how children should be.  He was not wrong.  When I saw the purple-haired teenager, I thought, “I hope my kids feel free to express their identity with purple hair and nose rings.”

As a couple, we never explicitly decided not to have kids, but we never chose to try either. The truth? I was terrified of resenting my own kids. Not because I lack love to give—ask my students, my dogs, or the faculty in my department who get handwritten thank-you cards from me every semester—but because I’ve always been fiercely protective of “my papers.” My mother tells the story of me when I was 2 or 3 years old, and I had a burlap potato bag with “my papers.”  They were just scraps of paper that probably held the nuclear codes or maybe just my mother’s grocery list.  Regardless, they were vital, and apparently, I would create quite a ruckus if anyone took my papers.  As a child and even into adulthood, “my papers” continued to carry significance, reflected in my serious commitment to school and later, to work. You see, I am obsessed with my work.  Just ask my dogs  - “I have five more projects to grade. Do you really have to go out NOW?”. There is no way I could have children. It wasn’t fair to them to have a parent who resented them. Could I have balanced parenting with my obsessions? Maybe. But watching my ex react to a purple-haired teen with “I’d disown them!” while I thought, “Rock on, kid,” clarified: we’d have been co-parenting in hell. It would be traumatic for them to have a parent who really didn’t want them. I know, because I had that parent.

Not having children is one of the biggest decisions I never did make.  I just waited until I timed out; until it was too late. It’s not that I didn’t have pressure to become a parent. It is normative for women to want to be mothers, and the pressure of nonconformity is intense. As if that weren’t enough, getting excluded from conversations about one’s children was ever-present. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy hearing about Katie’s first steps or Kevin’s Dean’s List triumph, but I had little to add to those conversations. I was, after all, childless.  Ugh, I hated that term.  I didn’t feel “less”. I had a life that fulfilled and sustained me and made me feel whole.  I had “my papers,” after all.  So imagine my joy when on my way to work one day when I heard an NPR piece about the cringe-worthy term “childless” and how a more apt term is childfree.  Yes, that is what I was! I was free from all the worries and work of raising a child. I didn’t have a tiny creature who interrupted me to be fed, who I had to rush to pick up from school, or who I had to console when their feelings got hurt. I was free from all of those things, right?

Sometimes I wonder: Did I make a choice, or did I just let time choose for me? Daniel Pink says we tend to regret the things we didn’t do more than those we did...we are more likely to regret what we didn’t do (inaction) than what we did (action). Apparently, inaction leaves us haunted by what could have been.  Do I regret not having had children?  The answer is complicated.  You see, I always wanted to be a grandparent.  I recognize there are ways of being a grandparent without being a parent, but none of those scenarios were ever presented to me.  For me, being a grandparent meant mostly experiencing all the joy of parenting without most of the responsibility.  Plus, it comes with the bonus of supporting your children. And just like I was excluded from conversations about kids, I am now excluded from conversations about grandkids.  There is also social media now that didn’t exist during my childbearing years, so I get to see the visits to see the grandkids, the beautiful pictures painted for my grandparent friends, and all the love going back and forth between grandchild and grandparent.

As we reach midlife (ages 40–65), developmental psychologist Erik Erikson identified a critical psychosocial stage called Generativity vs. Stagnation. During this phase, the central challenge involves finding ways to contribute meaningfully to future generations—whether through raising children, mentoring others, or serving our communities. Those who navigate this stage successfully develop a sense of purpose and leave a lasting legacy, while those who don't may feel stagnant or unfulfilled. Do I worry that I have no one to pass on my DNA?  I do. I am very mindful of my lineage at this age, and it doesn’t feel very good to know that it stops with me. Still, on most days, I prefer a more positive approach – instead of a mini-me, I have my “papers” (now peer-reviewed and released from their potato sack). My students carry pieces of my legacy, my niece inherited my sarcasm, and my dogs (Frankie, I am talking about you!) have my stubbornness—that counts, right?

So do I regret it? Sometimes, I feel a twinge when I see grandparents cuddling their grandkids. But then I remember: I’ve never once been puked on at 3 AM. I’ve never argued with a teenager about nose rings. And my will? It will be simple: “To my beloved dogs and my 37 unfinished manuscripts…”

 

 

NOTE: I realize that having a child or a grandchild involves much emotion for many people. There are so many people who want to have children but cannot. There are also people who became parents not by their choice. There are probably so many other iterations I am not even listing. And then there are the parents who lost their children. Please know that the story I am telling here is my story, not meant to disrespect, discount, or minimize your story.

Was the 1970s Really Freer? The Psychology of Nostalgia and Why We Romanticize the Past

 

Remember when kids played outside all day long until dusk, when parents didn’t seem to care at all about safety, when playgrounds were survival courses, and when music wasn’t background noise – it was life?  The 1970s felt like the freest decade to be a kid—but was that freedom, or just blind luck? Psychologists say our brains might be editing the past.

I was born in the early 60s, but I did my “growing up” in the 1970s.  And boy, weren’t those the best of times!  Now 45 years later, I recall the freedom I had as a kid.  Mind you, my mother ran a tight ship.  She ensured my brothers, sister, and I had a structured life, with chores to do and meals to eat at specified times of the day. And if we misbehaved, yes, she spanked us and made us go to our rooms.  But despite all that, my fondest memories were of being outside all day, no matter the weather, and doing whatever I wanted.  We played with the kids in the neighborhood and never had a care in the world about safety.  We biked without helmets, skateboarded without elbow or knee pads, and even talked to strangers. We didn’t have lawnmower parents (or even helicopter parents – they hadn’t been invented yet) worried about where or what we were doing. Honestly, it seems like our parents really didn’t care about us 😊 But were we really freer then?  I mean, in looking back, it sure seemed like it.  But maybe we were just ungoverned.

According to social psychologists, my memory of the 1970s might be due to a little “rosy retrospection”, whereby people rate past events more positively over time, even if they evaluated them neutrally or negatively back then.  Surely, when I was 10 years old, I didn’t think life was so darn good! If I really think about it, I had moments where I felt I had the worst life in all the world. You see, our brain tends to selectively remember the highlights (biking down the street at 15 miles an hour without a helmet) while forgetting the struggles (like the time I scraped the heck out of my leg when I fell on the pavement). When I think about it, in the 1970s, many things were more dangerous than now. Remember the playground equipment – monkey bars suspend over gravel pits! And while we are talking safety, remember having to wear a seatbelt when you were a kid?  Yeah, me, either!  So, while it seemed like we were freer back then, maybe we were just more lucky.  But if safety was riskier back then, what about culture? For me, one thing truly was better: the music.

The music felt like life itself, though I’ll admit that’s probably the nostalgia talking about it.  Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours wasn’t just an album to me; it was the music of my teens and shaped the person I am today.  I think. But was 1970s music better, or just dearer to me? For me, Stevie Nicks’ voice is the soundtrack of my childhood. But today’s kids will say the same about Billie Eilish in 40 years—and they won’t be wrong. Still, for me, there is nothing better than the bands of the 1970s.  I was obsessed with Fleetwood Mac, but other music was just as great – David Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Earth Wind and Fire, and on and on.  Music was a big deal in my house, driven entirely by my mother.  She would bring home a wrapped stack of 45s (she would have no idea what songs she was buying, but it didn’t matter because she had four kids who thought those records were the greatest thing in the world).  We had a carrying case that looked just like this one. We would spend afternoons, evenings, and weekends listening to different music, creating interest in various types of music. But when I think a little more deeply about music then versus now, I have to admit that while I love the thought of pulling out those old 45s again, I sure do dig opening Spotify and listening to and discovering any music anywhere in the world. And I must admit that live music today is more immersive than it was then.  Remember when we bragged to our friends about the “incredible light show” we saw at the Rush concert?  Hmmm, I wonder what Pink or Taylor Swift would say about that?

So, why do we engage in Rosy Retrospection? Some social psychologists argue that nostalgia is a buffer against existential threat, kind of like a psychological shield.  When times seem uncertain or threatening, our brains find comfort in replaying the highlight reels of the past. Think about one of our behaviors during the COVID lockdown – vinyl sales of 1970s music spiked, presumably because we were reaching for what we recalled as “simpler times.” So the next time you catch yourself sighing, ‘They don’t make music like they used to,’ ask: Is this really about the past—or am I just craving comfort today? Nostalgia isn’t a lie. But it is a selective edit. And maybe that’s okay.

So tell me: What’s your rose-tinted memory? And if you dig deep—was it really that simple, or is your brain just being kind?