The ticking you’re hearing in your 40s may have nothing to do with a biological clock. But it has everything to do with biology. Your clock has reached halftime–midlife–and your body will surely let you know that.
As in your teen years, your hormones are running wild; in essence, they’re running down. Estrogen levels drop and with them, yes, so do certain body parts. Maybe your period doesn’t come as regularly as it has for the past 30 or so years. Maybe you’ve become moodier and tire more easily. And, oh, yeah, where did I put my keys?
You’re no longer young. You’re nowhere near old. You are in transition.
But the 40s are also a time of feeling empowered,
as family responsibilities, professional aspirations and personal expectations shift. Your children are self-sufficient or nearly so, and it’s time to accept that promotion or change careers. Or perhaps you’ve grown even more comfortable with your choice not to have children and you’ve reached an age when people stop asking whether you plan to have any.
It’s also a time for declarations, especially about time: “Don’t waste my time.” “I’ll take my time.” “I’ve earned my time.” “It’s about time.” These might be your mantras after losing your patience with an unmotivated underling; escaping the house for a night out with the girls; deciding to end a bad marriage; or realizing that all the experiences of the previous decades have combined to create a more confident, self-assured, comfortable-in-your-skin woman.
It’s a time of letting go of the trivial and embracing what matters most to you.
And this decade is often a time of coming to terms with mortality, as you start to notice the ages on the obituary page or wonder just when it was that you became taller than your aging mother.
It’s halftime.
But that just means there’s a whole lot of game left.
— Maria Mooshil
Janet Derrick / Age: 44 / Naperville
From corporate to carpool
For Janet Derrick, life at 44 is about baseball. And football, soccer and everything else her 9- and 12-year-old sons are doing. “I’m carpool queen,” she said merrily.
But two years ago, she was corporate queen. She was regional manager of a company in Chicago that produces coupon promotions. It was a rewarding job with a company where she had thrived for 17 years. She left it without regrets.
She had tried to leave it in 1989 when she and her husband, Richard Derrick, decided to raise a family. They were living and working in New York City and had never talked about children before. Janet Derrick, who is tall, lean and fast-talking, remembers the conversation vividly.
“He was watching a Yankees game. I said, ‘I want to have kids.’ He said, ‘Right now? While he’s batting?’ “
They agreed to have children, if not during that at-bat. They didn’t want to raise children in New York, so Derrick told her bosses she was quitting and moving upstate to Albany, where her husband had family.
They asked if she would stay on with the company as a saleswoman, working out of her home. A frequent flier was born.
She spent three days every week flying to sales calls, even after her sons were born. She flew USAir so often that a ticket agent once asked why she didn’t get the employee discount. On days she was home, she stopped work when her children came home in the afternoon, then resumed until late into the night. Her husband assumed most carpooling and house duties.
She loved her work and her clients. When her first son was born with breathing problems and was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit, she called clients from her hospital bed in the maternity ward. “I was bored,” she said.
Being a woman in the business world sometimes meant encountering paternalism. When she asked to add to her sales territory, a male supervisor told her he was concerned that her marriage would suffer if she made more money than her husband. Another boss questioned whether she would have the time with two small children.
“I said, ‘Would we be having this conversation if I were a man?’ ” she said. The conversation ended. She got the additional territory.
Her husband, a CPA, followed her as she won promotions to run the company’s Minneapolis office, and then five years ago to Chicago. The family moved to Naperville, and Derrick found herself facing a hard reality.
She had a lengthy commute to a demanding job. Her younger son, Mark, then 7, was starting to show the strain of all the moves. Her older son, Christopher, then 10, was spending an hour home alone after school every day.
“I just felt, ‘Is this right?’ Is this the right thing to do for him?” Derrick said.
“We talked about should we have an au pair. But the real issue was what is really important in life. We had saved a lot of money. The stock market was looking pretty good then. And the clincher was, I got another new boss . . . I’d had 11 bosses in 10 years. . . . That was the kicker for me.”
It kicked her into a new life. She gave up her housekeeper and weekly manicures, quit her job and headed home for a different one.
“The first year was very difficult,” she said. “You’re not getting paid. The money is on the lower end of the scale [of importance], but I think it’s affirmation, getting paid a nice salary.
“And the kids–even though they love you to death and love that you’re home, they love it because you can drive them places. It’s not, ‘Oh, I love your presence.’ I had a couple of meltdowns–‘No one appreciates me!’ “
A carpool queen’s life is less than regal. “I look at this and say, ‘What was worse, corporate life or trying to figure out my kids’ schedules?’ ” she said.
“And cleaning my own toilets is no day at the beach,” she added dryly. “The whole shopping, cooking, cleaning stuff–that’s for the birds, for me.”
But other things were very much for her.
“It was like a big weight was lifted off me,” she said. “There are days when I don’t really have to be anywhere. I didn’t have a cell phone for a year. I said, ‘If I don’t want to talk to someone, they can’t find me.’ “
She works out regularly, and feels more fit than ever. She volunteers with several church organizations that help people through financial troubles. “I’ve been blessed,” she said. “It’s time for me to give back.”
She treasures her newfound time with her children, who are flourishing. “The best part of being home is that you are more connected with what your kids are doing,” she said. “We’ve said several times that we did the right thing.”
And the next thing?
She doesn’t know.
“Having to put two boys through college, I’ll probably have to make some money somewhere,” she said. “I’d like to do something where you help somebody; it would be great to combine the two. This woman I met at church became a chaplain at a hospital. I thought, ‘That would be a good thing.’ “
Her life so far has been made up of lots of good things. She has found herself in a time of opportunities for women, she said; but perhaps the most crucial key to her freedom was her husband.
“I knew when I was growing up that I would work hard and that I had a lot of choices,” she said. “But I think a lot of my choices and my ability to make those choices have to do with the man I ended up with. We made decisions as a team.”
— Barbara Brotman
Choosing her options wisely
Maria Enright / Age: 47 / Chicago
A woman needs to have options. That’s how Maria Enright sees it.
Born in London to Irish parents who immigrated to the United States when she was a child, Maria learned about options from her mother, a nurse, who “had a bunch of kids.” Maria never saw that as an option that suited her.
She loved and respected her mother, but she wanted something different. She never took that walk down the aisle. There have been no crying babies for her.
That was her choice. She is happy with it. Her life is no less full or fulfilled.
Maria has done well for herself. After 19 years with the American Bar Association, she has risen to associate director of professional services. She owns her home, manages her money wisely, travels when and where she pleases. She volunteers. She gardens. She has friends she has known since kindergarten and high school.
Over the years, she has been a bridesmaid more times than she cares to count. She knows what it’s like to be madly in love. She can say with confidence that she doesn’t need a man to rescue her.
At 47, Maria Enright is content with the way her life has unfolded.
Here’s what she has to say about that, having options and the meaning of it all:
“Each decade it gets easier in a lot of ways, at least so far, because in your 20s, you’re tentative, and you don’t have the confidence. In your 30s, you’re really pushing and then by the time you’re in your 40s, or my 40s, I feel like this is who I am. . . . I don’t have to please everybody and not everybody is going to like me, and I’m OK with that.”
Her mama said . . .
“She always told us, ‘Don’t be too quick to get married, don’t be too quick to be a mother.’ She said, ‘Your education is your ticket out.’ And she said it’s really important to be educated, especially so for girls because you have to have options available to you and you’ve got to be able to make your own way. She instilled that into me at a very young age.”
Managing the money
“I am not a financial whiz, but I will say I bought two homes on my own without any help from anyone, all hard-earned money. . . . It’s important to decide–you make money, what to do with it and how to manage it. Nobody gets off easy. Either become responsible for your money early on or eventually you’re going to be made to be responsible.”
She once heard that ticking
“I was brought up that you’re supposed to get married, have a family. I didn’t want it in my 20s, but I thought in my 30s that was what I wanted. I think what became important to me is I didn’t want to do it just to do it. Everybody has to make her own choices. I have seen a lot of people be single mothers, good single mothers, but the toll has been very hard on them and I knew that I didn’t want to be a single mother, and the man I was in love with in my early 30s, [the relationship] didn’t work . . . it didn’t work in the classic sense, but it did because I learned a tremendous amount and it’s wonderful to have been in love. I mean it’s just wonderful.”
Being child-free
“A lot of people say, ‘You should have been a mother.’ I think I have a very warm, kind side . . . and I’ll take that as a compliment. And I’ve had some people say, ‘Why aren’t you married? Why didn’t you have children?’ I was the second oldest of five. We were immigrants. My parents both worked. I took care of all the younger kids. I did a lot of baby-sitting.”
“Some people believe in the super moms who can do it all. I know my limits. I couldn’t have done it all.”
Romance and reality
“You don’t have to find that one man forever. You find someone, hopefully it works . . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been about finding the one man, having children and having the picket fence, because, quite frankly, my spirit would have died in something like that. I just would have died.
“Some women want to be rescued. Rescued from what? Whether you have somebody in or out of your life, life goes on. And there’s ups and downs. And for me, I would rather learn how to weather it and work it through, rather than expecting somebody to come in and rescue [me].”
What it’s all about
“It’s being conscious, paying attention, paying attention to what’s happening in your life, paying attention to your dreams, paying attention to when dreams don’t happen and just over time realizing this is it.”
No regrets
“One of the worst things is to lament your life. So it’s very important that choices you make are choices you want. Sure, sometimes things don’t quite work out. But you do the best job you can making the decision you can with what you’ve got at the time.”
— Cassandra West
Teresa Rosainz / Age: 40 / Chicago
`This is just the beginning’
The countdown for Teresa Rosainz’s new life began on New Year’s Day 2000, “one of those dates you’ve been waiting for all your life.” The mother of two was feeling trapped in a bad, isolating marriage and carrying about 20 pounds too many on her small frame. So, after the stroke of that momentous midnight, she decided she would leave her husband of eight years and embark on a path to better emotional and physical health.
A broken champagne glass hauled out for a New Year’s Eve toast had infuriated her husband. As he screamed at Teresa, their children, Monica and Anthony, clung to her as she tried to take a phone call from her husband’s brother-in-law, calling to wish the family a Happy New Year.
“I couldn’t even talk to him because [my husband] was just going on and on and on and on. And that’s the moment I said, ‘This is it. No more. That’s it. I’m leaving.’ “
A few weeks later–after her husband had moved out of their bedroom and while beginning to train for her first triathlon–she found a lump in her left breast. In May, the tumor was removed and it was malignant.
“The first thing, I was like, ‘My kids! I’m not going to leave them to be raised by their father.’ One of the reasons I was going to break up is I didn’t want them to grow up with him. And I [thought] there’s no way he’s going to get them. So I gotta fight this thing. And there’s no way this thing is going to interfere with my life right now, just now as I’m starting to have a life.”
On June 20, her breast was removed, and two weeks later she was back in the pool, working to regain her stroke in time for the July 23, 2000, Danskin Women’s Triathlon, an annual race consisting of a half-mile swim, 12.4-mile bike and 3.1-mile run held in cities across the U.S, including Chicago.
Teresa completed her first triathlon in 2000 and has since finished three others. She is considered cancer-free and, having turned 40 this year, is feeling her freedom in other ways, too.
“When I was in my 20s, I was kind of gearing everything toward helping [my husband] out. I didn’t let myself bloom. I put myself on the back burner. And I think that that’s what was killing me at the end. . . . [But, being 40 is] great because you have the experience, more than when you were 20 or 30, and you’re still young enough to do whatever you want. And you have more resources and more, definitely, self-esteem, like strength. And the children are already here, so I don’t have to worry about [whether] my clock is ticking. So it’s pretty good.”
She is working at Glenview-based educational publishing firm Scott Foresman in the marketing department where she has finally found the nurturing she yearned for since leaving Mexico at age 23.
“The thing is growing up we had a very rich social life with so many brothers and sisters and a lot of friends coming over, and a lot of people just dropping by, that I missed that so much when I moved here,” said Teresa, the second-eldest of 12 children. “When I started working at Scott Foresman, I met a wonderful group of friends there. And they’re, oh, from many different countries and very close . . . people who are educated, and who are fun. That is not easy to find.”
In August, Teresa took a two-week trip by herself to Spain. The Near North Side resident returned feeling empowered.
“There’s something since you’re little, you think, oh, when I grow up [I’m] going to do all these things. You’re going to travel, and many, many times, it doesn’t happen. You just don’t do it. So I want to do it before [I] can’t. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. This is just the beginning.”
— Maria Mooshil
BY THE NUMBERS
A statistical portrait of women in their 40s
HEALTH
33.1% excellent
47.6% good
14.6% fair
4.7% poor
OWN OR RENT HOME
73.3% own or are buying
25.2% rent
1.5% other
SATISFACTION WITH FINANCIAL SITUATION
26.4% satisfied
45.6% more or less satisfied
28% not at all satisfied
PRESCHOOL KIDS SUFFER IF MOTHER WORKS
45.5% disagree
16.6% strongly disagree
29.2% agree
8.7% strongly agree
POLITICAL VIEWS
40.5% moderate
28% liberal
31.5% conservative
LABOR FORCE STATUS
60.6% working full time
15.8% working part time
2.8% temporarily not working
3.1% unemployed/laid off
0.4% retired
14.3% keeping house
1% school
2% other
Source: NORC (National Opinion Research Center, affiliated with University of Chicago), data from general social surveys, combined years 1998, 2000, 2002
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The series online: For stories, additional photos and a related message board, go to chicagotribune.com/decades.
