The Seven Myths About Women Over 50

This is from a recent article written by Life in the Boomer Lane and two friends.  All of these myths and more are dispelled in their book Saving the Best for Last: Creating Our Lives After 50. You can read more about them and their books at http://www.amazon.com.

1. Women over fifty don’t care what they look like.
Since two out of the three of us are planning to have our next round of cosmetic surgery, we take exception to this. We now remember with fondness that construction workers used to give us wolf-whistles. We thought it obnoxious then. We miss it now. Women like us drag ourselves to the gym, where we get to compete with twenty-somethings for parking spaces and treadmills. We take Yoga and Pilates, go on diets, run marathons, go on diets, dye our hair, go on diets, get contact lenses, go on diets  We care. A lot.
2. Women over fifty don’t like sex.
Since one of the three of us is married, this is a touchy subject. The answer is, just let a healthy, willing, attractive male show up in our vicinity and we will be ready. Or, if even two out of three of those categories show up, we will be ready. Actually, “willing” might make up for any other shortfalls, depending on how long it’s been. And just think, since we can’t get pregnant, we can just zip past the pregnancy prevention shelf at the drug store.
3. Women over fifty find menopause terrible and debilitating.
YES! Menopause is TERRIBLE and DEBILITATING. It ruins our lives. It is the worst thing that has ever been invented in the history of the universe. It is worse than diet ice cream. OK, now that we have acknowledged that, can we please move on? The fact is that two of us didn’t even notice menopause, except that we could also zip right past the sanitary products shelf too. So, menopause exists and we’ll have it for awhile, and then we’ll get over it.
4. Women over fifty can’t keep up with the times.
Interesting, since women over fifty are the fastest growing group on Facebook. We three have six computers among us. We have and use  PDAs, GPSs, and iPods. We have almost outgrown email, and are Facebooking and twittering. And let’s face it: Without us, a lot of the Help Lines would go out of business.  We may have grown up in the Stone Age, but we have managed to survive into the computer age.
5. Women over fifty miss our children and only want to be with our grandchildren.
We love and adore our children.  We love and adore our grandchildren.  That’s the only acceptable answer, isn’t it, since this will be in print?  We love them the most when they don’t ask us to baby sit too much.  But seriously, we can love them and still want a life. That’s the bottom line.
6. Women over fifty fear change.
That’s really funny, since virtually everything about us is changing.  Body parts are moving to different locations or vacating entirely.  Hair is now appearing in places it never was and disappearing from places it used to be. We could go on and on.  So, we say we don’t fear change.  We are, and have been, the movers and shakers of our lives.  Go to any art class and see who is involved in creative pursuit.  Go to yoga or meditation classes to see the same.  Look at the women starting new careers, or the ones running for office.  Check out writing classes, art appreciation classes, cooking classes.  Look at who is doing work in developing countries, starting foundations, traveling the world, raising money for causes, marching for causes. Change? Bring it on! We are well-practiced, and good at it.

7. Women over fifty are counting the days until retirement.We agree with this statement. No matter how much we love our careers, we are chomping at the bit to have the time to travel, to explore, to start new businesses, to enroll in college, to volunteer, to write books, to inspire our daughters’ and granddaughters’ generations with the unlimited possibility we have.  We can’t wait to retire so we can see what’s next. We have lived only the first half of our lives and are anxious to see what we will create in the second half.