Tag: middle age

15 or 50 – we’re all in this together

I read The Invisible Woman almost in a single sitting, and enjoyed it a lot.  It’s a cheery addition to the growing list of books attempting to re-define what it means to be middle-aged and it’s full of feelings I recognise and problems I can see looming over my own horizon.   So it seems a bit mean to be writing about it with a criticism, but…

Part of the introduction is a light-hearted list of things which get on the author’s nerves.  Among the mentions for the harsh lighting in department store changing rooms, and adverts for thermal knickers and floral sofa covers, is this:

Young people in groups – because I now find them vaguely threatening and know that while I am still able to run I will not be able to run fast enough.  Groups of young people must be passed silently, avoiding all eye contact.

I know it’s just meant to be a jokey list, but it struck me as an odd addition to a book which is, after all, a heartfelt plea for people to see past the label of “middle age” and recognise us as individuals with a contribution still to make.  It stuck out particularly because the very next item in her list of pet hates is this:

Shop assistants. or anyone else who makes assumptions without enquiry –  just because my face says I’m middle aged doesn’t mean I want you to pigeon-hole my wardrobe/menu choices/show requirements/understanding of modern technology etc etc

I know lots of young people, who’d make a similar comment about the way we over-50s pigeon-hole them. ( I still recommend you read the book, though!)

Acting your age

I’m struggling to help my daughter, who has asked to borrow some clothes so she can dress up “like a 45-year old” for a play she’s doing.  Unfortunately for her I have no idea what “45-year olds” look like .  Personally  I live my non-working life in jeans.  Rebecca is still only 12 but is already as tall as me and has the same size feet.  She borrows my clothes pretty regularly – not the formal stuff, but certainly the  black V-necks and  the ankle boots;  I’ll have to wrestle my trenchcoat off her back if I ever want to wear it again.  So I should just have  drawled “honey – this is what 45 looks like” and told her to go dressed as she was, just adding a  harassed expression and perhaps some crow’s feet.

But that’s obviously not what they want.  I suspect they’re after the look that middle-aged women had when I was little.  In my memory* women then had hair that was styled and set once a week and wore headscarves to protect it in high winds.  They had sensible clothes in muted colours; perhaps a jaunty scarf at the neck.  They wore flat shoes and 40 denier American Tan tights.  Slacks were acceptable but not jeans.   They did NOT have tattoos.  When they got a bit older they wore fur-lined bootees in winter and hats like mushrooms with stalks coming out of the top, and generally looked like the three Great Aunts from Glossop in I Didn’t Know You Cared.

There are no women like that around any more, and I for one miss them.  I envy their domestic competence and their unshakeable self-confidence.  Which is not to say that I want to be like them.  Possibly it’s  the dread of damart that makes women of my generation fear getting old so much (and may explain their sales slogan – Think you know damart? Think again!)  When you pass 40, you are super-sensitive to how very OLD it sounds.   I shuddered when I read a newspaper article the other day about a “sprightly 50-year old”  Sprightly?  Isn’t that how you describe octagenarian ballroom dancers who like the occasional Scotch?

Ageing is unavoidable of course, but I’m still waiting for the level of  grown-upness  in my head to match the number on my birth certificate. And, on a more serious level, I am reminded every day in dozens of little ways – this is only one example – that in the eyes of many people I’m very nearly past it.

*It was surprisingly hard to find images to illustrate this.  There are some very odd things lurking under a search for images of older women, but nothing much that gives you pictures of “ordinary” middle-aged women from the past.  Perhaps they were invisible?

On being in my sub-prime

Or, 5 steps to make yourself feel middle-aged:

1.  Take impossibly glamorous 12-year old daughter clothes shopping.  Hear your mother’s voice coming out of your mouth as you  ask if it’s big enough/long enough/warm enough/waterproof enough and with enough pockets to be worth buying?

2.  Remember with a pang exactly how those questions made you feel when you were that age (if not – ever – that glamorous), and know you should save your breath.

3. Watch the pity in her eyes as she  answers, politely, that it’s fine.  Know that it could be tight enough to cut off circulation and flimsy enough to disintegrate in a thick fog but she’d still want you to buy it.

4.  Realise that the chap on the cash desk who was flirting outrageously with the leggy 19-year olds in front is calling you Madam.

5.  Pay up like a lamb.  Go home.  Water tomatoes.