What does it mean to be a middle-aged woman? No one ever promised it would be fun or exciting. But we used to think it would at least involve some stability. By the time she was about 50, the average woman could expect to have reached some kind of equilibrium in marriage, to be able to maintain her appearance without extreme measures, to have children preparing to leave home soon, and, whether she worked or stayed home, to be on a reasonable financial footing.
But for many women today, the picture doesn’t look so rosy. Not only are they waiting longer to marry, forcing them to spend more time and energy preserving their looks, but when they do settle down, they are starting families later, and as a result, entering the most exhausting years of parenting just as their energy is starting to wane. For divorced women, the picture looks particularly bleak. According to Stephen Jenkins at the London School of Economics, a woman’s income falls by about 20% on average after a divorce. Men, meanwhile, tend to see their incomes rise more than 30% post-divorce.
In her new book, The Madwoman and the Roomba, Atlantic contributor Sandra Tsing Loh seems to be making the most of her situation. But she is 56, divorced, eking out a living as a freelancer, trying to deal with two moody adolescents, and supporting a boyfriend who seems, at best, to be a charming freeloader. Loh’s book is supposed to be a work of humor, but some readers will find the comedy coming dangerously close to tragedy.
The book begins lightheartedly enough. She starts her voyage into “goddesshood,” which is the way some companies spin their products for middle-aged women, with the purchase of some comfortable pajama pants. When one of her friends tells her, “Honey, these are not the Eileen Fischer years,” referring to the high-end loose-fitting clothing brand, Loh says, “I’m fifty-six. I believe these are the Eileen Fischer years. In fact, starting from age twenty-two, I kind of wanted them all to be the Eileen Fischer years.” But Loh’s choices have not exactly brought her to that point of comfort, either physically or emotionally.
Though she comes from a hardworking Chinese immigrant family, Loh has chosen to become a part of the creative class. Living in Southern California, one of the most expensive areas on Earth, Loh gets invited to parties given by the likes of Arianna Huffington, but she drives a beat-up old car, has difficulty paying for the upkeep of her house, and goes out for drinks using Groupons. “I continue to be haunted by the notion,” she writes, “that we are the wrong kind of — possibly downwardly mobile? — Asian.”
Loh spends enough time around rich people to know that some of their political ideas are luxuries of their economic station. She purports to share some of them. “For decades, I’ve never hired a regular cleaning person,” she writes. “Why? Feminist guilt. In Nickel and Dimed, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich argued that it’s oppressive for a First World Woman to pay a Third World Sister to scrub her toilets.” She finally breaks down and hires “Luz, [whom] our nice gay neighbors enthusiastically recommended, because she needs more clients.” Her decision approved by members of an oppressed minority, she can slyly nod to the fact that hiring poor people actually gives them money.
On other political issues, Loh tries to feign interest but doesn’t quite have it in her. Her experience at the Women’s March did not end well. “I already had a mental list of the things I needed for our next women’s march, including Xanax, short-wave radios, and perhaps specially lined pussy hats that could be used as adult diapers. A whole new twist on the saying ‘our bodies, ourselves.’” When she is asked by a friend to join the latest climate march, she declines, saying, “I have some more immediate problems here.” But one can also sense her skepticism about some of the activists, if not their causes. When she hears the chants: “Health is science! Safety is science! Clean water is science,” she yells at the TV, “PS: Nuclear missiles from North Korea? SCIENCE!” Maybe “science” shouldn’t be the North Star on our moral compass.
Loh’s biggest problems seem to stem from the failure of her ideals to match up with reality. She is part of a group of people who are supposed to believe certain things and live a certain way, but it’s not working. Nowhere is this clearer than in her relationship with her boyfriend, Charlie. When she finds a mouse in one of the glue traps set out by the exterminator, she notes, “Now I am a proud feminist, but to me, this all falls under a category called ‘MAN.’”
Aside from screaming like a girl, Charlie isn’t bad at dealing with mice. But that’s about where his utility ends. He doesn’t have a regular job. He invites his friends over to Loh’s place to hang out. He invites Hindu monks to stay with them for several days. And he doesn’t bring in any money. When Loh asks whether he can manage to earn even $1,000 a month, he asks: “What do you expect me to do? Bag groceries at Trader Joe’s?” And when she gets a bill from the IRS for $34,000 in back taxes, Charlie tells her that the notice is just to “scare you” and that the “IRS guys are losers.” Loh responds: “How are they ‘losers’? They actually work for a living.’ Unlike many men currently sleeping in this building, I think but do not say.”
Loh, as The Madwoman and the Roomba demonstrates, is blessed with an abiding sense of humor about her situation. Other women may not have the same patience, but the modern world doesn’t leave them with much choice.
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
