Read this article by Devon Corneal. All I can say is, "Amen, sister." I really have nothing to add.
Hat tip to The Dude's Mom for sending me this article. :-)
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Food Journals
Remember how I said I hate New Years Resolutions?
I also hate food journals or diaries. They make me feel confined.
Yeah, I know, they're supposed to do that: impose a little structure on your health chaos. But that doesn't mean I can't not like it.
But I know that they work. They make me account for my own gastronomic sins.
(And these toenails aren't painting themselves. I need my 10 pound weight loss pedicure.)
And so I find myself turning to the dreaded food journal in order to help me attack the dreaded New Years Eve Eve Resolution. After three weeks of not doing so well without much structure (still only down 2.5 pounds), I have broken down and will do a food journal .... Starting tomorrow. Maybe seeing it written down will force me into giving up my one true drug: sugar.
And I'm serious about calling sugar a drug. I'll get real cravings and an instant serotonin rush when I finally have some. I guess it's better than being addicted to cocaine (but not for my waistline). Anyway, I need to break the sugar habit in a serious, serious way.
Because I'm doing okay on every other of my health goals...exercising more, eating more veggies, generally sleeping better....but the sugar's hard to shake. Hopefully, the journal will help.
I also hate food journals or diaries. They make me feel confined.
Yeah, I know, they're supposed to do that: impose a little structure on your health chaos. But that doesn't mean I can't not like it.
But I know that they work. They make me account for my own gastronomic sins.
(And these toenails aren't painting themselves. I need my 10 pound weight loss pedicure.)
And so I find myself turning to the dreaded food journal in order to help me attack the dreaded New Years Eve Eve Resolution. After three weeks of not doing so well without much structure (still only down 2.5 pounds), I have broken down and will do a food journal .... Starting tomorrow. Maybe seeing it written down will force me into giving up my one true drug: sugar.
And I'm serious about calling sugar a drug. I'll get real cravings and an instant serotonin rush when I finally have some. I guess it's better than being addicted to cocaine (but not for my waistline). Anyway, I need to break the sugar habit in a serious, serious way.
Because I'm doing okay on every other of my health goals...exercising more, eating more veggies, generally sleeping better....but the sugar's hard to shake. Hopefully, the journal will help.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Weekly Chores for The Working Mom
I'm sure you're familiar with Pinterest....
Every so often, I'll see pins from my buddies of a weekly chore list. Basically, it's a list of items that Mom should do each day to keep the house sparkling, and the list is always "so doable."
This week, one of my friends posted such a list for, get this, "The Working Mom."
My own list of chores!
Here's what I need to do every day to have a sparkling house, and this is "sooo doable."
This is an hour's worth of stuff, honestly. (Maybe I should institute an auto-sort laundry system as has been suggested on certain Pinterest pins. Do I trust The Working Dad to correctly sort?)
Anyway, I already get up before 6 a.m. to exercise (or I'm supposed to). Should I make that five in order to fit in these daily chores?
Then there are once a week, presumably, after work chores....
Seriously? I get home by 6 each evening. I need to feed The Boy, do potty time, bathe him, brush his teeth, do book time, and then put him to bed. (While The Working Dad gets dinner started and does whatever odds and end around the house that need attending to on whatever given day while I'm getting The Boy ready for bed....)
Ta-da! And just like that, it's 8 o'clock at our house. Time for The Working Dad and I to cook our own meal (if he's not already done it), eat, visit for a few minutes and then go to bed. Should I dump the chatting with my husband part to do these chores? What if we just order in every night so we skip the cooking part. That's healthy. Anyway, any real cleaning or dusting or vacuuming of the house beyond a lick and a promise is going to take another hour of time, at least. Even a lick and a promise may take an hour or so.
And footnote: I've been working all freaking day, it's 8 p.m., and I'd like a glass of wine and a little relaxation time. Sure, there are two "free" days there, so I suppose you get to relax two evenings a week, but that's about five too few for me. This schedule would have me going until 9 p.m.
So in addition to your eight hour work day, you, working lady, have two hours of house cleaning to do before you get to put your feet up.
But wait! There's more! There are swing day chores!
Swing day, Saturday, the one day of the week The Working Mom has with no commitments, free time to spend with the family. No, the cleaning calendar has your day filled with big projects and "catch up."
Fundamentally, the whole concept of the working mom's cleaning schedule rubs me the wrong way. Dad doesn't have to pitch in? The creator of the working mom's chore schedule says that her husband "is a manager" and works 60 to 70 hours a week, "enough said." No, it isn't enough said! He makes half the mess, he eats the food she no doubt cooks, he can pick up a broom at 8 p.m. as easily as she can. And what about working women who have "big important jobs," just like boys do. I've got a female friend who easily makes twice what her husband makes. I suppose that means she doesn't have to wash a dish since she works longer hours and makes more money. Guess what really happens at that house.....
Heck, if the morning and evening chores were divided between mom and dad, it's just 30 minutes a piece, in theory. Instead of mom slaving away while dad watches the news and unwinds after a hard day at his important job, maybe they both do a little cleaning and then hang with each other too.
Moreover, if the kids are old enough to swish a toilet bowl, where are their chores on this list?
And, by the way, where's the time for exercise in this schedule, or an avocation like playing a musical instrument or writing a blog or both? Where's fun?
Obviously, this schedule works for its creator, but to me, I see utter slavery to the family. I see a ready-maid (pun intended) basis for martyrdom on the part of the creator too.
But, I suppose, there is a grain of usefulness in the calendar. If you are not fortunate enough to be able to afford a cleaning service, having a plan of how to get the chores done is a good idea, for both working parents and the kids (if they're old enough). Study after study shows that working women, on average, still carry a disproportionate amount of the household duties, even though they are bringing home half or more than half of the income for the family. We work just as hard as dad does at work. He should pitch in at home. If there's going to be a chore calendar, the calendar should have his assignments too. If dad doesn't want to help mom out, when, arguable she's helping him out by carrying part of the family economic burden, then that's a problem with dad.
Every so often, I'll see pins from my buddies of a weekly chore list. Basically, it's a list of items that Mom should do each day to keep the house sparkling, and the list is always "so doable."
This week, one of my friends posted such a list for, get this, "The Working Mom."
!
My own list of chores!
Here's what I need to do every day to have a sparkling house, and this is "sooo doable."
Everyday before work:
Make beds
Empty dishwasher
Put in one load of laundry
This is an hour's worth of stuff, honestly. (Maybe I should institute an auto-sort laundry system as has been suggested on certain Pinterest pins. Do I trust The Working Dad to correctly sort?)
Anyway, I already get up before 6 a.m. to exercise (or I'm supposed to). Should I make that five in order to fit in these daily chores?
Then there are once a week, presumably, after work chores....
Monday: clean bathrooms
Tuesday: dust
Wednesday: vacuum
Thursday: mop floors
Friday: free!
Saturday: swing day
Sunday: free!
Seriously? I get home by 6 each evening. I need to feed The Boy, do potty time, bathe him, brush his teeth, do book time, and then put him to bed. (While The Working Dad gets dinner started and does whatever odds and end around the house that need attending to on whatever given day while I'm getting The Boy ready for bed....)
Ta-da! And just like that, it's 8 o'clock at our house. Time for The Working Dad and I to cook our own meal (if he's not already done it), eat, visit for a few minutes and then go to bed. Should I dump the chatting with my husband part to do these chores? What if we just order in every night so we skip the cooking part. That's healthy. Anyway, any real cleaning or dusting or vacuuming of the house beyond a lick and a promise is going to take another hour of time, at least. Even a lick and a promise may take an hour or so.
And footnote: I've been working all freaking day, it's 8 p.m., and I'd like a glass of wine and a little relaxation time. Sure, there are two "free" days there, so I suppose you get to relax two evenings a week, but that's about five too few for me. This schedule would have me going until 9 p.m.
So in addition to your eight hour work day, you, working lady, have two hours of house cleaning to do before you get to put your feet up.
But wait! There's more! There are swing day chores!
Swing Days:
First week - clean oven, microwave and fridge
Second week - wipe down walls baseboards and doors
Third week - clean inside windows and blinds
Fourth week - wipe down cabinets
Swing day, Saturday, the one day of the week The Working Mom has with no commitments, free time to spend with the family. No, the cleaning calendar has your day filled with big projects and "catch up."
Fundamentally, the whole concept of the working mom's cleaning schedule rubs me the wrong way. Dad doesn't have to pitch in? The creator of the working mom's chore schedule says that her husband "is a manager" and works 60 to 70 hours a week, "enough said." No, it isn't enough said! He makes half the mess, he eats the food she no doubt cooks, he can pick up a broom at 8 p.m. as easily as she can. And what about working women who have "big important jobs," just like boys do. I've got a female friend who easily makes twice what her husband makes. I suppose that means she doesn't have to wash a dish since she works longer hours and makes more money. Guess what really happens at that house.....
Heck, if the morning and evening chores were divided between mom and dad, it's just 30 minutes a piece, in theory. Instead of mom slaving away while dad watches the news and unwinds after a hard day at his important job, maybe they both do a little cleaning and then hang with each other too.
Moreover, if the kids are old enough to swish a toilet bowl, where are their chores on this list?
And, by the way, where's the time for exercise in this schedule, or an avocation like playing a musical instrument or writing a blog or both? Where's fun?
Obviously, this schedule works for its creator, but to me, I see utter slavery to the family. I see a ready-maid (pun intended) basis for martyrdom on the part of the creator too.
But, I suppose, there is a grain of usefulness in the calendar. If you are not fortunate enough to be able to afford a cleaning service, having a plan of how to get the chores done is a good idea, for both working parents and the kids (if they're old enough). Study after study shows that working women, on average, still carry a disproportionate amount of the household duties, even though they are bringing home half or more than half of the income for the family. We work just as hard as dad does at work. He should pitch in at home. If there's going to be a chore calendar, the calendar should have his assignments too. If dad doesn't want to help mom out, when, arguable she's helping him out by carrying part of the family economic burden, then that's a problem with dad.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Two-thousand-thirteen
I totally get why people said it "two-thousand-one" etc. when talking about the years from 2001 to 2009. It was cumbersome and sort of odd sounding to say "twenty-oh-one." (Although, I was an occasional "twenty-oh-one-er".....)
But for the entirety of those nine years, I looked forward to being able to go back to the old way of expressing the year.
Nineteen-seventy
Nineteen-eighty-nine
Tonight, we're gonna to party like it's nineteen-ninety-nine...
And yet, here we are, three years after we've been able to say, e.g., "twenty-ten," and some people are still saying "two-thousand-thirteen." Steven Metcalf, host of one of my favorite podcasts, the Slate Culturefest, did it just today (or whenever they recorded the podcast).
Are they worried that it may sound like they're reading an eye chart?
Whereas "twenty-oh-one" was cumbersome, now, "two-thousand-thirteen" is.
So I hereby call upon the world who may or may not be listening and/or care what I think:
For the love of all that is good and sweet in the world, say it "twenty-thirteen." I think Prince would agree with me on this.
But for the entirety of those nine years, I looked forward to being able to go back to the old way of expressing the year.
Nineteen-seventy
Nineteen-eighty-nine
Tonight, we're gonna to party like it's nineteen-ninety-nine...
And yet, here we are, three years after we've been able to say, e.g., "twenty-ten," and some people are still saying "two-thousand-thirteen." Steven Metcalf, host of one of my favorite podcasts, the Slate Culturefest, did it just today (or whenever they recorded the podcast).
Are they worried that it may sound like they're reading an eye chart?
Whereas "twenty-oh-one" was cumbersome, now, "two-thousand-thirteen" is.
So I hereby call upon the world who may or may not be listening and/or care what I think:
For the love of all that is good and sweet in the world, say it "twenty-thirteen." I think Prince would agree with me on this.
Friday, January 18, 2013
My tummy gets in the way
Thanks to nearly two decades of ballet, I perpetually hold my tummy in, so it gives the illusion of relative flatness, even if there is fatness there.
But ever since I had The Boy, there's this odd pouch there that wasn't there before, just below the belly button. When I lay on my side, it kind of hangs there...like a third boob. A very squishy third boob....
I wonder, will it go away with weight loss, or do I need to get it a little bra?
So my tummy gets in the way when I bend over or, you know, try to put on pants. It also gets in the way when I eat. For instance, last night, it got in the way and convinced me to have a Bass ale with a bowl of animal crackers, a surprisingly good pairing, after dinner. Oh well....
Status update: lost a half pound. Down 2.5 since the first of the year. Next week will be better. Happy Friday, y'all!
But ever since I had The Boy, there's this odd pouch there that wasn't there before, just below the belly button. When I lay on my side, it kind of hangs there...like a third boob. A very squishy third boob....
I wonder, will it go away with weight loss, or do I need to get it a little bra?
So my tummy gets in the way when I bend over or, you know, try to put on pants. It also gets in the way when I eat. For instance, last night, it got in the way and convinced me to have a Bass ale with a bowl of animal crackers, a surprisingly good pairing, after dinner. Oh well....
Status update: lost a half pound. Down 2.5 since the first of the year. Next week will be better. Happy Friday, y'all!
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The New Normal
I missed this article when it was first published in November 2012, just before the election. A law school pal posted about it on Facebook today and it caught my attention.
A little girl with two dads wrote to Barack Obama to thank him for supporting gay marriage. In her letter she relates how her classmates think her dads' relationship is "gross and weird." She writes, "[I]t really hurts my heart and feelings. So I come to you because you are my hero. If you were me and had two dads that love each other and kids at school tease you, what would you do?"
Bless her sweet little hurt heart.
I have some gay friends. Some of them are single. Some of them are as married as gay people can be in Texas in 2013. Some of them are somewhere in between.
Some of them have kids.
And their kids are gorgeous little creatures, just like my gorgeous little creature.
And these gay parents, they experience all the same things that The Working Dad and I experience: They get puked on. They stay up late with infants and/or sick toddlers. They have to juggle work and family. They delight in giggles. They get terrified when the baby runs a little too far and a little too fast and a little too close to the street. They play hide-and-go-seek. They're just like me.
Except no one ever looks sidelong at me and The Working Dad when we walk through the mall with The Boy. No one ever asks if The Working Dad is The Boy's uncle or if I'm his auntie. It has crossed no one's mind to suggest to The Boy (though he is yet too young to understand such a comment) that it would be wrong to have the parents that he has. I can't walk in those shoes the way they can walk in my parent shoes.
Far be it from me, a straight lady, to even try to understand what it must be like. But I do know a little bit about discrimination and being the odd person out. I've been the only woman in a courtroom of men . . . and in said courtroom where the three letters, P-M-S, were uttered by my opposing counsel on the record in an obvious jab against me. (Thankfully, the Judge -- who happens to be gay, by the way -- made it quite clear that such comments were neither welcome nor helpful.) Anyway, I understand a little bit about standing out in a crowd of otherwise equals. So I have empathy.
And I sure know what it's like to be a parent and never to want your child to hurt or be teased.
One of my gay friends -- one of two dads, a work colleague -- once expressed concern to me about how kids and parents may treat his kids when they enter school. It's an understandable concern, here in The Bible Belt. And I have had another friend relate that someone once told her child that it was wrong to have two mommies. That letter above illustrates that it does happen and it does hurt the children to whom it happens. I'll never have to face this particular heartache head-on.
No matter what you think of the morality of same-sex relationships, imagine how much that teasing hurts the child. She loves her parents with all of her heart. Imagine how much it would hurt you to see that sort of pain in your child. The good news is that a lot of people do seem to be sensitive to the feelings of the child, which, to me, is the most important thing.
Personally, I am so very glad that The Boy is going to grow up thinking that families look differently. He will never have the experience I did of asking a little boy in preschool whether the color of his skin rubs off. (Yes, the pre-school me really asked that question.) The Boy will always understand that skin comes in a rainbow of colors. And gay people will not seem exotic and scary to him. They will merely be part of the canvas that is his American world. And some of them will be his friends' parents.
It's not just a cultural diversity point I'm trying to make. It seems silly to even feel the need to say this, but the kids with two dads or two moms are just kids. They are just like the kids with heterosexual parents. They act the same way, like the same things, and love the same way. And their parents are just parents too. This is the world we live in and these are the people in it. They deserve respect. They deserve to be treated like every other parents, and their kids deserve to be treated like every other kid. And as for our children, this is the world they are growing up in.
Whatever value structure you may instill in your children, I hope that it contains that component of sensitivity, even if your family disagrees with the concept of a homosexual parenting unit. These are just kids and they deserve to be treated like kids, no matter who their parents are. These kiddos -- the letter-writing little girl -- do not deserve to be bullied and teased because their parents are gay any more than a kid deserves to be bullied because of the color of her skin or because he has freckles or speaks with a lisp.
I hope my gay friends' kids never hear, "that's gross and weird." I hope that their sweet little hearts never hurt like the little letter writer. But, realistically, they probably will. I know where we live. But I also know that my friends will be prepared to handle it with grace, patience and love. I hope that the parents of the kid that may make such a comment will also be prepared to handle it sensitively and gracefully.
A little girl with two dads wrote to Barack Obama to thank him for supporting gay marriage. In her letter she relates how her classmates think her dads' relationship is "gross and weird." She writes, "[I]t really hurts my heart and feelings. So I come to you because you are my hero. If you were me and had two dads that love each other and kids at school tease you, what would you do?"
Bless her sweet little hurt heart.
I have some gay friends. Some of them are single. Some of them are as married as gay people can be in Texas in 2013. Some of them are somewhere in between.
Some of them have kids.
And their kids are gorgeous little creatures, just like my gorgeous little creature.
And these gay parents, they experience all the same things that The Working Dad and I experience: They get puked on. They stay up late with infants and/or sick toddlers. They have to juggle work and family. They delight in giggles. They get terrified when the baby runs a little too far and a little too fast and a little too close to the street. They play hide-and-go-seek. They're just like me.
Except no one ever looks sidelong at me and The Working Dad when we walk through the mall with The Boy. No one ever asks if The Working Dad is The Boy's uncle or if I'm his auntie. It has crossed no one's mind to suggest to The Boy (though he is yet too young to understand such a comment) that it would be wrong to have the parents that he has. I can't walk in those shoes the way they can walk in my parent shoes.
Far be it from me, a straight lady, to even try to understand what it must be like. But I do know a little bit about discrimination and being the odd person out. I've been the only woman in a courtroom of men . . . and in said courtroom where the three letters, P-M-S, were uttered by my opposing counsel on the record in an obvious jab against me. (Thankfully, the Judge -- who happens to be gay, by the way -- made it quite clear that such comments were neither welcome nor helpful.) Anyway, I understand a little bit about standing out in a crowd of otherwise equals. So I have empathy.
And I sure know what it's like to be a parent and never to want your child to hurt or be teased.
One of my gay friends -- one of two dads, a work colleague -- once expressed concern to me about how kids and parents may treat his kids when they enter school. It's an understandable concern, here in The Bible Belt. And I have had another friend relate that someone once told her child that it was wrong to have two mommies. That letter above illustrates that it does happen and it does hurt the children to whom it happens. I'll never have to face this particular heartache head-on.
No matter what you think of the morality of same-sex relationships, imagine how much that teasing hurts the child. She loves her parents with all of her heart. Imagine how much it would hurt you to see that sort of pain in your child. The good news is that a lot of people do seem to be sensitive to the feelings of the child, which, to me, is the most important thing.
Personally, I am so very glad that The Boy is going to grow up thinking that families look differently. He will never have the experience I did of asking a little boy in preschool whether the color of his skin rubs off. (Yes, the pre-school me really asked that question.) The Boy will always understand that skin comes in a rainbow of colors. And gay people will not seem exotic and scary to him. They will merely be part of the canvas that is his American world. And some of them will be his friends' parents.
It's not just a cultural diversity point I'm trying to make. It seems silly to even feel the need to say this, but the kids with two dads or two moms are just kids. They are just like the kids with heterosexual parents. They act the same way, like the same things, and love the same way. And their parents are just parents too. This is the world we live in and these are the people in it. They deserve respect. They deserve to be treated like every other parents, and their kids deserve to be treated like every other kid. And as for our children, this is the world they are growing up in.
Whatever value structure you may instill in your children, I hope that it contains that component of sensitivity, even if your family disagrees with the concept of a homosexual parenting unit. These are just kids and they deserve to be treated like kids, no matter who their parents are. These kiddos -- the letter-writing little girl -- do not deserve to be bullied and teased because their parents are gay any more than a kid deserves to be bullied because of the color of her skin or because he has freckles or speaks with a lisp.
I hope my gay friends' kids never hear, "that's gross and weird." I hope that their sweet little hearts never hurt like the little letter writer. But, realistically, they probably will. I know where we live. But I also know that my friends will be prepared to handle it with grace, patience and love. I hope that the parents of the kid that may make such a comment will also be prepared to handle it sensitively and gracefully.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The Middle Ages
I picked up my new progressive lens bifocals on Sunday.
I sprained my hiney back in August . . . .
Oh, and I'm 42.
Yes, friends, even though I am the mother of a toddler, I am middle aged.
Despite what you've been told, 40 isn't the new 30. It's still 40, and you're still just as old as your parents were when they were 40 . . .
. . . which means that your parents were a lot more fun and interesting than you thought they were . . . and a lot less old that you thought too.
But being fun and not being past-it doesn't reset the aging process. Julianne Moore, who according to imdb.com is 52 years old, recently took more than casual, comical offense at being called middle aged. Does she anticipate living to 150?
Hollywood wants us to believe that wrinkles, stretch marks and bulges are evil. Hollywood also wants us to buy into the notion that adolescence can extend even to your late 30s. (Or is that just Judd Apatow who wants that?) My husband rightly points out that this is why people like Juilanne Moore blanch at being called middle aged. Middle aged women don't get good parts. In an industry that prizes youth, being middle aged is a career killer.
In the TV show, Slings & Arrows, one of the female characters -- a professional stage actress, a middle aged one -- tells a young actress that, in Shakespearean theater, the actress's progression is thus:
"This is the life of an actress. You play the ingenues, you play the queens, you play the dreaded Nurse [in Romeo and Juliet], then you retire . . . . Then you sit there in the dining room eating rice pudding and hearing endless tales of life on the wicked stage. And you realized that you never really lived at all, you just pretended. Is that what you really want?"
If that is the life of an actress, I'm glad to be a lawyer. Fame and adoration in the now cannot be worth such emptiness and regret in the end. Even if it's an exaggeration of the truth, there is no avoiding the truism that our pop culture values youth more highly than it ought to.
Still, when I was having so much trouble getting pregnant at ages 37 through 39, I resented the hell out of the 40-something actresses having babies and pretending that the offspring were genetically their own. My doctors all insisted that the vast majority of these women (especially those over 45) used donor eggs. I didn't resent that they did it. I resented the message they were sending to the non-rich and famous by not acknowledging that they did it. Their (what I perceived to be) casual use of other women's DNA to continue the illusion of youthful fecundity really pissed me off. And I feel like it misleads the populous into believing that it is easy to get pregnant in middle age. So easy, in fact, that middle age isn't middle age anymore.
But despite how much fun we're having, how great we look, how much energy we have, and how happy we are, I think a healthy dose of realism is necessary. It's part of that wisdom that comes with age.
We are mortal. The flesh fails us. This mortality weighs heavily on The Working Dad and me, having a child who is not yet two. We delight in him, but we are conscious that when he is our age, we will be elderly, indeed (we hope, and not the alternative). Being conscious that life is short and time is fleeting makes parenting a joy and makes family, not work, the central figure in our lives. It is the ability to see the end, from this vantage point in the middle, that makes the present so sweet. I'm not sure I would have had this kind of appreciation for my very brief time with my son as a boy if I were not middled aged. We have him for 18 years. I had done 18 years twice and then some before he was ever born. It brings a perspective that a first time mom at 24 just cannot have.
So, in the middle, here, our limbs aren't as strong, our eye-sight not as keen, our internal parts -- ovaries, hearts, knee and hip joints, stomachs -- all are starting to show the signs of decades of useful employment. You know what else shows those signs? Our smiles. Our slightly crinkled eyes. Our knowing glances. Our, cliche or not, wonderfully bewizened brains.
The character Sally on Coupling may think that "age bring you more to shave" (and she may be a little right about that), but age also bring patience, peace and experience. We have seen the world. We have lived in it. And we know how to work it, now. These are good things!
And, being middle aged, not only do we know how life works, but we have (actuarially, at least) a whole other half of our lives to live well and wisely. Any regrets we have, we still have time to mend them. Any places we've not visited, we still have time to travel. Any adventure unpursued can still be embarked upon.
And beyond all that existential stuff, I'm just better at stuff in my middle age than in times past. For instance, I'm a way better cook at 42 than in my youth . . . way better. And I like being good at stuff.
There's a long road ahead after 40. It's not as long as the one we stood on when we were 20. But now we see well enough -- with our progressive lenses -- to see the potholes and caution signs we were blind to in our youths.
We are not old. We are the middle. And the middle can be a hell of a lot of fun.
I sprained my hiney back in August . . . .
Oh, and I'm 42.
Yes, friends, even though I am the mother of a toddler, I am middle aged.
Despite what you've been told, 40 isn't the new 30. It's still 40, and you're still just as old as your parents were when they were 40 . . .
. . . which means that your parents were a lot more fun and interesting than you thought they were . . . and a lot less old that you thought too.
But being fun and not being past-it doesn't reset the aging process. Julianne Moore, who according to imdb.com is 52 years old, recently took more than casual, comical offense at being called middle aged. Does she anticipate living to 150?
Hollywood wants us to believe that wrinkles, stretch marks and bulges are evil. Hollywood also wants us to buy into the notion that adolescence can extend even to your late 30s. (Or is that just Judd Apatow who wants that?) My husband rightly points out that this is why people like Juilanne Moore blanch at being called middle aged. Middle aged women don't get good parts. In an industry that prizes youth, being middle aged is a career killer.
In the TV show, Slings & Arrows, one of the female characters -- a professional stage actress, a middle aged one -- tells a young actress that, in Shakespearean theater, the actress's progression is thus:
"This is the life of an actress. You play the ingenues, you play the queens, you play the dreaded Nurse [in Romeo and Juliet], then you retire . . . . Then you sit there in the dining room eating rice pudding and hearing endless tales of life on the wicked stage. And you realized that you never really lived at all, you just pretended. Is that what you really want?"
If that is the life of an actress, I'm glad to be a lawyer. Fame and adoration in the now cannot be worth such emptiness and regret in the end. Even if it's an exaggeration of the truth, there is no avoiding the truism that our pop culture values youth more highly than it ought to.
Still, when I was having so much trouble getting pregnant at ages 37 through 39, I resented the hell out of the 40-something actresses having babies and pretending that the offspring were genetically their own. My doctors all insisted that the vast majority of these women (especially those over 45) used donor eggs. I didn't resent that they did it. I resented the message they were sending to the non-rich and famous by not acknowledging that they did it. Their (what I perceived to be) casual use of other women's DNA to continue the illusion of youthful fecundity really pissed me off. And I feel like it misleads the populous into believing that it is easy to get pregnant in middle age. So easy, in fact, that middle age isn't middle age anymore.
But despite how much fun we're having, how great we look, how much energy we have, and how happy we are, I think a healthy dose of realism is necessary. It's part of that wisdom that comes with age.
We are mortal. The flesh fails us. This mortality weighs heavily on The Working Dad and me, having a child who is not yet two. We delight in him, but we are conscious that when he is our age, we will be elderly, indeed (we hope, and not the alternative). Being conscious that life is short and time is fleeting makes parenting a joy and makes family, not work, the central figure in our lives. It is the ability to see the end, from this vantage point in the middle, that makes the present so sweet. I'm not sure I would have had this kind of appreciation for my very brief time with my son as a boy if I were not middled aged. We have him for 18 years. I had done 18 years twice and then some before he was ever born. It brings a perspective that a first time mom at 24 just cannot have.
So, in the middle, here, our limbs aren't as strong, our eye-sight not as keen, our internal parts -- ovaries, hearts, knee and hip joints, stomachs -- all are starting to show the signs of decades of useful employment. You know what else shows those signs? Our smiles. Our slightly crinkled eyes. Our knowing glances. Our, cliche or not, wonderfully bewizened brains.
The character Sally on Coupling may think that "age bring you more to shave" (and she may be a little right about that), but age also bring patience, peace and experience. We have seen the world. We have lived in it. And we know how to work it, now. These are good things!
And, being middle aged, not only do we know how life works, but we have (actuarially, at least) a whole other half of our lives to live well and wisely. Any regrets we have, we still have time to mend them. Any places we've not visited, we still have time to travel. Any adventure unpursued can still be embarked upon.
And beyond all that existential stuff, I'm just better at stuff in my middle age than in times past. For instance, I'm a way better cook at 42 than in my youth . . . way better. And I like being good at stuff.
There's a long road ahead after 40. It's not as long as the one we stood on when we were 20. But now we see well enough -- with our progressive lenses -- to see the potholes and caution signs we were blind to in our youths.
We are not old. We are the middle. And the middle can be a hell of a lot of fun.
Middle Aged Woman Wearing New No-Line Bifocal Glasses
(Doesn't she rock out loud?)
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