Uncover Midlife Crisis At 30 Depicted By Lia Macko Categorized In Printable Format

perspective of how many factors in womens' lives seem to come together with a SMASH! at or around age,

I also really liked the diverse tales from successful women who've passed that milestone, It's a good reminder to take the longview, and remember that we don't have to be managers with great careers and,kids and husbands and huge houses by age, We've got lots of time to explore lots of different aspects and paths, . Lucky enough to have had coffee with Kerry, who, passionately enough about both journalism and feminism, told me not to let one thing take me over the others ! As she wrote on my book, “Remember to trust yourself.
” I read this book, realizing what so many women are facing in today's world: The conflict between What Has Changed and What Has Not Changed.
There are unrealistic expectations for us to be superwomen superimposed by both men and women, as well as ourselves, There is an expectation that because so many doors have opened, we shouldn't just aim to Have it All, we should want it lest past feminist movements are wasted.


We all face the "Sequential Success Trap": Career THEN marriage THEN family when in fact there is no such realistic order of things.
You don't have to have accomplished all of that by yours, and you DON'T have to do things in that order,

We shouldn't have to give up family in order to strive in careers women wern't allowed in in generations past but we don't have to hury up and find someone to marry so we can have kids, simply because we feel we should.
The bottom line is that past generations of incredible women have certainly shattered glass ceilings that used to hold women back, and we should be grateful.
But we shouldn't be grateful by doing what we think we SHOULD be doing, We need to be grateful by taking advantage of all the new opportunies that have opened up to us in today's world, marching to the beat of our own drum, and living life on OUR OWN terms!! Not those imposed by anyone else.
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If that means being a stayathome mother, THEN pursuing a career, GREAT! If that means never pursuing a career, that's fine too! If you never want to have children, and are in love with your work, then Don't have kids just because people tell you you're 'running out of time'!! Want to be a Working Mother Fabulous!!

There is no One Size Fits All, and there is no set forumla for Happiness.
I was intrigued by the premise of this book and it does put forth some good ideas, but overall I was disappointed and thought it could have been more substantive.
Really, the book the part written by the authors only takes up the first half, The basic idea is that we've become too individualized and lost sight of the effectiveness of collective action and the importance of interdependence, Great. Yes. Good. But the second half of the book is made up entirely of oral histories, Some of them are impressive and inspirational, but they don't propose action towards increasing interdependence and promoting all women instead of just oneself, They merely tell stories of independent women who have become individually successful, I was especially disappointed by the placement of the final story, With no disrespect to the woman who lost her husband in/, the fact that the authors chose to conclude their book with a paragraph containing this sentence "We can all get back at the terrorists by living our lives more fully, without taking anything for granted.
" shifts the blame for the state of our own perennially sexist, unsustainable society somewhere it does not belong, This was interesting, if a bit trite, There wasn't a whole lot of analysis more just a compilation of anecdotes, The best part was finding out about just how UNsuccessful many nowsuccessful women were at the age of, . . gives a girl hope, ya know I was at my local library about a week before myth birthday, and none of the books I had planned on checking out were actually on the shelves.
I started walking up and down the aisles, browsing the stacks, and this title just jumped out at me, It was serendipity this book addressed the exact concerns I was dealing with in my own life, and helped me realize that they are completely normal.
The first half of the book breaks down the socioeconomicpolitical trends that are leading to this crisis of purpose and identity that so women are having in their late twenties to early thirties.
The second half of the book features the life stories of successful middleaged women, who describe how their lives have changed since they were, and their advice for younger women.
This section of the book was quite encouraging, since many of these women credited their happiness to having made changes in their lives that were very similar to my own recent decisions.
This book helped me to find a new clarity of purpose and optimism, loved it my personal experience is disappointingly congruent with the scenarios portrayed in this book and it disappoints me, knowing i'm not alone is enough of a sitelinkcall to arms to realize i can engage in an 'end covert sexism coup' if i need to.
thank you. I think the mixed reviews are from people having different expectations, Reading this help me feel a lot less alone in some of the confusion I feel in my lates, and it showed me a lot of people with different paths.
A good idea that never really comes completely together, but what I appreciated most was the idea that women of this generation are experiencing something unprecedented that our mustdos marriage, career, family reach their critical point at exactly the same time.


Since the authors set out to write this book because they were motivated by their own career conflicts, I would have liked to have read a more thorough conclusion.
Since most of the essays seem to be written by the same type of woman NYC or bigcity based woman in business it was hard for me, a suburbanite in the field of teaching, to relate to their experiences.
I read this when I was having a meltdown while working at a crazy company and had just turned, ery female in hers should read this if they are operating in corporate america At first I wondered if reading this book would make me worry about problems that weren't really problems in my own life.
As I read on, though, it was interesting to learn that whereas a generation ago, people viewed their struggles as a social problem, today women especially view them as personal failings.
I'm with the authors on the idea that we need to act collectively to see changes toward a more livable, familyaccepting corporate culture,

Now that I've lived in Europe and Australia, I can safely say that many workplaces there are light years ahead of the US in this regard: lots of paid maternity/paternity leave and more flexible contracts.


Unfortunately, there were a lot of typos in my copy, . . yuck! A very thought provoking book, The authors posit that women are having midlife crises in their thirties similar to how men have midlife crises in their fifties, Unlike previous generations when women generally marry in their early twenties, have children every two years, and stay at home women now are expected to have everything together by the age of.
The set of unreal societal expectations include having the dream career, finding the perfect man and marrying that man, and at the same time bearing children within a very short time frame.
While the age of feminism have supposedly freed women from the kitchens, the structure of the workplace have not changed since thes, The long hours ofhour work week are tortorous and unaccomodating to women with children, Careerminded women with children find themselves unable to compete in the workfield simply because of outdated laws and inadequate maternity leave and childcare, This book is offers great insight to the modern women dillemma, A bit confusing on the first chapters because its like reading a blog, a lot of opinions

without any supporting facts,

But I kinda get the idea in the end that these are the examples of howis not really the end for women, in fact most people have it after what they think is the end.
Its actually the beginning after the end,

Its entertaining, although in the end, after Im feeling better about entering, I lost interest to finish it, I read untilof the book.
stars.for the first part andfor the second part,
This was a really good book, Empowering and well researched. The first half was a bit dragging as I felt it told the same story over and over again but the message was clear, Whereas the generation before us blamed failure on the system, we women in today's world blame it on ourselves, Even though the book was written moreyears ago, it is still true today, Reading other people's stories is very uplifting and encouraging, Wish I knew what these people are doing today, This book was not what I expected which might explain what it took me so long to get through it, returning to it again and again over the coming months.
This book has had very mixed reviews some calling it an insight into the Feminine Mystique others panning it for being almost meaningless tales of womens lives.
I have to agree there were lots of anecdotes that, while on the surface did lend sway to the subject, most often felt somewhat gossipy and not always framed in a manner to allow the reader we me, at any rate to connect with.

I believe there is value in this book, perhaps it is worthy of a reread, there are certainly relevant elements worth exploring, but it seems to me that this exploration needs to be driven by the readers rather than guided by the authors through the text, A collection of anecdotes and chats, an exchange of the authors and various womens experiences.
Interesting to read the different views, experiences and lifestyles and seeing how drastically our “lifeplans” have changed, Other than that wouldnt put it on my “mustread” list, Macko and Rubin both television news producers eloquently capture the bewildering stresses and strains that middleclass American women agedtoface in managing the often mutually exclusive arenas of career, kids, husband, and body.
The authors maintain that women must move beyond the cultural expectations associated with contemporary “success” and achieve their own personal balance, In an intense, sometimes edgy tone, they focus on whether women can realistically “have it all,” all at once, Mentoring is provided via the personal stories of notable women stories like Judy Blumes cogent discussion of balance will have wide appeal, but others are rather unrealistic, as when Mary Matalin talks about her nanny.
Read in conjunction with Sherene Schostak and Stefanie Iris Weisss sitelinkSurviving Saturn's Return: Overcoming the Most Tumultuous Time of Your Life, this book provides much food for thought.
The only drawback: its unnecessarily long,

Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, sitelinkBooks for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal.
Copyright Library Journal. I am one of those people that is freaking out about turning, Yes, I know age is a number, but still, . . I'm freaked out. After reading this book I feel less alone in my fear and understand where it comes from just a little more, The first half of the book explains the two authors female journalists hypothesis on why women around the age ofstart having what basically equals a midlife crisis.
Their theory rests on the fact that as women with parents from the hippy generation, we were told growing up that we could HAVE IT ALL, BE ALL and KNOW ALL.
Although this push for us Generation x/y ladies to be ALL is well intentioned the authors argue that it has lead many women to feel like they arent good enough if they cant do everything or have it all figured out.
This sense that we have failed as women if we dont have a good job, man or kids by the time werecenters around the fact that we grew up being told that we CAN have all that we want and more.
So when we turnand realize we dont have ALL, we freak out and think something is wrong with us, The book then argues that the real reason we dont have it all is because of the very real and still present sexism we experience in the workplace and our culture.
If you thought sexism was deadyoure not paying attention! I thought the theory was strong in many aspects and I found myself nodding in agreement on several occasions.
The only real let down about the book is the second half, where stories of triumph are shared by women overin the hopes of cheering us up.
Almost all the womens stories they share come from famous women or VERY rich women, It was hard to relate to their stories and struggles, They definitely needed more variety in the mix, I doubt mostyear old women have multimillion dollar jobs or ever will I suggest skipping around through the last half of the book, and only reading the stories that jump out at you.
This might make a good gift for your girlfriend when she turns, This is a great read, The book was writtenyears ago, but it couldn't be more applicable toyear old women today, We we're all brought up to believe that we can do anything, yet somehow we've taken that opportunity and transformed into a personal goal of "I have to do everything".
This book brings so much great perspective from women who've lived a little longer than us and have some great life stories to share, I can't recommend it enough, The first half was really interesting, and raised questions in a way I hadn't considered, The second half was unnecessary in a lot of ways, The authors say that they don't have solutions and aren't going to provide them, but the second half of the books tries to be that anyway, printing very brief interviews with of people who've found a successful work around to the earlier issues raised.
I would've enjoyed the book just as much if I'd stopped reading at the halfway point, AnneMarie Slaughter cited this book several times in her excellent article "Why women can't have it all", which appeared in the Atlantic last year so I decided to read it as well.
The writers cover the topic well, although I do think there is too heavy a bias on the working professional mother as opposed to the married with no children or the single woman.
In spite of that, the themes they research and discuss are important and new as of Generations X and Y, What is really outstanding about this book are thepage profiles of reallife women in different stages of their life, discussing where they were at, where they are today, and how they got there.
I found myself dogearing page after page, . . which I never do in a library book!
In short, there's a lot to get out of this book, albeit not necessarily from the authors themselves, but rather from the numerous and diverse stories they have collected of inspiring women.
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