There's a crisis brewing among Gen X women who are unhappy, overworked and unable to sleep

Saturday, 18 January 2020

OPINION: A book exploring the crisis of middle class Gen X Women was released last week.

Why We Can't Sleep, by Ada Calhoun, expands upon an article she wrote for Oprah's O Magazine in 2017.

She describes a cohort in quiet catastrophe.

Women with careers, and (sometimes) kids, who are at the leading edge of the 'you can have it all' generation.

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Women who find themselves, decades into adult life, some combination of unhappy, under employed, over worked, and – as the title suggests – unable to sleep because of it.

'Midlife is when we need to take care of everyone else while we are our most tired, to trust ourselves when we're most filled with doubt,' she wrote in O Magazine.

'What makes it worse is that many of our midlife fears are well founded. We may, in fact, die alone. Our marriages may never improve. We may never get the number of kids we hoped for.

'We may never save enough money to make the retirement calculators stop screaming. We may never do a fraction of what we thought we would do in our career.'

Gen X women – of which I am one – were the first generational beneficiaries of second wave feminism – the activism (and bra burning) of the 1960s and 1970s.

They were born at the end of the wave and so had the advantages of its transformation as they grew into adulthood.

The second wave goals of gender equality in the political, social, and economic realms transformed into seemingly attainable norms.

Unlike female baby boomers who attended university in much smaller numbers, many Gen X women got educated and built careers.

They married later, and had children later. Now they are reaching their late thirties and forties.

As Calhoun explains, many are simultaneously caring for children, caring for parents, and hitting their supposed peak earning years.

And despite the liberations that they undoubtedly benefited from, some societal expectations remain.

For mothers, that they raise children like they don't work, and work like they aren't raising children.

For singletons, a hanging question mark over motherhood.

For all, pressure to look good, to be youthful. To be fit. To recycle, eat whole foods, and to care about climate change (as if we need to add an existential threat to our own private cataclysm!).

These pressures are felt by this cohort not only in the United States, but elsewhere. The 'mid-life crisis' is a universal concept, after all.

New Zealanders aren't immune – rates of depression among Kiwi women are five times higher than among Kiwi men.

Data analysed by the Auckland University of Technology's Human Potential Centre in 2016 reflected low rates of happiness and engagement among forty-somethings.

The pressures are exacerbated in the US, however, by harsher norms. There are few guarantees around maternity leave – the length and quality of which causes working mothers stress and guilt.

Childcare is expensive, but essential where a one-income middle class family is a relic of the past.

There is little tolerance from employers for shorter hours to work around family or school.

And part-time jobs, or jobs in the gig economy, don't generally come with essential benefits like health insurance.

Calhoun writes that the difficulties experienced by middle class Gen X women are often minimised, including by the women themselves, as 'First World problems.'

Which is most certainly true. We are not war-torn refugees. We are not working three jobs and still dependent on government assistance to pay the rent (or the mortgage, it we're lucky).

This weekend, the US commemorates the life and achievements of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

The struggle of Gen X women framed by Calhoun is not the battle for racial equality that King fought and died for. Ostensibly, we have it all.

What to do about it? The act of writing the book was perhaps Calhoun's best and highest contribution.

She started a conversation based on the things she once dealt with alone in the dead of night.

For the rest of us, some honesty wouldn't hurt. When someone calls you 'super woman,' be honest about what is really going on.

I'll go first.

I'm writing this column on deadline. My beloved five-year-old is home from school. Her hair is unbrushed. I am about 80 per cent sure she's done her teeth today.

She is loud and exuberant and constantly interrupting my work and my writing (from a desk in the living room, no less).

It's too cold to go outside, so we are stuck in the house for the day. She's looking for snuggles and is lobbying me to participate in a treasure hunt around the apartment.

I used to earn more than my husband. Now I earn less. But I see my children more, and I don't work on weekends or late on weekdays anymore.

I don't see enough of our girls, but by the end of the weekend I am ready for the singularity of purpose – and quiet – of my office.

I have some time to devote to projects I care about. I don't see my friends enough.

I'm… doing my best.

The data tells us things eventually get better. The wellbeing literature describes a 'U' shape of happiness, where the lowest point for men and women lies between their late thirties and early fifties (women hit this crisis first).

The experts laud the importance of relationships, purpose, and a modicum of acceptance around changing horizons.

Consider the words of Martin Luther King Jr, from a sermon on his own unfinished business.

He delivered it in 1959, eight years before his death at just 39 years old. What he would have given to reach middle age.

'So many of us in life start out building temples: temples of character, temples of justice, temples of peace. And so often we don't finish them.

'Because life is like Schubert's 'Unfinished Symphony.' At so many points we start, we try, we set out to build our various temples.

'And I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable.'

Danielle McLaughlin is the Sunday Star-Times US Correspondent. She is a lawyer, author, and political and legal commentator, appearing frequently on US and New Zealand TV and radio. She is also an ambassador for #ChampionWomen, whose aim is to encourage respectful, diverse, and thoughtful conversations.

Follow Danielle on Twitter at @MsDMcLaughlin