Hot Flashes & Cool Topics Podcast

BONUS EPISODE: MIDLIFE CRISIS WITH ADA CALHOUN

In this bonus episode, we have a conversation with author Ada Calhoun.  Her book, WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP: WOMEN’S NEW MIDLIFE CRISIS is currently on the New York Times Best Seller’s list.  It chronicles the midlife struggles of the Generation X women born 1965-1980, sandwiched between the Boomers and Millennials.

Ms. Calhoun started this journey with a request from Oprah’s Magazine to write an article about today’s new midlife crisis for women.  She only then recognized that she was, in fact, in her own midlife crisis journey and the article went viral.  Ada Calhoun’s Midlife Crisis traveled from a thoughtful Oprah article to a well researched analysis of modern Generation X women.

Women were told by our boomer moms that we could achieve anything, be anything and do anything.  We were not told, however, how to juggle all these achievements.  There was no road map to success in the corporate world or for raising a family.  We became helicopter parents, stressed out corporate executives, and guilty moms.

Our expectations of success were met with very little support system. We lived through economic downturns around 2007-2009 which caused additional financial stress.  Some women waited to have children until they climbed the corporate ladder only to find that they could no longer conceive them while others had children earlier in life and found little to no current career prospects.  Ms. Calhoun talks perimenopause and menopause, the heightened emotional state and stress for women that no one seems to want to talk about at home or in the workplace.

Ms. Calhoun interviewed hundreds of midlife middle class women and combined those interviews with extensive research to create a clear picture of the unique challenges we face as the often forgotten generation.  Some of the struggles seem overwhelming but Ada made sure to highlight some positive things to look forward to for midlife women.  This is a temporary situation that we should reframe in light of our new understanding that we don’t need to have it all to be happy.  

BOOK CLUB:

We picked this as our inaugural book club for the Virtual Book Club because we thought it would a great reflection to the podcast. We are trying to change the narrative in midlife and beyond. WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP: WOMEN’S NEW MIDLIFE CRISIS sheds light on the Generation X Midlife Crisis and Ada Calhoun.

REVIEWS :

“Ada Calhoun’s soulful investigation into the complex landscape women in midlife face today is downright stunning. Calhoun has captured the voices—some broken, some resilient, many barely staying afloat—of over 200 women from around the country and in doing so, shown us how much we share in divisive times. You will recognize yourself in these pages, breathe a sigh of relief, and think, I’m not alone.”

—Susannah Cahalan, author of the New York Times bestselling Brain on Fire

“Helping women realize that some difficulty, some confusion, is not just all in their mind is probably one of your more feminist acts, and the impressive amount of research Ada Calhoun did on the very specific forces, past and present, that are bedeviling Gen X women as they face the strange period that is midlife is just that kind of gift. But the other gift is that she writes with clear sight, compassion, and hope about our very specific talents and tenacity. Which means: this book is a thousand times more healing than a jadeite egg!”

—Carlene Bauer, author of Not That Kind of Girland Frances and Bernard

Please read and share your thoughts.

Contact: Ada Calhoun