Virtual Book Tour with Anne Kreamer

Readers, we're delighted you're here at our Virtual Book Tour and we give a hearty welcome to author Anne Kreamer. We first featured Anne and her book, Going Gray, in 2007. We think that you'll find what she has to say about her new and thought provoking book, It's Always Personal, very interesting. So let's get started:

Nourishing Relationships:
What motivated you to initiate the investigation to do this book and is there a personal story behind your desire to do this project?

Anne Kreamer:
My interest in the subject of emotion in the workplace crept up on me, starting from a very personal point of view, then growing in gradual concentric circles to include statistical research and neuroscience. A few years ago I was chatting with my former colleague, Sara Levinson, who has been a top executive within both deeply male (MTV, the NFL) and deeply female (Club Mom, the women’s group at Rodale publishing) professional environments. She asked me a funny question: Did I know any woman who had never cried at work? While I’d obviously never conducted a crying-on-the-job poll of my friends, I realized that no, I probably didn’t. And certainly I had cried, years earlier, when I was a senior vice president at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, the children’s network, and my uber-boss, Sumner Redstone, called me for the first time -- and screamed at me.

With that one cocktail-party question, I set off on a two-year journey exploring emotion -- negative emotions, positive emotions, all emotions -- in the modern workplace. The timing of Sara’s question was also interesting. It came during the recession in America which led to the tectonic plate-shifting fact that women were the majority of the workforce for the first time in history. Secondly, developments in the field of neuroscience meant that also for the first time in history we had the ability to observe living, working brains in action. Those two major new facts led me to wonder if this moment presented a unique opportunity to reassess traditional emotional workplace norms.

N R:
What are the main differences you noticed between men and women in the work place?

A K:
There is not one easy answer to this question -- in fact, the answer to this is woven throughout my book and involves both inherent neurobiological as well as socially conditioned differences. But I’ll try and address a few differences.

When equal employment laws were passed in the United States during the 1960s, men overwhelmingly controlled the style and protocols of the workplace, which de facto meant that equality for women meant that they had to adapt and adopt male standards for professional behavior – and really the blandest versions of male behavior at that. As they entered the workforce and for most of the almost half century since, women have been instructed to “man up” and “whatever you do, don’t let them see you cry.” To be successful, many women had to deny and suppress distinctly female parts of themselves -- their nurturing impulses, their essential femininity and, as I discovered, aspects of their intrinsic biology. So right off the bat the rules for women were different because women in significant ways weren't permitted to be themselves.

Let’s look an anger, for instance. In 2007, Victoria Brescoll, who teaches at the Yale School of Management, conducted three studies in which people watched videos of male and female actors pretending to apply for jobs, and sometimes showing anger. Whether the angry female in the experiments was described as a trainee or an executive, both men and women rated the angry woman lower than a comparable man if she showed anger. Additionally, the women’s anger was blamed on her -- “she is an angry person,” “she is out of control” -- whereas men’s emotional reactions were ascribed to some external factor that seemed to justify anger -- “the work was shoddy” or “the report sucked.” In real life angry women at work cry, with tears and blubbering as the unintended, rechanneled byproducts of anger.

One of the fascinating things I discovered through two national polls I conducted, and which academic research corroborates, is that women consider people who cry at work “unstable,” which sounds like a chronic and serious character flaw… whereas men see crying at work as at worst “unprofessional” behavior, more suggestive of a forgivable circumstantial lapse. Men in our survey said that after crying their minds felt sharper, the future brighter, and they felt more physically relaxed and “in control” than before the incident. Women? Women felt the exact opposite.

N R:
Are the reasons why people cry, or explode emotionally, at work mainly due to situations experienced in the office or events in their personal lives that are carried to the work place? Of this two, which one is more "frowned upon"?

A K:
I don’t think there is one that is more “frowned upon.” What I do think is that we are very, very confused about the boundaries between the two realms. In the old days -- pre-Internet, pre-cell phones -- it was a lot easier to believe that work = rational and home = emotional. But now that work and home life bleed into each other constantly, that distinction has become anachronistic and probably self-defeating. People text and e-mail their friends and family members throughout the workday, and they receive messages from colleagues and clients on nights and weekends and during vacations.

The membranes between private life and work, especially office work, have always been porous, but today employers and employees expect accessibility and accountability pretty much round-the-clock. And whereas old-school office memos and business letters generally weren’t expected to be friendly or candid -- that is, human -- business e-mails most definitely are.

Conversely, what used to be considered private behavior can instantly reverberate at work through social networking. People fire off e-mails late at night only to regret their tone and intent in the cold light of day. Facebook friends from work can stumble on wild-and-crazy pictures from a bachelorette party. Tweets and anonymous mobile video uploads can instantly broadcast unflattering emotional displays by surly customer service employees or misbehaving CEOs.

The conventional wisdom used to be that we brought home the emotions we were unable to express while at work - snapping (or worse) at unsuspecting partners and children. Which is as true as ever. What’s new is that home life — with all its messy, complicated emotional currents, has become inextricably and undeniably woven into the workplace.

N R:
Your study suggests that men cry more than we’d assumed in the workplace; could you explain that in depth?

A K:
I think the conventional wisdom was that men simply didn’t cry in the workplace. That 9% of American men admitted that they did struck me as significant – and with men like John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, or Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader for the U. S. Senate, crying visibly and frequently in public, it strikes me that we’ve reached a turning point in our culture where it is acceptable for men to express emotion. In fact, research reveals that those who “lead from the heart” are viewed as more trustworthy.

N R:
Is crying a good therapy to release stress and maintain productive?

A K:
Tears are nature’s natural emotional reset valve. Tears are not an emotion, but rather are our bodies way to express that an individual has experienced an intense emotion. Psychic tears (as opposed to irritant tears, the kind we release when cutting an onion) happen in response to strong experiences – of joy, sadness, anger, anxiety, fear. Tears help us release hormones that flood our bodies during those times of intense feeling and help us re-establish our baseline equilibrium. Tears also increase our dopamine production, thereby helping to return our bodies to equilibrium – and they are also something akin to the warning lights on our car dashboards. You should pay attention to them – they are a signal communicating that something may be not quite right under the hood. There are many, many different kinds of tears – those of happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, pain, and joy and it’s important, as with warning lights on the dashboard, to figure out which kind you are experiencing and then understand what they are telling you – are you overwhelmed, underappreciated, angry? Then figure out how you want to address those issues. In the book I offer a variety of strategies for how one can do that.

N R:
Why do women feel so guilty after crying after an incident at work while men don’t?

A K:
Once again this is really complicated and I believe social conditioning is one of the primary reasons women feel ashamed after crying at work. And social conditioning fails to take into consideration basic biological differences between the genders. Women produce 6 times the amount of prolactin that men do and prolactin is the hormone that causes tear production. Women also have smaller tear ducts, that’s right, they are anatomically different from men’s so that when women do cry, tears most often will stream down their face, whereas men’s ears merely “tear up.” I think if we were all more educated about our neurobiology, women would feel less regret after crying – acknowledging their tears for the biological impulse, like breathing or a muscle reflex, that they are.

N R:
What are the different personality types you recognized in an ordinary office?

A K:
Based on the responses to over 1,000 regular working Americans in all 50 states, we identified four different primary types of emotion styles. I’ve named these Spouters, Accepters, Believers, and Solvers. Women and men were equally represented in all four groups. There were minimal differences among the four types between income and management levels which means that there is no one “right” type to be. If your reader’s would like to take a very simplified version of the survey they may do so here.

NR:
Can you give us a few tips for controlling our emotions in the work place?

A K:
I offer lots of what I call “emotion management toolkit” suggestions in the book, but if I had to select just one it would be to get outside and walk. If I’m walking in a city, the rich diversity of shops, people or street smells wafting out of restaurants stimulates me in ways that connect interesting new creative dots for me and if I’m walking in nature the rich loaminess of the soil, the chittering birds, frogs and insects calm me and connect me to my spiritual side. I find if I’m cranky or anxious, just walking out my door almost always lifts my mood. Changing perspective helps change your brain chemistry.

Thanks, Anne, for insight into your work and such thorough responses. Now, readers, it's your turn to share your thoughts and ask Anne your questions. Just click on 'comments' at the bottom of this post and follow the prompts. You can even sign in as 'anonymous' - it's as easy as that. And if you want to learn more about Anne and her books, spend some time on her website.

Thinking of Going Gray?

We are pleased to be hosting Anne Kreamer here on the blog on Wednesday, October 19 to talk with us about her latest book, It's Always Personal. Our readers were fascinated by her last visit here when she shared her personal story about Going Gray, so we thought we'd share some excerpts of our last chat with Anne. If you've ever considered going gray yourself, here's some of what Anne shared with us at that time:

NR: What were the issues that you’d uncovered while your hair was growing out?

Anne: I discovered that I was worried about whether I could ever be attractive to men in the same way with gray hair as I thought I had been with my dyed brown hair. And when I began to talk with other women about my experience I uncovered that worry about their loss of attractiveness is perhaps the single greatest fear almost all women feel as they get older since gray hair is our most visible signal of age. Women were also terrified that they would lose professional opportunity if they were perceived as old.

NR: How did you go about getting at the underlying truth or issues behind those fears?

Anne: I did several different things. I talked to as many different kinds of men and women as I could – from well-known people like Emmylou Harris, Anna Quindlen, Frances McDormand, Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat), Nora Ephron and Governor Ann Richards to regular people I met across the country. I conducted a national survey of 500 people probing all sorts of issues around aging and the things that we do to mask the signs of aging. I used myself as a guinea pig in a variety of situations – I pseudo-dated on-line, went out to bars, interviewed headhunters and met in cognito with image consultants. And I read everything I could get my hands on.

NR: What surprised you the most?

Anne: You mean after I figured out that I had spent $65,000 on hair color alone during the 25 years I dyed my hair? (That $65,000 would today be worth $300,000 after adjusting for inflation!)

NR: Wow! But yes, beyond that statistic.

Anne: What most surprised me was discovering that when it comes to letting their hair be its natural gray, or not, I think a lot of women tend to be worried about the wrong thing. I certainly was. More women are more worried that men won’t find them attractive with gray hair, and yet believe that gray hair is acceptable professionally. My research revealed that the truth is the opposite.

NR: What do you mean?

Anne: Well, for instance, I tried to really get at whether gray hair was unattractive to men on Match.com. I figured if I was honest about my age and interests and posted an image of myself with gray hair that I’d naturally get fewer “dates” (or “winks” as overtures are called on Match.com) than I would when I posted the same information but instead used an image of myself with my hair Photo-shopped brown. And shockingly, after I did the experiment three times in three different cities, three times as many men in New York, Chicago and L.A. were interested in going out with me when my hair was gray. This blew my mind. When I was on Good Morning America, they replicated the experiment with a 61-year-old widow in Florida and she had the exact same results! Maybe men figured that if we were being honest about the color of our hair that perhaps our lack of pretence would make us more accessible and easier to date. Or maybe the gray made me stand out from the overwhelming majority of Match-com women my age who color their hair. I honestly don’t know. But I do know the results were inspiring. We should give men a lot more credit.

NR: Did you test this theory in the real world?

Anne: Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I went out to a variety of New York bars (from places where Wall Street guys would hang out to the kinds where locals went to watch sports) and once again I was really surprised by how it seemed that my gray hair color did nothing to prevent me from meeting and talking with nice-looking younger guys. Most women I talked with during research for my book were convinced that if a woman had gray hair and then got divorced that it was absolutely essential that she dye her hair if she were ever going to date again. I strongly believe that that is not the case. And moreover, I would suggest to most women that if the guy they’re interested in will only like them if they dye their hair, then maybe he’s not Mr. Right.

NR: Was there anything else that supports your contrarian point of view?

Anne: The results from my survey were compelling. There is a huge double standard. Through a Photo shopped experiment I also tested precisely how much gray hair aged a person and what I discovered is that if a person is in their 40s or 50s, gray hair allows others to accurately guess a person’s age. When I Photo shopped the gray hair out with brown, the person was guessed to be about two or three years younger. Which seems like a modest difference to work so hard to achieve. I think the reality is we are only fooling ourselves about our age through the use of hair color.

NR: So what was the story professionally?

Anne: I interviewed different media headhunters – one in New York, the other based in Colorado and both said that they had neither a female client nor a prospective job candidate with gray hair. They went into real detail about how gray hair was consistently viewed as a signal that a person would not be “right” for most company cultures. And they suggested that if a woman were in sales or marketing allowing herself to go gray on the job would be the kiss of death.

NR: You didn’t expect this?

Anne: I met with these women assuming they’d tell me that if I wanted to get back into the corporate arena then I’d have to update my image and dye my hair. But I didn’t expect them to be so emphatic about how damaging gray hair could be to a woman’s career. What I’ve come to believe is that we need women in prominent positions (say, Hillary Clinton) to have their natural hair color in order to give other women the choice or option to dye or not to dye. In my mind it’s like baldness was for men before professional athletes like Michael Jordan or actors like Bruce Willis made baldness seem sexy and masculine. If there were more Emmylou Harris’ the choice would be easier.

NR: What about the image consultants?

Anne: I was completely taken aback by the image consultants. I met with three very different people and firms and in each instance they believed that my gray hair could be a professional asset – something along the lines of the way Meryl Streep looked playing the character, Miranda Priestly in the Devil Wears Prada. The main thing I learned from the consultants is that if you change any one aspect of your look, then it is important to modify everything else to bring out your best features. I needed to update my style and color palette.

NR: Where did you end up? Do you disapprove of people who dye their hair?

Anne: I certainly don’t disapprove of people who dye their hair – after all, I’m a very recent convert to my natural color. And I no longer work in a corporate environment so I have the luxury of feeling safe and comfortable writing at home by myself with my gray hair and I’ve been married to the same man for 30 years. But I did come through on the other side happier and more at home in my body than when I dyed my hair. It feels liberating to walk down the street and know that as much as possible I’m projecting pretty much who I am to the world. I love not spending the time at the beauty shop and I really love not spending the money.

I feel like I’m a better role model for my daughters and it seems like my husband finds me as sexy with my natural hair.

I also discovered through my research and reading that acknowledgement of your real age is one of the most important tools we have to increase the odds that we’ll age healthfully and happily. Several studies have clearly indicated that people who accept their age actually live longer. So I love that by choosing to give up one little piece of artifice I might actually be helping myself stick around longer for the grandchildren I long to know.

NR: If you'd like to hear more from this dynamite woman, join us again on Wednesday for another sit-down with Anne Kreamer. You'll learn about her take on the new realities of emotions in the workplace as Anne talks about her new book, It's Always Personal.

Synopsis of Virtual Book Tour: Going Gray

Yesterday we introduced you to the subject of Virtual Book Tours and the more recent books we've reviewed. Now here's a list of the other books we've featured so far:

September 20,'07 - "Mothering Mother"
February 21,'08 - "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)"
March 13,'08 - "The Frugal Book Promoter"
April 11,'08 - "Setting Boundaries With Your Adult Children"
April 17,'08 - "Lovers' Hollow"
May 8,'08 - "Going Gray"



Why don't you scroll back to May 8, 2008 and read about our interview with Anne Kreamer. And here's a sampling of the comments we received over a year ago about Anne's Going Gray Virtual Book Tour:

I hear you and appreciate what you found in your research. But I'm a 55 year old representative in a pharmaceutical company and in competition with women much younger than me. I hate to admit it but I think that coloring my hair is one way to stay in the game.

When I started to go gray in my early 40s I decided to keep it natural. It saved me so much time and money and my husband loved it. It may sound silly but I'm proud of my decision.

It was never a problem for me. I love going grey - not only does it keep me out of the beauty shop and saving money but it reminds me of my mother whom I see every time I look in the mirror.

I put coloring my hair in the same category as buying hip new clothes - it's just one more way to keep myself looking good as I age.

Bravo to Nourishing Relationships for presenting this topic and to Anne for writing the book and going grey. If one has the hair, the confidence and the belief system that grey is not old, it saves time, money and attracts attention. Besides, most women and men are more stunning au natural. Go for it!

I just happened upon this blog yesterday and what a delight. I never imagined that this subject would be so interesting. I'm still going to color my hair because it makes me look younger and my husband likes it this way - but I'm sure I'll be thinking more about it during my time at the beauty parlor.

Now that you've heard from others, it's your turn - share your personal opinion about this colorful topic.

The interview with Anne Kreamer, author of "Going Gray," yesterday was lively and generated a lot of pertinent comments. Both poles were well represented - all the way from I color my hair because it makes me feel younger, looks better, keeps me competitive in the marketplace, my husband loves it - to it costs less, is who I am, saves time, makes me feel good, attracts attention.

Anne Kreamer, in reply, said...
I appreciate all of your comments and find the exchange interesting. I have to say, Fran, that I am not at all surprised that you feel the competitive need to dye your hair. Ageism is real and even though my research revealed that we don't actually fool anyone about our biological age by using hair dye, as a society we have collectively agreed to pretend to believe the illusion. And work is the place where the rubber really does hit the road. Until lots of senior executive women keep their natural hair color, it will be a challenge to anyone in a high visibility position to buck convention.

As for advice for a man who is losing his hair. I'd suggest doing what Bruce Willis and Michael Jordan did -- shave it. I imagine the first few days would be shocking but then I bet you'd like it. And worst case scenario -- you grow it back and keep what you've got short.

Finally, I think that all women of every skin and hair type can look fabulous with gray hair, but it requires thinking about clothing colors and make-up differently -- you might need to brighten a lipstick or pick a more vibrant color closer to your face to offset the pale hair color.


So no matter whether you color your hair or go au natural, we send very special wishes and celebrate all of you on Mother's Day.

Anne Kreamer, author of "Going Gray," is our guest on this Virtual Book Tour. Welcome, Anne! We know that this interview will get a lot of you thinking first thing this morning, so let's get started:


What made you decide to stop coloring your hair?

A friend sent me photographs from a trip we’d recently taken and in one of them I was standing with my sixteen-year old naturally blonde daughter and a good friend with gray hair. I was in the middle with a harsh and dark brown hair dye and when I looked at that photograph I realized that I didn’t like the way I looked. I saw that my face and hair no longer really jibed with each other.

How did you decide to go about letting your hair grow in?

That was the hardest part of the whole process. I was fond of my shoulder length hair and didn’t want to get a buzz cut and start fresh, so I went to my colorist assuming that we could just start to pull the color out. But unfortunately it isn’t simple so simple. If you don’t want to cut your hair short, the best route is to add different kinds of highlights to blend in with your roots as they grow out as well as a toner that can help to blend in the various colors

How long did it take?

From start to finish it took me about 18 months to get rid of all of my color. And some days it was a challenge – about mid-point I felt like I looked like an old crazy kind of bag lady. My hair was brittle and sort of unkempt looking and I finally decided to cut about four inches off. It was wonderfully liberating. It felt as if I’d cut off my old and disingenuous dyed past and was ready to look to the future with a clear eye about my age.

What made you decide to write a book about the experience?

My usual way of making any kind of big change in life is to tell as many people as I can what I’m intending to do, and then I have to follow through. So I suggested that I write a piece for More magazine about the experience. And when More got the most letters from their readers about my piece they’d ever had I thought I’d touched a nerve that was worth analyzing in greater detail.

What were the issues that you’d uncovered while your hair was growing out?

I discovered that I was worried about whether I could ever be attractive to men in the same way with gray hair as I thought I had been with my dyed brown hair. And when I began to talk with other women about my experience I uncovered that worry about their loss of attractiveness is perhaps the single greatest fear almost all women feel as they get older since gray hair is our most visible signal of age. Women were also terrified that they would lose professional opportunity if they were perceived as old.

How did you go about getting at the underlying truth or issues behind those fears?

I did several different things.

I talked to as many different kinds of men and women as I could – from well-known people like Emmylou Harris, Anna Quindlen, Frances McDormand, Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat), Nora Ephron and Governor Ann Richards to regular people I met across the country. I conducted a national survey of 500 people probing all sorts of issues around aging and the things that we do to mask the signs of aging. I used myself as a guinea pig in a variety of situations – I pseudo-dated on-line, went out to bars, interviewed headhunters and met in cognito with image consultants. And I read everything I could get my hands on.

What surprised you the most?

You mean after I figured out that I had spent $65,000 on hair color alone during the 25 years I dyed my hair? (That $65,000 would today be worth $300,000 after adjusting for inflation!)

Wow! But yes, beyond that statistic.

What most surprised me was discovering that when it comes to letting their hair be its natural gray, or not, I think a lot of women tend to be worried about the wrong thing. I certainly was. More women are more worried that men won’t find them attractive with gray hair, and yet believe that gray hair is acceptable professionally. My research revealed that the truth is the opposite.

What do you mean?

Well, for instance, I tried to really get at whether gray hair was unattractive to men on Match.com. I figured if I was honest about my age and interests and posted an image of myself with gray hair that I’d naturally get fewer “dates” (or “winks” as overtures are called on Match.com) than I would when I posted the same information but instead used an image of myself with my hair Photo-shopped brown. And shockingly, after I did the experiment three times in three different cities, three times as many men in New York, Chicago and L.A. were interested in going out with me when my hair was gray. This blew my mind. When I was on Good Morning America, they replicated the experiment with a 61-year-old widow in Florida and she had the exact same results! Maybe men figured that if we were being honest about the color of our hair that perhaps our lack of pretence would make us more accessible and easier to date. Or maybe the gray made me stand out from the overwhelming majority of Match-com women my age who color their hair. I honestly don’t know. But I do know the results were inspiring. We should give men a lot more credit.

Did you test this theory in the real world?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I went out to a variety of New York bars (from places where Wall Street guys would hang out to the kinds where locals went to watch sports) and once again I was really surprised by how it seemed that my gray hair color did nothing to prevent me from meeting and talking with nice-looking younger guys. Most women I talked with during research for my book were convinced that if a woman had gray hair and then got divorced that it was absolutely essential that she dye her hair if she were ever going to date again. I strongly believe that that is not the case. And moreover, I would suggest to most women that if the guy they’re interested in will only like them if they dye their hair, then maybe he’s not Mr. Right.

Was there anything else that supports your contrarian point of view?

The results from my survey were compelling. There is a huge double standard. Through a Photo shopped experiment I also tested precisely how much gray hair aged a person and what I discovered is that if a person is in their 40s or 50s, gray hair allows others to accurately guess a person’s age. When I Photo shopped the gray hair out with brown, the person was guessed to be about two or three years younger. Which seems like a modest difference to work so hard to achieve. I think the reality is we are only fooling ourselves about our age through the use of hair color.

So what was the story professionally?

I interviewed different media headhunters – one in New York, the other based in Colorado and both said that they had neither a female client nor a prospective job candidate with gray hair. They went into real detail about how gray hair was consistently viewed as a signal that a person would not be “right” for most company cultures. And they suggested that if a woman were in sales or marketing allowing herself to go gray on the job would be the kiss of death.

You didn’t expect this?

I met with these women assuming they’d tell me that if I wanted to get back into the corporate arena then I’d have to update my image and dye my hair. But I didn’t expect them to be so emphatic about how damaging gray hair could be to a woman’s career. What I’ve come to believe is that we need women in prominent positions (say, Hillary Clinton) to have their natural hair color in order to give other women the choice or option to dye or not to dye. In my mind it’s like baldness was for men before professional athletes like Michael Jordan or actors like Bruce Willis made baldness seem sexy and masculine. If there were more Emmylou Harris’ the choice would be easier.

What about the image consultants?

I was completely taken aback by the image consultants. I met with three very different people and firms and in each instance they believed that my gray hair could be a professional asset – something along the lines of the way Meryl Streep looked playing the character, Miranda Priestly in the Devil Wears Prada. The main thing I learned from the consultants is that if you change any one aspect of your look, then it is important to modify everything else to bring out your best features. I needed to update my style and color palette.

What about men?

I interviewed a lot of men for the book and with the exception of a writer living in Hollywood, all of the men claimed to be indifferent to the color of a woman’s hair. If a woman is lively and interested in what they are saying and seems to take care in her personal appearance, then hair color was irrelevant to the men – and they are so worried about going bald that the color of our hair never entered the equation!

And I’ve been thrilled by the number of men who have written to me since the book was published telling me that they’d bought it for their wives, or mothers or sisters. They hoped that by reading the book the women would come to understand that men like women just the way they are.

Unfortunately, I also discovered that men are the next market segment that the cosmetic companies are targeting for hair color. The female market is practically saturated so men are the only growth area left. It’s a scary thought.

And did you find any differences with people from other countries?

I interviewed Mireille Guiliano, the author of the French Women Don’t Get Fat books, and also several other European men and women and, not surprisingly, found that Europeans in general have a greater tolerance for a wide range of what women can look like as they age.

Where did you end up? Do you disapprove of people who dye their hair?

I certainly don’t disapprove of people who dye their hair – after all, I’m a very recent convert to my natural color. And I no longer work in a corporate environment so I have the luxury of feeling safe and comfortable writing at home by myself with my gray hair and I’ve been married to the same man for 30 years. But I did come through on the other side happier and more at home in my body than when I dyed my hair. It feels liberating to walk down the street and know that as much as possible I’m projecting pretty much who I am to the world. I love not spending the time at the beauty shop and I really love not spending the money.

I feel like I’m a better role model for my daughters and it seems like my husband finds me as sexy with my natural hair.

I also discovered through my research and reading that acknowledgement of your real age is one of the most important tools we have to increase the odds that we’ll age healthfully and happily. Several studies have clearly indicated that people who accept their age actually live longer. So I love that by choosing to give up one little piece of artifice I might actually be helping myself stick around longer for the grandchildren I long to know.

Thanks for taking the time today to inform our readers, Anne. I went gray a couple of years ago and I had lots of ambivalence before I took the plunge. So, Sandwiched Boomers, I know you have some questions and concerns. Anne will be checking in throughout the day - so here's your chance - just click on "comments" and fire away.

As Sandwiched Boomers planning your family's summer vacation, does Clinton's proposal of gas tax relief go to the heart of the matter or seem like an emotional ploy to garner more votes? And has what you've heard from Obama this past week made up for some of his former pastor's remarks?

Today may very well signify game change or game over. Instead of taking the race all the way to the convention, let's hope the Democratic party begins to unite behind one candidate for President. It's time to focus on the issues that matter.

Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you're entitled to understand the candidates' positions on your deepest concerns - health care, education, housing, jobs, food and gas prices. As members of the Sandwich Generation dealing with the challenges of growing children and aging parents, what matters most to you? Now is the time to let your voices be heard.

Be sure to log in on Thursday for our Virtual Book Tour - featuring Anne Kreamer, author of "Going Gray."