blog -->, Women, Children, ageing
The fuzzy end of the lollipop
Yes more evidence, if any more evidence was needed, that women get what Sugar in the film Some Like it Hot calls “the fuzzy end of the lollipop”.
Rupert was reading a blog today on The Guardian website by a thirty-seven-year-old man who was complaining that he feels old. Yesterday was Rupert’s birthday, he was forty-six, so imagine how irritated he was by this. But he was cheered up by one comment.
“The only solution is younger and younger women,” read the comment. “Follow the French method for calculating her ideal age - half your own plus seven - this makes you just right for a 25 to 26 year-old. Feeling better?”
So where does that leave women? Hanging out with old gits is where it leaves us. According to this method only men over the age of 70 will give me a second look. Great. That’s something to look forward to.
It was Mother’s Day yesterday in England. Here in France it went largely unnoticed but I would like to share two thoughts on mothering with you.
One is a quote by a woman who said: “I was going to be the ideal mother but was too busy bringing up my children.” The other is from Ines de la Fressange, French supermodel and, since her husband’s sudden death a year ago, a single mother. “You may not be the perfect mother,” she told me. “But you are the best mother for your children.”
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008
03 Mar 2008 helena
I’ll go with both of those quotes. Or as my daughter said when she was little “I was born to the mother that best suits me”. Ahh. I will have to remind her of that at the onset of the next teenage tantrum.
Helena,
Rupert hasn’t got what these young cuties are looking for- excesses of money to spend on themselves. School fees and ballet lessons don’t leave much left over for manolos.
Besides, 46 isn’t such a bad birthday. Wait until you are approaching 60 with the speed of a bullet train. Then live your life for all it’s worth. Every time I complained about my age my Nanny would tell me that I wasn’t old, she was (101). She has a point.
No wonder Mothers’ Day went unnoticed in France yesterday, it was grand-mothers’ day. Mothers’day is on 25 May in France this year.
Re your new toy boy aged 70. Hurrah! I have only 8 more years to wait to qualify.
I had my 57th birthday a couple of weeks ago…. and I’d certainly give you a second look!
I might be a bit too young for you though, according to your French ready reckoner…
I’m also now wondering whether my partner, who is 45 next month, is maybe a little too old for me?…..
Damn, I never even thought that until I read this column!
See, you’ve unsettled my entire cosy existence…
Just to make Rupert begone with yet more woe, Wikipedia states that the onset of the mid-life crisis typically starts at 46… I’m also 46 and refuse to give in to any crisis or middle aged spread as Marianne Williamson says in her book The Age of Miracles: “Midlife today is a second puberty of sorts. It is a period distinctly unlike youth, yet distinctly unlike old age.” I will take the puberty but without the angst, greasy hair and spots.
On a lighter note and nothing like as profoundly deep as those you quote this should cheer ruppy-pegs up: “You are as old as the woman you feel.” Which makes him, what are you H? 39? If he sticks with you (dodgy one that living by the French moral code) he will always be seven years younger, lucky man. Julesritter.com