As a Middle-Aged Woman, I Give Zero Fucks
I no longer aim to please
This is a manifesto, of sorts. You have been forewarned.
I am a 43-year-old woman. In the words of my dear children, I have a smooshy tummy. I have deepening crow’s feet around my eyes and those wavy lines across my forehead that I used to draw to indicate that the subjects of my artistic creations were officially old.
And guess what? I don’t give a fuck. I give zero fucks, to be exact.
I don’t give a fuck about looking sexy
My husband thinks I’m “damn sexy” (his words) — smooshy tummy, crow’s feet, wavy forehead lines and all. I feel sexy when I feel like feeling sexy, which is about twice a week, on Monday and Friday, at 9:30 p.m.
Yes, my husband and I schedule sex, and neither of us feels the least bit bashful about it. That means I never have to feel spontaneously sexy, which is a great thing because I often have to spontaneously do decidedly unsexy things, like removing moldy bread crusts from forgotten Tupperware containers and wiping other people’s urine off the toilet seat.
Most men I meet these days don’t seem to find me “damn sexy,” which is a huge relief. I wouldn’t have the energy to deal with them if they did. I’m not searching for a mate and I don’t need a man to advance my career or boost my self-esteem.
Along with men who find me sexy are a long list of related things I no longer need: namely, underwire bras, high heels, and pencil skirts. This is also a huge relief because wearing those things sucked.
I don’t give a fuck about silver-haired white men
I spent most of my 20s trying to impress silver-haired white men — sometimes by wearing underwire bras, high heels, and pencil skirts. After teachers and professors sang my praises for 19 years, it slowly dawned on me that in the working world, it’s difficult for a woman to have her praises sung if she doesn’t have at least one silver-haired white man in her corner.
And oh, I wanted my praises sung.
It took me a long time to understand that even though many of these silver-haired white men worked hard and were reasonably good at what they did, most were not nearly as good as they thought they were, nor were they nearly as good as society told them they were.
When I talked about values like transparency, collaboration, and sustainable growth, they gave me the same condescending smiles I sometimes give my children when I think they’re being cute. They thought I was very cute.
I thought I needed these men to advance my career, but what the hell does that even mean? When I lived in Washington, DC, I saw so many whip-smart women hell-bent on advancing their careers. They kept getting laid off by silver-haired white men, kept sidestepping from one “high-powered” job to the next.
At 43 years old, I’ve learned to trust my instincts. I’ve learned that most of these instincts are pretty damn good. I don’t need validation from silver-haired white men.
I now work 36 hours a week at a worker-owned cooperative that values — guess what? — transparency, collaboration, and sustainable growth. Ain’t it cute? I make good money (more than my husband, but who’s counting?) and I have enough time left over at the end of the day to (mostly) not go crazy.
I don’t give a fuck about being a supermom
In my 30s, I came pretty damn close to going crazy. My husband might argue that “close” is an understatement. I was still wasting my time trying to impress silver-haired white men. Then I had kids and wanted to impress the world with my unparalleled momming skills.
I never remember signing up to be a supermom, but that’s what the world seemed intent on calling me, so hell, I was going to super it up. I’ve always been an overachiever like that.
I surmised that supermoms spent their weekends making freezer meals and labeling things. They wore knee-high boots and never left home without rice crackers and hummus. They didn’t complain about being tired (I mean really, who wants to hear it?); in fact, they didn’t complain about anything (I mean really, who wants to hear it?).
Supermoms pleased everybody, and like master puppeteers, they kept the whole show going by manipulating a million invisible strings, all while making it look effortless.
Here’s what I learned from trying to be a supermom: despite devoting nearly every waking hour of every day (and most waking hours of the night) to pleasing everybody, supermoms end up pleasing nobody. Everyone is always pissed at them, and they are never doing enough.
“Supermom” is a term we’ve invented so that white, male, silver-haired politicians can spend money on wars and corporate bailouts instead of working families. Never fear — mommy will take care of it.
Fuck being a supermom. I shouldn’t need superpowers to work a job and raise my children.
I no longer measure my self-worth by the number of hours I report on my timesheet, nor the number of homemade meals in my freezer. I’ve learned that my children will survive an outing without rice crackers and hummus. Instead, I use my momming skills to teach them how to be independent thinkers, civic-minded community members, and empathetic human beings.
Here’s what I do give a fuck about
If I have a complaint that needs to be heard, whether at work or at the dinner table, I’ll say it out loud. If a silver-haired white man (or anyone else) wants to call me “whiny” or “shrill,” so be it. Silence and smiles got me nowhere.
Having officially entered the middle stage of my life, I don’t want to spend the second half on a fruitless quest to make other people happy. I’m much more interested in building authentic, mutually supportive relationships with people who I care about. I’m much more interested in co-creating diverse, inclusive communities of people who truly give a fuck about each other.
To be clear: I don’t give zero fucks. I just give zero fucks about the things I once thought mattered.
Along with meaningful relationships and communities, here are some other things I give a fuck about:
Rising inequality
Systemic racism
The mass extinction of humankind
I know… ain’t I cute?
This is the second story of a four-part series that reflects on what it means to be a woman in her 40s in the third decade of the 21st century. March is a fitting time for this series, as entering middle age has been its own unexpected process of rebirth.
The decade has also been rife with contradictions; my petals are unfurling against a backdrop of chaos, fury, and decay. For more on this unsettling incongruence, see my first post of this series about reaching midlife during end times:
What I’m reading this week:
I recently returned to
’s story, Are You in The Portal?, which delves into “the weird spiritual / emotional / professional / transitional portal that women ages 37 to 45 are in.”I’d been telling people for years that “something” happened when I turned 40, and apparently I’m not the only woman who feels this way. There are lots of great perspectives from other awesome late 30s/middle-aged women Substackers, including
of , of , and , author of Blue Hour.
This made my day! I've been thinking lately about my own attempts to please silver-haired white men, so they would hand me life's goodies, so there's lots of resonance here, for me. And you made me laugh. Thanks so much.
Silence and smiles will get us nowhere, and quickly. And I'm not good at either!