by Ada Calhoun
21 David E. Bloom and Neil G. Bennett, “Marriage Patterns in the United States,” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper no. 1701, Labor Studies, September 1985.
22 Traister, All the Single Ladies, 272.
23 Vanessa Grigoriadis, “Baby Panic,” New York, May 20, 2002.
24 Saturday Night Live, May 18, 2002.
25 “Committee Opinion Number 589,” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, March 2014. Reaffirmed 2018.
26 Megan Garber, “When Newsweek ‘Struck Terror in the Hearts of Single Women,’” Atlantic, June 2, 2016.
27 Briallen Hopper, “How to Be Single,” Los Angeles Review of Books, February 11, 2016.
28 Bella DePaulo, Singled Out, highlights document on BellaDePaulo.com. Retrieved on July 25, 2018.
29 Glynnis MacNicol, “I’m in My 40s, Child-Free and Happy. Why Won’t Anyone Believe Me?” New York Times, July 5, 2018.
30 Lyman Stone, “American Women Are Having Fewer Children Than They’d Like,” New York Times, February 13, 2018.
31 Claire Cain Miller, “Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why,” New York Times, July 5, 2018.
32 Briallen Hopper, Hard to Love (New York: Bloomsbury, 2019), 257.
33 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, 2016 Assisted Reproductive Technology Fertility Clinic Success Rate Report (Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, October 2018).
34 Ibid.
35 “Adoption Cost and Timing in 2016–2017,” AdoptiveFamilies.com. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
36 “About Adoption from Foster Care,” AdoptUSKids.org. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
8: After the Divorce
1 Abigail Abrams, “Divorce Rate in U.S. Drops to Nearly 40-Year Low,” Time.com, December 5, 2016.
2 Susan Gregory Thomas, “The Good Divorce,” New York Times, October 28, 2011.
3 Elizabeth Stabinski, MS, LMFT, interview with the author, August 29, 2017.
4 Rose McDermott et al, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Unless Everyone Else Is Doing It Too: Social Network Effects on Divorce in a Longitudinal Sample,” Social Forces 92, Issue 2 (December 2013): 491–519.
5 “One paradox of gender, marriage, and the life course,” writes Stanford professor Michael J. Rosenfeld, “is that young single women appear to desire marriage and commitment more than men do, yet married women appear to be less satisfied by their marital experiences than married men are.” Michael J. Rosenfeld, “Who Wants the Breakup? Gender and Breakup in Heterosexual Couples,” in Social Networks and the Life Course, ed. Duane F. Alwin et al. (New York: Springer, 2018), 221–43.
6 Daphne de Marneffe, PhD, The Rough Patch (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018), 80.
7 Daphne de Marneffe, PhD, interview with the author, October 24, 2017.
8 William Doherty, PhD, interview with the author, July 27, 2018.
9 On the dating site OkCupid, “the older men get, the younger the women they message (relative to their age).” By the time they’re fifty-five, men send more than half of their messages to women at least eight years younger than they are. Dale Markowitz, “Undressed: What’s the Deal with the Age Gap in Relationships?” OkCupid.com, June 1, 2017.
10 Elizabeth E. Bruch and M. E. J. Newman, “Aspirational Pursuit of Mates in Online Dating Markets,” Science Advances 4, no. 8 (August 8, 2018).
11 Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, interview with the author, August 7, 2017.
12 Jane E. Brody, “A Dip in the Sex Drive, Tied to Menopause,” New York Times, March 30, 2009.
13 Kristen P. Mark, Erick Janssen, and Robin R. Milhausen, “Infidelity in Heterosexual Couples: Demographic, Interpersonal, and Personality-Related Predictors of Extradyadic Sex,” Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Department of Applied Health Science, Indiana University, published online at KinseyInstitute.org, June 11, 2011.
14 Kelly Roberts, PsyD, interview with the author, March 1, 2016.
15 More than half of divorcees and widows are in for financial surprises. Among the most common shocks: secret spending, debt, and outdated wills. Suzanne Woolley, “Rise of ‘Gray’ Divorce Forces Financial Reckoning After 50,” Bloomberg.com, April 13, 2018.
9: Perimenopause
1 Bernice L. Neugarten, “The Awareness of Middle Age,” in Bernice L. Neugarten, ed., Middle Age and Aging: A Reader in Social Psychology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968, fifth impression, 1975), 93.
2 “Perimenopause” is a term that almost no layperson used twenty years ago but that now is much more popular. The Google n-gram for the word “perimenopause” shows almost no instances of use in 1975 and then a pretty steady rise from 1990 until now.
3 The Rev. Fred B. Trevitt and Freda Dunlop White, How to Face the Change of Life with Confidence (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), 44.
4 Germaine Greer, The Change (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1991), 7.
5 “Used by women to increase sexual energy and pleasure; this nephrite jade stone helps connect the second chakra (the heart) and yoni for optimal self-love and well-being.” Retrieved June 27, 2018 from goop.com.
6 Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind (New York: Penguin, 2018).
7 Ayelet Waldman, A Really Good Day (New York: Knopf, 2017).
8 Cartoon by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, The New Yorker, January 14, 2019.
9 Kristi Coulter, “Giving Up Alcohol Opened My Eyes to the Infuriating Truth About Why Women Drink,” Qz.com, August 21, 2016.
10 “The field of nonsurgical female genital rejuvenation is growing as the changes women experience receive greater attention,” says PlasticSurgery.org in its description of the procedure. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
11 JoAnn Pinkerton, interview with the author, July 26, 2017.
12 M. de Kruif, A. T. Spijker, and M. L. Molendijk, “Depression During the Perimenopause: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Affective Disorders 206 (December 2016): 174–80.
13 Jennifer Wolff, “Doctors Don’t Know How to Treat Menopause Symptoms,” AARP, August/September 2018.
14 Janine A. Clayton, MD, NIH associate director for Women’s Health, “Celebrating a Quarter Century in Women’s Health Research,” Office of Research on Women’s Health, NIH, “Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health,” Forty-Second Meeting minutes, September 25, 2016.
15 Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation et al., “Duration of Menopausal Vasomotor Symptoms over the Menopause Transition,” JAMA Internal Medicine 175, no. 4 (April 2015): 531–39.
16 “Menopause Affects Japanese Women Less Than Westerners,” Center for the Advancement of Health, ScienceDaily, July 27, 1998.
17 Chisato Nagata et al., “Soy Product Intake and Hot Flashes in Japanese Women: Results from a Community-Based Prospective Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology 153, no. 8 (April 15, 2001): 790–93.
18 Marilyn Bender, “Doctors Deny Woman’s Hormones Affect Her as an Executive,” New York Times, July 31, 1970.
19 Johann Hari, Lost Connections (New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 3.
20 Asia Wong, interview with the author, December 26, 2018.
21 Julie Holland, MD, Moody Bitches (New York: Penguin, 2015), 290.
22 John Lazarou, “OB/GYNs Need Menopause Medicine Training,” Johns Hopkins University Gazette, June 2013.
23 Wolff, “Doctors Don’t Know How to Treat Menopause Symptoms.”
24 The site is menopause.org. Note that in some parts of the country you will find there are none within a hundred miles. Finding one who takes your insurance presents another challenge.
25 Tara Allmen, MD, interview with the author, April 11, 2018.
26 Utian goes so far as to say that between 2002 and 2012, as many as 91,610 postmenopausal women may have died prematurely because of health problems that estrogen could have helped prevent. “Dr. Wulf Utian Speaks Out on Hormone Therapy,” HealthyWomen.org. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
27 Robert D. Langer, “The Evidence Base for HRT: What Can We Believe?” Climacteric 2, (April 2017): 91–96.
28 The 2017 Hormone Therapy Position Statement of the North American Menopause Society, NAMS, 2018; 24(7):728–53.
29 Bootie Cosgrove-Mather, “New Methods Ease Menopause,” AP for CBSNews.com, December 29, 2003.
30 Randi Hutter Epstein and Mary Jane Minkin, MD, interview with the author, March 1, 2018. You can also watch Dr. Minkin’s great videos about menopause at madameovary.com.
31 The NIH provides a “Fact Sheet for Consumers” for each of the major supplements at nccih.nih.gov.
32 Randi Hutter Epstein, Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018), 252.
33 Full disclosure: I was guest-editing The Cut at the time and had her do the story for the magazine. Darcey Steinke, “What Menopause Taught Me,” TheCut.com, August 23, 2015. She expanded this into a book, Flash Count Diary (New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2019).
34 Pam Houston, Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2019), 96.
35 Amy Jordan Jones, Ed.M, LCSW, interview with the author, October 31, 2018.
10: The Very Filtered Profile Picture
1 2016 Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Statistics Report, American Society of Plastic Surgeons, PlasticSurgery.org. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
2 Anna Garvey, “The Oregon Trail Generation: Life Before and After Mainstream Tech,” SocialMediaWeek.org, April 21, 2015.
3 Some of us died from diphtheria, measles, and typhoid fever. It was a super-fun game. Laura Turner Garrison, “Where Are They Now? Diseases That Killed You in Oregon Trail,” MentalFloss.com, May 28, 2014.
4 Hennessey, Zero Hour for Gen X, 9–10.
5 “The use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being.” Holly B. Shakya and Nicholas A. Christakis, “Association of Facebook Use with Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study,” American Journal of Epidemiology 185, no. 3 (February 1, 2017): 203–211.
6 Libby Copeland, “The Anti-Social Network,” Slate.com, January 26, 2011.
7 Adam Phillips, Missing Out (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), xii.
8 In his bestseller The Shallows, Nicholas Carr wrote that the internet has changed our brains and not so as to make us calmer or more reflective but rather in a way that’s evaporating our ability to concentrate or think deeply. Nicholas Carr, The Shallows (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2010), 6–7.
9 A recent study suggested that just having a cell phone nearby distracts us enough to reduce our cognitive ability. Adrian F. Ward, Kristen Duke, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten W. Bos, “Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity,” Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 2, no. 2 (April 2017): 140–54.
10 Matthew A. Christensen et al., “Direct Measurements of Smartphone Screen-Time: Relationships with Demographics and Sleep,” PLoS ONE, November 9, 2016.
11 Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Generation X More Addicted to Social Media Than Millennials, Report Finds,” New York Times, January 27, 2017. The research described here is from Nielsen.
12 Ashley Strickland, “Women in Midlife Aren’t Sleeping Enough, Study Says,” CNN.com, September 7, 2017.
13 Laura Vanderkam, interview with the author, April 9, 2018.
14 Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, third ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 17.
15 Kevin Granville, “Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as the Fallout Widens,” New York Times, March 19, 2018.
16 Allison Benedikt, “The Year in Push Alerts,” Slate.com, November 6, 2017.
17 Nicole Spector, “‘Headline Stress Disorder’: How to Cope with the Anxiety Caused by the 24/7 News Cycle,” NBCNews.com, December 16, 2017. Updated June 20, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
18 Alyssa Davis and Diana Liu, “Daily Worry Up Sharply Since U.S. Presidential Election,” Gallup.com, March 1, 2017.
19 Dan Witters, “Americans’ Well-Being Declines in 2017,” Gallup.com, November 8, 2017.
20 “Stress in America: Uncertainty About Health Care,” American Psychological Association, January 24, 2018.
21 Interview by the author with Dr. Vaile Wright, one of the psychologists on the team, April 9, 2018.
22 “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,” prepared for the White House Council on Women and Girls, March 2011.
23 Deborah A. Christel and Susan C. Dunn, “Average American Women’s Clothing size,” International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education 10, no. 2 (2017).
24 Tim Gunn, “Tim Gunn: Designers Refuse to Make Clothes to Fit American Women. It’s a Disgrace,” Washington Post, September 8, 2016.
25 Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice (New York: Ecco, 2004), 213.
26 Judith A. Houck, PhD, interview with the author, April 23, 2018. See also: Judith A. Houck. Hot and Bothered: Women, Medicine, and Menopause in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
27 Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 7.
28 W. H. Auden, “The Globe” in The Dyer’s Hand (New York: Vintage International, 1989), 175.
29 Carol Hanisch, interview with the author, March 10, 2017.
30 Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 211.
31 “Female Friends Spend Raucous Night Validating the Living Shit Out of Each Other,” Onion, February 23, 2012.
32 Alex Williams, “Why Is It Hard to Make Friends over 30?” New York Times, July 13, 2012.
33 Rozette Rago, “Finding Female Friends over 50 Can Be Hard. These Women Figured It Out,” New York Times, December 31, 2018. And: FindYourCru.com.
11: New Narritives
1 Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1894). Retrieved online, July 9, 2018.
2 Shai Davidai and Thomas Gilovich, “The Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry: An Availability Bias in Assessments of Barriers and Blessings,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111, no. 6 (December 2016): 835–51.
3 Tim Minchin, commencement address, University of Western Australia, 2013 graduation ceremony.
4 Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company (New York: New York Review of Books reprint edition, 2016), 54–55.
5 Tonya Pinkins with Brad Simmons, “A Naughty and Nice Evening,” Green Room 42 (December 16, 2018).
6 Jennifer J. Deal, PhD, interview with the author, April 16, 2018.
7 Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “The Big Business of Being Gwyneth Paltrow,” New York Times Magazine, July 25, 2018.
8 Our attitude has the ability not only to make our life more tolerable but also to potentially change our circumstances. In one study, college students who reframed their struggles as an opportunity for growth got better grades. Tara Parker-Pope, “How to Build Resilience in Midlife,” New York Times, July 25, 2017.
9 Ann Voskamp, “When You’re Struggling with Midlife and Another Year Older—Remember This,” FoxNews.com, August 19, 2018.
10 Marah Eakin, “‘It Smelled Like Death’: An Oral History of the Double Dare Obstacle Course,” AV Club, November 12, 2016.
11 Bruce Feiler, “The Stories That Bind Us,” New York Times, March 15, 2013.
12 Richard Fry and Kim Parker, “Early Benchmarks Show ‘Post-Millennials’ on Track to Be Most Diverse, Best-Educated Generation Yet,” Pew Research Center, November 15, 2018.
13 Among those who’ve done work around these ideas of generativity are Erik Erikson and Bertram Cohler. The Northwestern personality psychologist Dan P. McAdams, who also runs the Foley Center for the Study of Lives, arguably invented the field of narrative psychology. See his article: “The Life Narrative at Midlife,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 145 (2014):
57–69. This is from the abstract: “Contemporary research reveals that the most generative adults in American society tend to construe their lives as narratives of personal redemption. As such, life stories may serve as valuable psychological resources for midlife adults, even as they reflect and refract prevailing cultural themes.”
14 Dan P. McAdams, “Caring Lives, Redemptive Life Stories,” talk given at the Love and Human Agency Conference at Franklin and Marshall College, September 20, 2014. Viewed on YouTube March 29, 2018. He talks about the conflict between personal agency and societal structure. He identifies “care” as a major theme of midlife. To avoid stagnation, you need to care for the next generation, either children or the future in some other way. See also: Dan P. McAdams, “‘I Am What Survives Me’: Generativity and the Self,” in J. A. Frey and C. Vogler, eds., Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology (London: Routledge, April 2018). Provided to the author via email.
15 Dan P. McAdams, PhD, interview with the author, April 9, 2018.
16 Margaret Renkl, “The Gift of Menopause,” New York Times, August 5, 2018.
17 Anna Garlin Spencer, Woman’s Share in Social Culture (New York and London: Mitchell Kennerley, 1913), 231.
18 Mary Ruefle, “Pause,” Granta 131: The Map Is Not the Territory (London: Granta Publications, June 1, 2015).
19 William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1991), 414–16.
20 In 2006, researchers came up with a way to calculate your resilience score, a measure of the “protective factors” that could counterbalance a high “adverse childhood experience” score. You can check yours at acestoohigh.com.
21 “A red nose!” says Elsie Lindtner, the narrator of a 1910 Danish novel about a woman’s midlife crisis. “It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose!” Karin Michaëlis, The Dangerous Age: Letters and Fragments from a Woman’s Diary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 117–18. I think about Adelaide Svanstroem a lot. I have a feeling she turned out fine.