What’s something you used to worry about but don’t anymore?
I used to worry about getting old, more precisely looking old. This concern became more intense post divorce. Would anyone ever love an older woman?
Our society pressures females to stay young. All you have to do is pick up a lady’s magazine and you’ll find articles and a massive number of ads for anti-aging products. Turn the page and it’s a recipe for a decadent chocolate cake or delicious high calorie meal.
You might find an article about embracing your age or letting go of worries about aging. It’s nothing but mixed messages.
Throughout time women typically married older men who had money. Why? Women couldn’t be employed unless they were of the lower economic stratus. So if you came from a family with money, but the money went to a brother you were left penniless. And if you were of the lower economic class, you had to work at the “big house” the idea of a spouse and children were off limits. Or you worked 7 days a week 12-14 hours a day in a factory. If you did have a child out of wedlock, you were forced out of any job you had.
Men wanted younger wives to have babies. Childbirth was a dangerous venture and it still is. A man needed lots of children because the odds said the majority wouldn’t reach adulthood. When his first wife died, usually in childbirth, he’d remarry someone younger and have more kids. Walk any old cemetery and you’ll see evidence of this very thing.
Women in a certain economic class, lost their value when they could no longer have children. Children were a necessity.
Those old beliefs carry over to today. How many male celebrities are having babies with women 50 years younger than they are? Men becoming fathers for the first time in their 50s, always with a younger woman. There are rare exceptions to the rule. But it doesn’t take much searching to find old man with young woman is the norm. I see men and assume they are the grandfather only to learn these toddlers are their children.
I used to tell my daughters when a young beautiful woman married a much older man, it was for one or two reasons, religion or money. I then asked them how many young beautiful women do you see with old poor men? The answer is none.
Men for some reason, have the idea having a young wife makes them look younger, but I can assure them this is not the case. The greater the age difference, the older the man looks. It’s a fact.
And these men have so little brain power they think she loves them for who they are and not for the millions of dollars they have in the bank.
So I no longer worry about getting older because it’s something I can’t prevent unless I die. And there’s beauty in experience and compassion in knowledge acquired over a lifetime. I’m happy to be my age and even look my age because it says I’ve had a good loving interesting life.
My life on an unexpected path 