Book review: The Invisible Woman – Taking on the Vintage Years

“Middle age is not the problem – how we think about it is”.
There’s this weird thing that happens when you’re on Twitter. You follow someone because it looks as if you’ve got things in common, maybe even chat now and again, and then you find out they’re someone. Which, in my world, means they write for a proper newspaper or have a book out (both of which I aspire to).
The Invisible Woman felt like a friend before I realised she had a Guardian column (The Vintage Years) and she feels even more like one now that I’ve read her book.

Barriers to employment? Just ask the over-50s

I read a depressing document this week. PRIME (the people I did a business start-up course with last year) have put out a report called 'The missing million: illuminating the employment challenges of the over 50s'. That 'million' is the number of people over 50 they estimate to have been made ‘involuntarily workless’.

It's good that someone's raising the issue, but as Helen Walmsley-Johnson points out in a Gransnet post, they're not the first and they won't be the last and it's not worth much unless something changes.

Written by a demographic think-tank called the International Longevity Centre, this is the first of three reports looking at 'the economic barriers facing the over 50s'. Don't get me wrong, I am pleased that they are campaigning about this. But I don't think the message is a helpful one.

Book review: Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys

Years ago, when I still worked for other people, I was talking about the legendary grumpiness of a colleague and one of his admirers said 'You don't know what he's been through.'  As if that was an excuse.  And I thought: 'You don't know what I've been through either.' And then I thought: 'Show me someone who's got the the age of 40 who hasn't had bad things happen to them and I'll show you someone who hasn't lived.'

Shit happens. We're all survivors, one way or the other. And you could call Viv Albertine's memoir the story of a survivor. Except that would be a) very '80s and b) a cliche.

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now

I remember being quite upset on my 20th birthday when I couldn’t wear my ‘Bored Teenager’ badge any more. Instead, I made myself another home-made badge out of a newspaper headline from the NME. It said ‘Too old to pose’ (yes, I do remember the news item it came from but that would be one trivia step too far). This came back to me the other day while talking to someone at work about feeling old. I am old enough to be her mother (in fact, I am older than her mother). But in comparison to someone who has just left university, she is now a grown-up. Which means adjusting your self-image, probably just as much as I’ve had to in the last few years as a middle-aged person. Maybe feeling old, like feeling poor, is only to do with comparing yourself to other people. So if it seems unfair to me when people under 30 complain about their great age, that means I can’t say anything about feeling old in front of friends who are closer to 60. There is a time - probably around the age of nine and three quarters - when you actually want to be older than you really are. Maybe the rest of us should just forget about birthdays.

Don't treat me like a child

The Guardian has profiled two people about being ‘older women’ in the workplace. Is this an issue? It’s what you make of it.

There have been times, working among twenty- and thirty-somethings, when I’ve felt invisible. There have been other times when I’ve felt accepted. But that works both ways.

The generation gap is always going to seem wider if you’re looking downwards from a great height. The woman in the article describes her younger colleagues as ‘babies’ and ‘children’. The Guardian writer mentions ‘prejudice and discrimination’... Looks like it works both ways.

Yes, I have felt overlooked by ultra-fashionable types. Yes, I have felt marginalised by the preponderance of 80s pop music at works dos. And yes, it did hurt a bit to hear a colleague agonising over her ‘quarter century’, when my own half-century was approaching. But she wasn’t to know about my birthday: I was keeping it quiet.

Many of my colleagues don’t know anything about life before mobile phones, the internet, or student debt. That doesn’t make them stupid. It just means they see things differently.

It took a bit of getting used to, but after a while you stop noticing. Just because someone has different cultural references doesn’t mean they have nothing in common with you. There have been times in my working life when the people I’ve clicked with the most were the youngest ones in the office. Partly because they hadn’t been in the organisation long enough to get institutionalised. Partly because we shared the same values. For the women who want to dismiss others as ‘babies’, ever heard of ‘respect’? I believe it’s quite a buzz word among the young.

In praise of younger men

I only recently heard about Madonna and Jesus, on account of I mostly get my news from the Guardian and Channel 4. And it’s not really what I usually describe as news. Still, you could say it’s good news for older women. Good news for Madonna anyway. I expect she needed cheering up.

I’d never claim to have much in common with Madonna, apart from age and a broken marriage (just the one in my case). But, around the time of my divorce, I did snog a young man who was born the year I did my O Levels. He was better looking than Madonna’s boyfriend, too. It wouldn’t have worked out: I didn’t have much in common with him, either, apart from a college course and a love of the Clash. But I have to say it did cheer me up at the time.

Mad Men

‘Youngsters aren’t just fresher versions of us. They don’t know anything,’ says Don Draper in Mad Men. Don Draper is 36. He’s also a fictional character. But he’s right. At work, I know much more than the youngsters. And they don’t know the half of it. There’s hidden power in being old. On the outside, you look just like them, only older. On the inside, you have a secret weapon. You’re not afraid to say no.

In praise of older women part 2

At the weekend I came across my next door neighbour digging up ivy from her garden.

She was 90 this year. She didn't even make a big deal about that.

I will think of this next time I am tempted to complain about my arthritis.

Remember the Mallen Streak?

Most women who ‘look good for their age’ dye their hair. Discuss. I always said I wouldn’t dye my hair again because when I went grey I wanted to be there to see it happen. I was quite excited when it did. I thought I’d made it to maturity when I got my first grey hair. I’ve got a few more now and I’m fine with this. In theory. I don’t mind having grey hair: I do mind having boring hair. I have (or had) dark brown hair; it’s been admired from time to time. For some time now I have yearned to have a white streak in it. Now I have discovered that (if I comb it a certain way) I do have one. It made my day. I might never make it as Cruella de Vil. But I might at least manage a Mallen Streak.

In praise of older women

Some wise words in the Guardian today from Manjinder Virk in praise of older women. Reckon her mum qualifies for the Older than Elvis hall of fame.

My mother also turned 60 this year and she celebrated this momentous occasion by spinning the decks - well, CDs, to be more precise. My mum, aka DJ Jasvir, is a writer by day and a radio presenter by night.

Why Madonna is amazing

A conversation at work: Colleague: ‘Madonna is my hero. She’s amazing. She’s nearly 50.’ Me: ‘What’s so amazing about being nearly 50?’ I’m living a lie. People don’t know how old I am. I’ve always looked younger than I am. When I was 21 this was really annoying. Now I like it a bit better. I remember when I was a child hearing jokes about how women lie about their age. I never understood the jokes. But now I understand why they do it. It’s not vanity. It’s not trying to deceive people. It’s to see if anyone will notice. I wonder how long it will take before I start saying: ‘I’m 83 you know.’