Post-Backlash Feminism

My eldest left for college this fall. Both kids are nearly grown, and suddenly my own ambitions take up more and more of my time. Occupy more and more of my brain. It's time to get serious about all those contributions I intended to make to the world, the difference I hoped to make to women's politics, and the good work I owe myself.  

I map my life by decades. Twenties: two kids, Ph.D.; Thirties: job in academe, raise kids; Forties: write, put activist impulses to work. So here I sit mid-forties, first book published and feeling good. I?m actually excited about what I might do next.

For women, the challenges of mid-life include a host of changes that are deeply personal and press against our sense of who we are and how we function in the world. On the one hand, I am no longer needed as a hands-on mom at this point (the kids can cook, drive, tie their own shoes); I am now a source of emotional support: two parts therapist, one part life coach. At this point in our lives, my kids need me to listen, to advise (and know when not to advise), to share their emotional lives?while also appearing to trust they can do it all on their own. On the other hand, my mother is getting older, a bit frailer, and, as is so often the case for women, I am the caretaker in our family. So, while my kids drift gently from me, my mother moves closer, and I feel an obligation to keep her safe, to look out for her needs, emotional and physical. As I escort my children into the next phase of their lives, I also hold my mother's hand through the next chapter of hers, listening to news of the grandkids she lives near (and dotes on), and crying with her when another friend grows ill or dies.

Last fall my mother had surgery for cancer. She came home in terrible pain and needed 24-hour care. I spent six days away from work and three hours from my kids, caring for my mother, watching her suffer and heal and trying to keep things together at home long-distance. When I wasn't tending to Mom's needs, I was on the phone listening to my kids detail their days at school, and easing anxieties about what was happening at Gramma's house. I was also calling friends to cover classes, worrying over student emails, frustrated that I?d left my grading at home and fretful about the inevitable fallout at work when I returned. I lost ten pounds, went home exhausted and spent much of this time feeling completely alone. The more folks around me needed me, the more alone I felt.

This is women's work at mid-life. Difficult, frustrating, not a little scary, generally invisible to the larger culture and, frustratingly, to those closest to us. We work (at least) one job outside the home and a number of other fulltime jobs after that: we run households, manage budgets, may or may not have children, tend aging parents and all the chores I?ve forgotten here.

At mid-life I?ve learned to appreciate like-minded companions. I may be made of tough stuff, but can?t do it all alone?used to think I had to?and realize no one should have to. I find myself more and more at ease with seeking validation, understanding or just an ear from other women.

In this space I invite others who look for similar things to join me.