Comments on: Mama Ain’t Happy

By: Jessica

Jessica — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:33:22 +0000

Interesting. For me it wasn’t so much “be a good girl” as it was the ideal of being able to “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.” It wasn’t enough to be a wife and mother. It wasn’t enough to have a career. You had to do all of it and do all of it well. All that was shown to us as empowering – you don’t have to stay home with your kids anymore, you can go out and get a job. Yay! Be powerful! Be all that you can be!

But what I found by the time I hit my 40s is that I was exhausted, working in a job that I hated in order to make enough money to support my family in the manner they (and I) had become accustomed to. In the manner that I thought I needed to live. It took losing my job and ending my marriage (at the same time) to shake me out of the stupor. Now I’m working towards something I’m passionate about. I’m writing and going to school and spending my time trying to help other people. I may not make as much money as I used to. I may not be successful in the ways I had thought I needed to be. But I am happy (most of the time). And hopefully I’m teaching my daughters that it isn’t healthy to want everything or to try to balance everything. It’s healthy to seek out a full and authentic life – whatever that means to them.

Thanks for the thought-provoking article!

By: Jeannette

Jeannette — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:59:40 +0000

I want to hear how you’re misbehaving, Michele!! hee hee

(For real.)

By: What Do Men Want? | lifeframeworks.com

What Do Men Want? | lifeframeworks.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:32:19 +0000

[...] week, I wrote about the surprising fact that as women age they grow increasingly sadder — their happiness peaks at 47 and goes downhill from [...]

By: Joy Nebeker

Joy Nebeker — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:41:25 +0000

As a mother we are so busy serving our family that we forget who we really are and what really makes us happy. When our kids grow up and move out we are left to find ourselves again. Sometimes it takes some real soul searching to find out what makes us happy and what do we enjoy doing. I think middle age is a check point. Is our life where we want it to be? What have we accomplished or what do we want to accomplish? And again, what makes us happy!

By: Deborah Trenchard

Deborah Trenchard — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:30:24 +0000

I’ve now had to change to read Marcus’s piece in its entirety and it has led me to believe that a woman’s downhill lack of satisfaction/depression, is hormonal. In the past women were deemed to be ‘mad’ during her menopausal period. And during this time, having lost the children, and most of the things she’d once had; the things that gave her some purpose in life,all she sees are drooping breasts, wrinkles, and ‘time passing her by’. Maybe this is the reason midlife women, especially, are trying to ‘regain’ their youth by buying into media hype: botox, lipo suction, and other modern techniques.

It is precisely because of this feeling of emptiness that, as I prepare for my 6th decade, and with confidence, I’ve decided to run my retreats for women of a certain age. I’d like them to access their inner beauty. Some may, and indeed have, said to me, ‘look at your skin.. you’re lucky, you’re black’. As far as I am concerned, that has nothing to do with it. It is my attitude. I’ve seen some black women with skin like silk at seventy, completely miserable with their lot. There are black women who also use botox!

So, yes, I believe it has to do with the menopause. It is depressing if you are not satisfied with life to watch your body slowly morph into something else, something you equate with ‘old age’. It is equally depressing to watch women, loaded with numerous gifts in the form of experience, concentrate on the superficial; thinking they have nothing to offer.

That’s it from me!