After directing several successful films, Sam Taylor-Johnson took time off to “build family.” When she came back to Hollywood, she was sitting around with a bunch of industry people, and they asked what she’d been up to.
“Just had my fourth kid,” she said.
“Moving on,” the man replied, turning away.
Yeah, we get it. Simply making new humans doesn’t count for much. Youth, looks and material success is all that matters in some small minds.
That guy might not have been impressed, but I am. Ms. Taylor-Johnson, the director of Fifty Shades of Grey, is 47. She married husband #1, produced her first two kids, battled colon and breast cancer, weathered a divorce, worked in film, met her new husband, a guy 20 years younger, had two more kids, and went back to work, with her husband staying home to take care of the children.
I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s a powerful image of womanhood.
I think this is a new way of growing up female, and it’s strange and intriguing to me. It’s almost as if the woman can drop in and drop out depending on what moves her at whatever stage. Taylor-Johnson exemplifies this way of living, which is actually based on a very old model. When women aren’t restricted by the patriarchy – no offense, all you wonderful feminist men out there – they blossom in amazing ways. I think we’re coming back to understanding this, to maybe allowing it to happen a little and seeing where it goes.
In an interesting essay on how Cheryl Strayed’s journey should empower young women everywhere, the author Krista Simmons celebrates the resurgence of feminism, in that we are moving away from viewing it as the art of hating men, to an understanding that all people should have equal rights (you can see from the comments that it’s a bit early to celebrate). The author is proposing a new (old, but pushed aside) way of looking at how women might live.
“I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told,” writes Cheryl Strayed.
In the same way, we might decide to tell ourselves a different story about aging.
We could invent new ways of thinking about it and living it. Who’s to stop you/us?
I’m talking about a paradigm shift, what Oprah famously publicized as the “aha moment.” All you do is hold up the familiar object, turn it around a bit, and see it from a different angle. For example, what if you could time-travel back to the fifties, and you’re a senior in high school, but you know about the future. Would you jog for exercise through that 1950s neighborhood? Would you let your family smoke? Would you wear jeans? Go barefoot? Burn things in your backyard incinerator? How would your friends, family, and neighbors see your weird views?
Many of us are beginning to reject the time-worn cultural mandate that we denigrate and despise our fine, mature selves.
Culturally speaking, we’re beginning to value the gifts of longevity as much as we do smooth skin.
If you want to see examples of this newly-appreciated power, check out this article, Old Masters: After 80, Some People Don’t Retire. They Reign. (Great title, right?) It’s by Lewis H. Lapham, who’s in his 80s. My favorite snippet from the article is where 85-year-old naturalist Edward O. Wilson explains how he started to see things differently, wherein he says, in part:
…about 10 years ago, when I began reading and thinking more broadly…
Wilson implies he began to bloom in a new way at the age of 75. That makes me feel very excited about the future, and I hope you’re starting to feel the same way.
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Lynne,
Love it as always! In addition, I want to share something with you — Ari Seth Cohen — a wonderful photographer in NYC who started a blog called “Advanced Style” which took off like fire. It was turned into a coffee table book and features amazing, beautiful and stylish women over 55ish (on up to 90s). He is a man who was always inspired by his grandmother and he has put mature women on the MAP as intriguing modeling material. Check him out, you will like it!
p.s. if you already know of this, sorry for the repeat.
So inspiring Lynne! This totally made my day.
And it makes my day to hear from you, Kathy!
Thanks for the article reference. I went right to Wilson. Book is on my wish list. My goal is to buy less than 20 books this year. I am surrounded by hundreds unread. Maybe by eighty I will finish books and book.
Bob, I have set aside the several hours before bedtime for reading. Whether fiction or non, I am able to enjoy attacking my to-read list in those hours. I got more motivated to save that time frame for books after reading the new information about how blue light from monitor screens (e.g. TV and computers) wakes your brain up and makes it harder to fall asleep.
Great post, Lynne, and as always very thought-provoking. Wow, talk about paradigm shift. Ms. Taylor-Johnson’s sounds like the ultra self made woman. What an inspiration!
Hi Pat, and happy birthday! I think there are parallels for men, too. We’re all living healthier, longer lives, so the potential is great. I’m haunted by the thought someone expressed recently that maybe if we rethought things, young people could also enjoy brief periods of retirement before returning to work, refreshed. I mean a several-year break in which they learn new things, try new things, and then go back to kicking butt fulltime. Instead of killing themselves for 30 years straight, eyes fixed on the finish line. Not sure how to finance it, but it’s early days.
I’m still not enchanted with the whole 50 Shades thing, but she certainly does have an interesting background. I loved the NY Times article on people in their 80s. Gives me hope!
Thanks for the excellent post. I continue to enjoy your thought-provoking pieces on aging. I will be 60 this year, and I think I am experiencing a tectonic shift. I’m excited about it.
Donna! So good to hear from you. As for your last 2 sentences, me too. It’s a great age to be.
Yes! I completely agree that the new way of aging is similar to a new way of being a woman in this day and age. I know without a doubt that my life is dramatically different from that of my mother and she was less than 23 years older than me at her passing. The problem is that there is no roadmap to clearly see where this is leading and what it will look like when we arrive. Perhaps the best thing we can do is read up on and surround ourselves by other women (and progressive men) who are willing to shake up the old models and live on the edge of uncertainty. Like you, I am extremely excited about the future, about where women will evolve to and what aging will look like when I’m finally willing to admit I’m there!
Kathy, that’s the thing I’m most excited about. I keep sensing that there is a WORLD of freedom available to us – that we can be the artists, deciding what color, shape, and medium to use in creating the rest of our lives. We’re so used to being good girls that we maybe aren’t sure how to really bust loose, but we could. Door’s open. Let’s run through, out into the sunshine.
Totally with you. Good post.
Thanks, Barbara.
I encouraged my husband to stay home and pursue his art and photography years ago (think 1980’s). Men didn’t do that then, but my earning power far outstripped his. Of course, part of it was that he had to take care of our then-kindergarten daughter as we couldn’t lose his paycheck and not cut expenses.
Today, stay-at-home Dad’s are far more common. For my daughter, she’s still close to both of us. I think she had a better stronger world for it.
But for a long time, my story was unique. And I didn’t care. It was all mine.
Nancy
Thanks for the links. They really help expand your post!
Nancy
I love your story, Nancy. Kudos to both of you for breaking trail.
Fantastic! Thanks for this!
Glad you enjoyed it, Jan.