by Nancy London, MSW
Motherhood and menopause are considered two distinct phases of a woman's reproductive life cycle. But what if they happen just years apart? What if the activities appropriate to motherhood - giving selflessly to a child any time of the day or well into the night, postponing short term pleasures and long term goals for the good of the family - what if these sacrifices are at odds with the impulses that rise up inside the midlife woman: the physical call to slow down, the desire to ingather and reflect on the second half of her life, the hunger to put her own needs first? What happens when these two sets of developmentally appropriate needs collide? I call this the Clash of the Titans - the detonation that sounds inside the older woman who is caught between responding to her own mounting needs, and to those of her young child.
While the total births for women in the United States have steadily decreased since 1980, they have risen sharply among older women: between 1980 and 1995, the birth rate for women forty to forty-five increased an astonishing 81 percent. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimate that we have entered the new millennium with one in every twelve babies born to women aged thirty-five and older. Several factors have contributed to this extension of a woman's "fertility deadline" from her early thirties to early forties: Our society as a whole is enjoying improved health and extended longevity; women now have reliable birth control and access to legal abortions; and the Women's Movement and the politics of sexual equality encouraged a whole generation of girls to challenge the notion that biology was destiny. Many women postponed motherhood until they had the financial resources to parent alone; some waited until they established themselves more securely in careers. Some conceived the first time they tried, some underwent costly infertility treatments and found themselves parents of twins or even triplets. Some became parents through adoption with partners, some by choice as single women. All arrived at motherhood no longer young but not yet old, standing on the threshold of all the physical, emotional and hormonal changes that midlife brings.
A woman who has postponed motherhood until her forties looks forward to showering her child with all the unconditional love that she has been saving up for decades. Unfortunately, she may not have factored the following into her biological timetable: as a woman in her forties, she is more than likely entering perimenopause. This means that although she is still menstruating, her hormones have probably begun to fluctuate, like they did during the wild ride of puberty.
Perimenopausal women make up the group that most often reports fatigue, wild mood swings and mental stress to their doctors. Unfortunately, many of these doctors over-prescribe antidepressants, which can be as great a disservice to the woman poised on the threshold of the second half of her life as it would be to the teenager struggling to find her emotional and mental balance on the brink of adulthood. This same woman will eventually ride out the hormonal storm and find her footing, mentally, physically and emotionally, but if it will be years before her child is grown, she may find herself wondering if she'll have enough energy left to pursue her own dreams.
Accepting ambivalence
Up until now, older first time mothers have been offered little guidance in resolving this clash of needs, and are left feeling guilty, confused and privately ashamed. Many of the first time older mothers I work with have a hard time admitting that they have feelings of ambivalence. Ambivalence simply means having mutually conflicting emotions, but in our linear society, it's hard to understand that we can hold two seemingly disparate feelings at the same time. For instance, we love being a mother, and miss our children after a two-hour separation, but remember our single days with longing. We adore the security and warmth of our family, even as we dream of taking refuge in a Buddhist monastery. Mothers who know that this will most likely be their only child not only feel required to "do it all," but also to be unambivalently enthusiastic while they're doing it. Sherry, a forty-seven-year old woman devoted to her two-year-old son, confides to our support group that she has fantasies of buying a red Harley and disappearing into a "witness protection program for older mothers."
Does accepting ambivalence mean women don't love their children? Not at all. It means that after decades of cherished autonomy and independence, first-time older mothers find their previous lifestyle and all its freedoms altered beyond recognition. It means that this surrender of self-rule comes at precisely the time most midlife women with grown children are just beginning to reclaim their lives. To acknowledge the inevitable ambivalence that arises when the demands of putting another person's needs first clash with the midlife call towards selfhood is not an admission of failure. It simply means you are human, and are feeling more than one thing at the same time.
Learning to set limits
A number of older moms who come to my support groups often tell me that one of their greatest difficulties is learning to say no to their children when their thoughts, feelings and body cues are telling them that they are too overwhelmed to say yes. Yet significantly, the one regret that older parents with grown children consistently express is a wish that they had set more limits with their children early on. So what is it that prevents us from drawing a line in the sand, and establishing these much-needed limits with our children?
For many midlife moms, the difficulty arises because they know they are only going to have one child, and they can't bear being too strict. Other women say that they hold themselves to unrealistic expectations of perfect parenting, which includes never having to say no. Many of us came of age in an era that encouraged breaking free of limitations, and now equate limit-setting with restricting their child's developing self-esteem. It's also common for older parents of only children to relate to their children as friends because they spend so much time together, but it then becomes that much harder to switch into the role of boundary-setter.
Most of us truly enjoy the pleasure of caring for our children, but if we judge ourselves when we attempt to establish boundaries, we may be thinking from old beliefs about setting limits that have slipped into our unconscious but still influence our behaviour. "A loving mother always puts the needs of her child first. If she doesn't, she's selfish," is a common misperception. Or, "I'm no better than my mother was. She was always off somewhere when I needed her." Another thought that can stop us in our tracks is: "If I go off and take time for myself, something horrible will happen to my child." While most mothers logically know that they'll be better parents if they take care of themselves, these beliefs have had decades to solidify and can prevent us from meeting our own needs.
Coping with fatigue by scaling back expectations
While all mothers feel tired, the perimenopausal mother's fatigue is compounded by her post-birth/premenopausal hormone cocktail. This potent mix creates a bone deep fatigue that is poignantly juxtaposed against the high-energy needs of her young child. These women felt young and vital before they had their babies. Now it's common to hear them say, "I can't believe how tired I am most of the time." One mother lamented, "I'm always too tired to play with my daughter. I can just hear her talking about it in therapy twenty years from now." Another added, "Now I drool thinking about sleep the way I used to thinking about sex."
In group sessions, when I mention the memory lapses, fuzzy thinking, and lack of concentration associated with midlife fatigue, I can count on hilarity in seconds. "I found the missing scissors in the refrigerator. Did I do that? That's it, I thought. I've got a brain tumour." "I couldn't remember my best friend's last name. Hell, I can barely remember my own last name!" "My daughter and I went to a spring equinox ritual. Everyone had to bring a slip of paper with their wishes for themselves and their families written on it. We put them all in a bowl and burned them in a very beautiful ceremony. The next day I found my wish list in my pocket. I must have burned my shopping list."
Not only is there a biochemical component to the fatigue at midlife, there is the additional exponential factor that comes from always being on call. You can't follow the body's imperative to rest if it's time to pick your child up from school or cook dinner. Successfully devising strategies to cope with this level of fatigue may mean scaling back on your expectations of yourself, and often involves seismic shifts in self-image.
Feeling too tired and spaced out to play with your child can be a great disappointment not only to your child, but to yourself as well. Fortunately, children care more about you being with them than they do about whether you're sitting up or lying down, so at the end of the day I recommend scaling back your expectations and playing "lying down" games. You and your child can read together, play cards together, watch movies together. Despite the fact that I always thought I would outlaw videos in favour of more "creative" endeavours and certainly thought I would be more physically active when I became a parent, some of my most treasured memories come from the humour my daughter and I have shared watching cartoons and movies together, all from a luscious horizontal position.
Putting yourself on the list
In your quest to maintain a career, a relationship, a dust-bunny free home, balance your midlife hormones, not to mention your efforts to meet your child's needs and still have time left over for romantic interludes with your partner, the needs you most likely are not tending to are your own. This is all the more poignant because as older first time moms, we have had years to grow into the individuals we are today, and probably can remember lots of ways we used to restore and nurture ourselves B.C.Before Children. To make matters worse, most of the popular books written for midlife women that encourage them to use these years as an opportunity for personal transformation and creative exploration are clearly not written for women with young children. One woman told the group, "My friend sent me this really great book that recommended that women going through menopause spend three days every full moon and three days every new moon retreating by herself to gather power. I put the book down and took stock of my life. I used to do things like that all the time. Now, it was 3:00 pm. I was at home with a kid who was either playing Legos or jumping off the sofa in a Batman costume. I was about to start dinner. Then I'd do the dishes, give him a bath, read a story and tuck him in. It would be 9:30 pm before I had a moment to myself again. 'GET REAL' I wanted to shout at the book. I'd be lucky to get my teeth brushed, let alone have six days a month to myself."
These losses are real. Midlife motherhood has granted us our most heart-felt wish, while it has taken from us cherished parts of our youth and freedom. I fervently believe from my experience working with older first time moms that by remembering, honouring and incorporating parts of ourselves that thrived before we became parents, we can stay sane, balanced and recharged. It's like swimming upstream, back to your place of origin.
Sit quietly and remember the life you led before you became a mother, and the ways you had of taking care of yourself. Let your mind run wild and imagine how you might incorporate some of this good medicine into your life now, each day or each week. It doesn't matter if you're inclined to gather and drink wild herbs, or meet a friend for dinner and a movie. What matters is that you take the time to care for yourself. And while I believe there is a special hell reserved for those who urge hormonally challenged and physically depleted midlife mothers to "just do it," there are instantaneous and life-affirming benefits to putting yourself on the list of the people you regularly nurture.
Individually and collectively, we've pushed the envelope and extended the time line for fertility. First time mothers over forty are a rapidly growing demographic - fast becoming commonplace rather than exceptional. We've proved that we can have healthy beautiful babies well into our forties. Now the challenge is to draw new maps for the next generation of older first-time moms, illuminating the territory where the needs of the midlife mother and her child can meet.
Nancy London, MSW, was one of the original authors of the groundbreaking book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, and is the author of the best-selling, Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles: First-Time Mothers Over Forty. She is a licensed therapist specializing in women's issues and runs support groups for older first-time mothers in Canada and the USA via teleclasses. She can be reached at: nlondon@swcp.com or through her website: http://www.mothersoverforty.com
This article first appeared in A Friend Indeed (Nov/Dec 2002), the newsletter for women in menopause and midlife.
