ABSTRACT
In mid-life, those years between the late 40s and the late 60s, the landscape changes in a slow but ground-breaking way. A woman’s loss of fertility may be a relief, but it is also evidence of ageing. Other, young women may have babies–and no longer she. Women have to renegotiate their sense of their womanliness and their worth. In that earlier phase of adulthood there were many stresses and demands, but they were new and challenging: new houses to fix up, new children, and new work, new settings. Relationships with parents, partner, growing children, work, all need to be renegotiated. When parents are alive, the idea of them offers some sort of role as the younger one, having some special claim to their concern and care. When striving and risking disappointment may be no less hard in mid-life than they ever were, age can be a good excuse for giving up wanting anything.
