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aging isn't a 'great terror': author ann douglas asks women about middle age in her new book

many women didn't expect how busy they would be in middle age, both in their careers as well as with family obligations. they also didn't bargain for the guilt.

by robin roberts

oct 11 2022
read time 6 minute read
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it's a time to look for what makes you happy and excited
ann douglas is an author, speaker, columnist and frequent contributor to cbc radio. supplied
ann douglas is best known for her 25 works of non-fiction, including her books on parenting, the mother of all books series, which have sold over half a million copies in north america. she’s also a speaker, columnist and frequent contributor to cbc radio. since she’s “aged out” — as she puts it — of parenting now that her kids are grown up, and since she’s well-entrenched in mid-life, it seemed only natural to turn her attention to a new life stage with her new book out oct. 1, navigating the messy middle: a fiercely honest and wildly encouraging guide for midlife women.
the rural ontario writer interviewed more than 100 women from varying backgrounds and cultures who shared their personal insights about aging, as well as numerous experts about how to thrive in mid-life. what she found along the way was, well, wildly encouraging.

why did you want to make this shift from writing about parenting to writing about mid-life?

i’ve spent decades of my life either being a parent or writing about parenting, and i’ll always care deeply about parents and kids. but in terms of having that direct experience where you really understand what the challenges are, i’m past that. i wanted to write something that wasn’t so over-the-top positive that i would think, ‘well, obviously i did mid-life wrong.’ and i didn’t want something that was doom and gloom. i just wanted to write a book that reflected the fact that mid-life can be so many things all at once.

how is this different from similar books?

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it’s very story-driven, and yet it’s also thoroughly researched. i was more interested in the thinking part of mid-life — the relational part of mid-life. i also really wanted to get the reader thinking and talking to other women about some of the ideas in the book as opposed to trying to pretend there’s some magic formula for gliding through mid-life seamlessly and trouble-free, because there is no such thing.

was there a common thread within the stories that you heard from women?

a lot of them thought life would be so much easier by the time they got to this stage, that they’d be able to coast for a while career-wise or they wouldn’t be quite as busy as they had been when they were building their career or having their family. but they really were shocked to discover how integral they are to the lives of so many people, that they’re the glue that holds their families and their workplaces together.
the flip side of that is the guilt, that somehow you can’t magically clone yourself and be all things to all people at the same time. i interviewed one woman who was listing all her caregiving, parenting, workplace and volunteer responsibilities and i was exhausted just listening to it.
ann douglas shares that she “wanted to write a book that reflected the fact that mid-life can be so many things all at once.” supplied
ann douglas shares that she “wanted to write a book that reflected the fact that mid-life can be so many things all at once.” supplied

what do you mean when you write that today’s mid-life is not your parents or grandparents mid-life experience?

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somebody who reached mid-life in 1980 or 2000 is not having the exact same experience as somebody who reached that point today, because what we live through changes from generation to generation. we have this really bold reminder of that with covid right now. even 10 or 15 years ago, during the great recession, people who arrived at mid-life had a different time just as people who arrived at mid-life during the second world war would have had a very different experience.
a lot of women right now are feeling severely sandwiched because it’s the first generation of women that has not just been working, but probably working full-time through the bulk of their mid-life years. on top of that, a lot of them also have multiple caregiving layers of responsibility.

isn’t that the one thing that hasn’t changed, even in 2022?

we’d like to think we’re inching in that direction. some of the policies that have given dads the opportunity to take a hands-on role in parenting are starting to shift that, but if you want the ugly truth circa 2022, the best data i have is from a 2020 oxfam study that reported that, around the world, women do three-quarters of all unpaid care work. that represents a $10.8 billion contribution to world economies every year. the women unpaid care economy is three times the size of the tech industry.

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how should we tackle that?

we need to shift the way we parent our kids, and not just the way we parent boys, but also girls. it starts with care work, helping boys and girls to grow up understanding that everybody needs to take care of people in their family and their community. and making sure that girls see female role models as breadwinners, and that everybody can contribute financially and everybody has care responsibilities.
also, normalizing conversations about aging so there isn’t this great terror as we grow older. we want our kids to grow up recognizing that grandparents have care needs, and we’re all going to be there some day.

how can teachers play a role in educating children about the assumptions related to aging?

they’re powerful role models so they need to think about the books they are choosing for their classrooms or the way they react to stories in the news. maybe using them as teaching opportunities and saying, “can you imagine being the best at your job and then you suddenly lost your job because people thought you were too old?” or flip it on its head and say, “what about young activists who get dismissed because they’re too young, what could she know, she’s only 18?” help them to see that any assumption about a group of people is probably not applicable to everybody, and by allowing those ideas to go unchallenged we all make it worse.

do you think women are pushing back against those ideas?

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after what happened to lisa laflamme, people were saying, “i’ve encountered this in my life and my workplace.” it was validating for a lot of women because sometimes the message is, “maybe you really are underqualified for your job and deserved [to be fired].” [it’s important to] challenge that thinking by processing ideas with other women, and also, recognizing the brilliance of the mid-life brain. by the time you get to mid-life you’ve had a lot of life experience so you can spot patterns and connect dots in ways that you maybe weren’t able to do when you were younger.

tell me more about the “mid-life to-do list”?

there’s a sense of restlessness and curiosity where we think, “this has been really interesting up until now, now what?” people get to a point where their kids leave home or they lose a job, and those natural breaks in our patterns are opportunities to map out the next step along the path. it’s also a time for looking backwards and forwards. maybe you now have the distance from difficult things that happened when you were younger to be able to make peace with those events, or draw conclusions and strength from what you’ve lived through and maybe find a way to help other people.
when we’re younger, we ask ourselves, “why am i here?” as we get older it’s, “why am i still here? what is my unique opportunity to make a difference? what are my skills, interests and passions? who do i most connect with?”

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we don’t have to do huge things, we just have to find small opportunities to contribute, whether that’s in relationships or volunteer work so we get a sense of meaning, and invest our skills and energies into the collective act of being human. to really look for what makes you happy and excited at this stage.
 
robin roberts is a vancouver-based writer.
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