OPINION:
I’m looking at a photograph of a 30-year-old woman at her office leaving do. She seems happy enough (drunk, excited about the new job), but slightly dishevelled. I want to reach across the table – in a motherly fashion – and warn her not to leave her wallet open with her credit cards on view. The cheap tin earrings she’s wearing are fun, but will give her contact dermatitis. And why on earth is she dressed in severe black? In your 30s your skin still has that wonderful, youthful “glow”. I want to shout: “Remember to show your arms as much as possible.”
The funny thing is that woman is me. I can totally remember being her, but she is also a mystery. Thirty years after that photograph was taken, I have so much to tell her, which might make her life easier. I know where her mistakes will lead – in love, friendship and work – but of course she won’t listen. But I’m also proud that, despite the odds, she will survive.
My generation was born in the 1960s when life was less liberal. The youth cult is so strong today, it’s hard to remember a time when children were seen rather than heard. But tough-love parenting was the order of the day. Nobody talked about self-care or mental health. It was considered vain to worry about your hair or your complexion. Today when high-achieving young colleagues look at us and wonder: “Why did it take you so long?”, I want to say, “How long have you got?”
Many of us from modest backgrounds, who arrived in big cities in our 20s, felt totally at sea. We fell in love with commitment-phobic lovers, made epic fashion mistakes and chased the wrong, flighty people as friends.
When I think back to the nights in my 20s and 30s when a friend and I would traipse through the snow, in slingbacks and party dresses, trying to meet men, my heart breaks. “The urge to mate must be very strong, like salmon swimming upstream,” my friend Mary joked, our hair wet with ice.
Of course, when we arrived at the party, we knew no one, and blamed ourselves for not mingling properly. (Why are women so hard on themselves? It’s just party maths.) True, my defensive chat usually consisted of drinking white wine (lady petrol) and grilling some poor man about the Booker Prize or socialism. “‘I do admire you for being so confrontational with men,” Mary said. “I’m not being confrontational,” I wailed. “I thought I was flirting!”
And yet, somehow, we clung on, did the necessary work on ourselves, learnt to listen and take more risks. And now – at 60 – I have a life that makes me very happy. Great, loyal friends. A small mortgage-free flat. And a late relationship with a funny, smart man, who makes all those terrible internet dates over the years worth it (well, almost).
It amazes me how 60 has become this slightly cool rite of passage. Our parents had long given up counting the candles by their seventh decade – but today there are bespoke birthday cards, mini festivals and year-long bucket lists to celebrate this landmark birthday. It really is the new 21st.
Or maybe the Class of 62 is desperate to present it that way. But when Michelle Yeoh won her first Oscar at 60 last month, declaring: “This is the beacon of hope and possibility. Dreams do come true. And ladies: don’t let anybody ever tell you you are past your prime,” my heart burst with pleasure.
Of course, most of us will still be working – and as women we’re not supposed to reveal our true age. We’re expected to dye our hair and imply mysteriously that we’re somewhere between 35… and Joan Collins, in order to still be viable.
Well, blow that. I’m proud to be this age. There’s so much to look forward to. New countries to explore, films to see, books to read. I have a real, 3D relationship after years of being the plucky single woman (though I, of all people, recognise that no one should ever be complacent on that score).
True, my generation is poorer than the boomers. Many of us had to go freelance and missed out on pay rises and promotions and workplace pension schemes (a 72-year-old girlfriend jokes that the sexiest thing you can write on a dating profile is “index-linked pension”). We can’t afford to retire. But in every other way my life is better than before.
I was hopeless at being young. Angry and puzzled and pretty much all over the place. If you’re a mystery to yourself, it can be hard for others to warm to you.
I want to shake the 30-year-old in that photo. Everything took her so long to work out. Knowing what I know now about life – which could be summed up as: “Be kinder to yourself and everyone around you” – I could have got there in half the time. Except, of course, I couldn’t. We all learn the hard way.
Tips for the kids
I’m usually the last person to hand out life advice, but there’s so much I could tell my younger self. At this mature point, I know just how much care and planning can make life easier in your 60s.
So what would I say to Liz at 30? Please sign up for a proper pension with every job (or set up a private one). I know you think you can’t afford it on a lowly salary, or don’t love yourself enough at the moment but, trust me, it’s no fun realising your peers will be better off than you.
Take yourself seriously but don’t be so prickly at work because you’ve no idea what anyone else is really thinking. But if you meet a bully, get the hell out of there. You’re simply not equipped.
Find a sympathetic hairdresser (who really understands fine hair) and a great dentist, and look after your gums. You’ll need them for eating and kissing (yes, there’s still kissing at 60).
It’s probably best to accept you’ll never be thin, but concentrate on being fitter. Pilates is fine, swimming even better. After 40, you’ll need to worry about your core. Try to have three alcohol-free days a week (drink less, drink better is a good mantra).
So many young people suffer in silence over their skin. I was one of them, too proud to ask for help. Today I am endlessly grateful to facialist Eve Lom and cosmetic dermatologist Surbhi Virmani for teaching me how to deal with having the skin condition rosacea, and how to manage the known triggers – alcohol, sun, the wrong sort of moisturiser (Virmani made me throw out most of the contents in my bathroom). I just wish I’d tackled it years ago. I could weep to think of the parties and camping holidays and (yes) relationships I missed out on in my 30s and 40s because I felt so self-conscious about having angry, reactive skin.
Not everyone needs to be in a romantic relationship, of course, but if you like companionship, don’t be embarrassed that you’re still going on dates from time to time. Though do beware of emotional con men who seem too good to be true (they’ll still be targeting you in your 50s, trust me).
But don’t assume that, as a mature dater, everything is over for you. I got together with my bloke in lockdown age 57, when everything else in the world was going wrong.
The status trap
Growing old is not for sissies, of course, as Bette Davis memorably said (her film All About Eve really is the set text for my generation). Sixty can bring as many challenges as 30. It’s easy to be disheartened by casual ageism, the unanswered emails, the fact that over one in 10 staff over 50 has disappeared from the workforce after being made redundant (mostly women).
I find the best thing is to stop worrying about status. Everything then immediately gets better. There’s no point in haunting yourself that, in the past, you would automatically have been invited to that party, or given that commission. The world is a different place now. No one gets to rest on their laurels. And there are fabulous, talented young people coming up fast behind you. Enjoy their success. Resentment is not a good look.
But also: never give up. The class of 1962 have lived through tougher times. We went into the workforce in the 1980s at the height of a recession. We’ve learnt to be endlessly adaptable. It’s not our first rodeo.
Recently, my part-time salaried post ended (after seven years). So instead of the once-in-a-lifetime 60th birthday celebrations that I’d planned, it has been more “make do and mend”. A wonderful friend held a party for me on her roof terrace, poaching salmon for 25. Friends and colleagues flew in from around the world to celebrate (to be fair, it was a summer of 60th birthdays). When I watch the party video I see a room full of love and laughter. As I said in my speech: “I’m in awe of the generation that got here. There are so many reasons we might not have made it. How wonderful that we have.”
I do spend time making 60 work for me – I relish the free Tube pass and the free swimming and the silver concessions at the cinema. I know men hate saying “concession” out loud when they buy tickets; I love it!
And I guess having a newish partner when I’d assumed I’d be solo at this age helps, too (though we’re very happy to live apart). He’s determined that we’re not going to give in to the dying of the light. So we keep each other on our toes. The funny thing is, just as you begin to think that you’re this new cool hybrid at 60, young people start looking at you as if you’re horrifically old. “Older than my mother!” they marvel, which brings you slap back down to earth.
But I love intergenerational friendships – I have friends in their 70s, 80s and 20s. It’s so helpful to see great role models paving the way.
Modern middle-age
Once, 40 was the marker for midlife, but now, finding consensus on when middle age begins and what it represents isn’t easy. Maybe chronological age is meaningless. In some cases, in your 60s, people might be thinking about a second or even third career, but others may have serious health problems and be unable to work. There’s a lot of luck involved.
My life at 60 – independent, childfree, living solo – would astonish my grandmother. Born in 1910 she was incredibly bright, but had to leave school at 14 to work in the family shop. She devoured National Geographic magazine and longed to go to college and travel. But the template of marriage and children – not to mention two world wars – meant she had little personal agency apart from running a house (extremely well).
By the time I was born, she was in her early 50s, but seemed two decades older. Dressed in kilts and cardigans, she went to church and arranged the flowers. Like the Queen, she had become a symbol, rather than a flesh-and-blood woman. Only years later did my sisters and I discover that – beneath that strong facade – she battled clinical depression, not getting out of bed for days. In many ways my mum, her daughter, had to parent herself.
So the choices I have now would be unimaginable to women of her generation. I am extraordinarily grateful to have grown up during the second wave of feminism, and to have benefited from the women (and men) who campaigned for equal pay and equality legislation. And I think that needs to be said out loud more.
Of course, not everyone wants a frantic life at 60 plus. My parents, the first in their family to go to university, retired in their mid-50s after working and bringing up kids. After a little world travel, they settled into a more leisurely life of coach holidays and coffee mornings and u3a classes. I think my mum is bemused when I rush off to galleries and launches, setting up interviews at weekends and, ahem, chasing late invoices. It can seem a little undignified. But it’s never dull.
I worry that youth is the only currency right now. And that young women are being made to feel terrified about ageing and menopause – and, yes, some women have an awful time of it (and I’m delighted that taboo is being broken) – but honestly, after my disasters in my 20s and 30s, it’s a walk in the park!
I can’t stress enough, it’s OK to be a late starter. You just need to hold your nerve, then hold it a little bit more. Life is too precious to waste. We all have friends who left the party too early. They would have loved more time.
And don’t ever assume it’s all over. The future may look a little hazy, uncertain even, at the moment. But when change comes, it comes with the force of an Exocet missile. Embrace it.