Midlife Magic
Midlife crisis? We boomers have heard the phrase … and maybe lived the crisis … for many years now. But what does it mean, and where does it come from? Laura Lee Carter, who calls herself the Midlife Crisis Queen, has looked into it, and shares a peek at the introduction to her book, “Midlife Magic: Becoming the Person You Are Inside.”
Why should you care about midlife crisis? Perhaps because it can be one of the most crucial transitions of your entire life and finally lead you to true fulfillment. Is the best yet to come? You decide!
When I think back to where I was in the year 2000, in the midst of the worst of my midlife changes, I’m totally amazed at how it all turned out. There were many times I felt lost, hopeless, and alone in this journey, but I didn’t give up. Eyes on the prize, even when it seems like an impossible dream!
A midlife crisis is a wake-up call to change the things in our lives that haven’t been working for years but have just seemed too hard to do anything about. Things like difficult emotions, spouses, and careers. It is a timely, natural awakening that tells us we only have so many years left, so if we’re going to change, the moment is now. It also invites us to be adventurous and attempt a “do-over” before it’s all over.
The idea of midlife crisis has been deeply rooted in American culture since it was first mentioned in scholarly research in the 1960s, and then in 1976 in Gail Sheehy’s best seller Passages. But back then, the crises were all for men and were seen as silly self-indulgences (red sports cars!) driven by a fear of aging and impending death. Women were thought to develop differently and were therefore relegated to mere supporting roles, as either the victims of men’s midlife crises or as “trophy wives.”
Thankfully, we have come a long way, baby! Women stopped listening to the “experts” years ago and instead began acknowledging their own spontaneous midlife epiphanies. These life transitions have catapulted them into whole new ways of looking at meaning and purpose in midlife.
Sue Shellenbarger, in her groundbreaking 2005 study The Breaking Point: How Today’s Women Are Navigating Midlife Crisis, found that a startlingly high number of Americans have experienced what they consider to be a midlife crisis, broadly defined as a “stressful or turbulent psychological transition that occurs most often in the late forties or early fifties.”
The data showed that by age fifty, more women than men report experiencing a turbulent midlife transition: a full 36 percent, compared with 34 percent of men. Applying these findings to the 42 million women who are nearing or in midlife today, it can be assumed that more than 15 million women will have or are presently experiencing what they consider to be a midlife crisis.
Most disturbing is the apparent cultural bias against accepting that women think and feel deeply enough to question their choices in midlife and make the needed changes at that time.
Any number of life crises may occur to make us suddenly and completely realize how unhappy we are with where we are in our lives. The more common ones are divorce or the need to consider divorce, job loss, the death of a parent, career change, empty nest, and sudden, unexpected injury or illness or a near-death experience.
Any change or combination of changes that are difficult to deal with, and therefore wake us up to the realization that this is not the life we had pictured for ourselves, are the events that set us on a path toward crisis and eventual life transformation.
Women’s triggers are most likely a family event or problem, from a divorce or a parent’s death to an extramarital affair. Male midlife crisis is more likely to be driven by work or career concerns; women’s turmoil is more likely to be driven by introspection, and women are more likely to attribute their crisis to some new insight about themselves through religion, therapy, or reflection. A realization of failure in meeting parenting goals, for example, is more likely to surface in a woman. Women are also more likely than men to cite personal health problems as the cause of their crisis, including worries about physical attractiveness.
Laura Lee Carter’s new book is - “Midlife Magic: Becoming the Person You Are Inside.”
Category: Baby Boomer Culture, Laura Lee Carter
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Excellent post. You hit the nail on the head, too, as to how women handle midlife crisis differently. As a new empty nester who’s caring for a widowed mother AND experiencing serious changes in her profession (journalism), I view midlife as an opportunity for growth and change. Painful, sometimes, but “crisis” also means opportunity. The toughest part — in our culture, especially — is giving ourselves permission to slow down and be patient as we work through these changes.
I see a mid-life crisis as a tough time of life when you know what you don’t want and don’t know what you do want. Do you know what you want?
I really enjoyed the post. For me (at least so far), midlife has been more “magic” than “crisis”. I can relate to the fact that major events in our life prompt this midlife change. After caring for my terminal ill mother until she passed, becoming an empty nester,and needing major surgery, I guess I started to think about my own life and my own mortality. It was only after my surgery and the birth of my first grandchild that I realized life is too short not to plan time for the things we really want to do in our life. If we wait too long, it may be too late. So my midlife magic was realizing that I am happy with who I am and that I needed to enjoy what was most important to me.
Absolutely great article! Well researched and thoughtful – sure to be a help to anyone suffering through a midlife crisis.