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| A nip-and-tuck for the stages of life | |
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March 28, 1999 We carefully scrutinize the magazine articles and the books that purport to give us the skinny on the stages our children are passing through: "The Terrible Twos." "The Fabulous Fours." "Throttling Your 13-Year-Old." But what is less well-scrutinized is that parents go through stages, too. You took a deep breath when you hit 30. You grimaced a bit when you hit 40. "But 40 now is not what 40 used to be," you told yourself, bravely, brazenly. My husband -- the young man I met when I was a fresh-faced 22 and he was a callow 26 -- turns 50 in three months. (He doesn't look it, as my kids tell me, in the same breath reminding me I look every inch my 46 years.) I've been thinking a lot about aging lately. Twice in the past two months, I've dreamt I was in labor. I wake with a start, timing dream-state contractions. I think I am mourning the loss of a stage of my life, the time you have babies. In my 20s, I wanted to have a fulfilling career. And I did. In my 30s, I wanted to blend family with career, and create the home of my dreams. And I did. And I was given the unexpected blessing of two more babies, when I was 40 and 42. This second chance at parenting has been a wonderful experience, because I am a less nervous mother. I enjoy my little ones more and fret less. But I am suddenly aware that I am in my mid-40s, that stage of life when you are more comfortable in your skin, but your skin is rapidly wrinkling and your body is sagging. It's the stage of life when -- according to the editor of "Vanity Fair" -- you no longer grasp the Zeitgeist of the culture. (And it's true: I no longer have a clue about the "Top 40" songs.) The stage of life when you need a needle-threader to get thread through that tiny little hole in a sewing needle. The stage of life when your own parents start to decline or die. I am certainly still spooked by the death of my father, who left this life a year ago April 2. The stage of life when you are less willing to be accommodating, to be a good girl or boy and blindly accept the challenges thrown at you by the outside world. At my age, I will define my challenges and my goals, thank you very much. But what are they? Maintaining and pruning. Maintaining and pruning. Maintaining my family, my career, my home, my life, my health. Pruning the extraneous stuff that has collected in my closets and my brain over the decades. Health is emerging as a big issue. My friends are diagnosed with cancer, have stents put into their arteries, take medication for high blood pressure or diabetes. My 41-year-old sister told me she had a hot flash for the first time a couple of weeks ago. This is the stage of life where health is no longer a given, available to be trashed whenever a boss gives you an assignment that requires you to burn the midnight oil for days on end, or cross and re-cross time zones on business trips that blur into one black hole. On Monday, my husband left for work at 6:30 a.m. as usual, flew to Chicago for a meeting, and returned home on the red-eye to sink into bed at 2 a.m. His partner called him at 7 a.m. Tuesday. "Why are you bugging him?" I barked into the phone. I wouldn't wake my husband. Call these the Fractious Forties. And all of a sudden, I read all the health articles, on diabetes, hypertension, cancer, weight control, anti-aging strategies. It's as if I'm going for my medical degree. I have health experts on my cable talk show, and I try to incorporate their suggestions into my daily regimen. As a result, I am taking an herbal fat-burner pill with Garcinia cambogia (as recommended by Dr. Richard Firshein, author of "The Nutraceutical Revolution"); fish oil capsules, magnesium, and zinc on the advice of a naturopathic physician who believes cod liver oil will fix everything that ails you; and glucosamine chondroitin to strengthen cartilage, as recommended by a nutritionist. Oh, yes, and St. John's wort and ginseng, because talk show host Larry King is pitching it, and he apparently has the emotional harmony to be a new father at his age. I was intrigued when Dr. Ronald Livesey was on my show, talking about how he injects himself with human growth hormone every day to slow down the aging process. (He's lost 40 pounds and gained lean muscle mass as a result.) And while I'm not ready to do that, I listened carefully when he talked about how exercise can stimulate growth hormone production naturally. So four or five days a week, I run around the high school track for 30 minutes. Teenage athletes lope effortlessly past me, while I do my impression of The Little Engine That Could (Just Barely). And now I'm going to take another step in the pre-millennium aging adventure. I'm going to have cosmetic surgery. We're going to do a show on the topic, and I offered myself as a guinea pig. The day I was scheduled to meet with the cosmetic surgeon for a consultation, I read an interview with Joan Rivers, in which she said, "If you live in a trailer park, you can scrape together the money for cosmetic surgery. If you have to choose between getting a new car and getting a new face, get the face redone. Where would you rather see the mileage: On your car or on your face?" The surgeon told me I was a perfect candidate for a blepheroplasty, in which bags are removed from under your eyes. "People are probably always telling you you look tired," said the surgeon. "But it's just the fat pads under your eyes. It's genetic. And you look puffier if you've had a salty meal the night before or you've had wine to drink. Remove the fat pads, and you'll see a big difference." The surgery is scheduled for the third week in April. Soon Joan Rivers and I will have something more in common than our age and our sense of humor.
Speaking of aging, this piece marks the fifth anniversary of the Pressured Parent column. We've gone through a lot together, readers, and I am blessed and touched and enriched by my interaction with you. And I am looking for some Pressured Parents who can help with the following topics: Are you a married couple who share child care and housework 50-50? Or are you a married couple working alternate shifts, where Dad and Mom each take primary responsibility for housework and child care when the other spouse is at work? Was your child asked or advised to repeat kindergarten? Did the experience benefit him? Did he have the same teacher two years in a row?
On my CN8 cable show "Family Talk" on Cablevision Channel 45 and Comcast Channel 8 or 3 this week: 6:30 p.m. Monday, postpartum depression; 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, family programming on cable; 6:30 p.m. Thursday, colon cancer.
You can reach Mary Amoroso in care of The Record, 150 River St., Hackensack, N.J. 07601, by phone at (201) 646-4388, by fax at (201) 646-4047, or by e-mail at newsroom@bergen.com. Please give your name and number so she can talk to you. She will not use your name in print, if you would prefer that. Copyright ©1999 Bergen Record Corp. |
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