Tell me about your 40s

[Lelophants]

I'm only just 30 so know I have a way off, but I have already started to think about things very differently. I had a baby and then obviously coronavirus happened. I love having a baby but oh my it's hard work! I think you can very easily lose who you are when you're caught up in it all. I plan on having at least one more (which is something I've always wanted to experience, so I'm not making any complaints!) but already seeing how quickly the last year has gone, how exhausted my body looks 😅, the fact I'm going to be SAHM for a bit with coronavirus (I am already looking for something next year, but I know it's going to be so hard to juggle my career with children. I haven't really achieved what I want with it so far so how will this get any better? )

I just think to myself turning 40. I'll have a 10 year old and hopefully at least one younger child! Amazing but so much of my life will be taken up with kids! How on earth am I going to feel? What will I have achieved in this 10 years of kids?

Please tell me there will still be time to travel lots, have me time, sort out my bloody career and feel OK about myself before the damn menopause! I feel like that's just enough thing women tend to suffer and I'm not sure what other things there are to look forward to after?

I’m 42, I had mine a bit younger thank you so I have two teens. They are wonderful but I miss the uncomplicatedness of little children. It’s hard work but wonderful when they are so small and they love you unconditionally 🙂
What kept me sane when they were little was 1-2 weekends away a year without the kids. Either with DH or a friend. It just sort of recharged me.
I’m a SAHM. My achievements are the relationship I’ve built with my DC, my marriage, the support I have provided to DH so we are in a situation so that I can stay home. They might not be super ambitious I know.
Now the DC are older I’m starting to look for what I might do for me. But what has kept me sane in the years is being social and reading.

Blimey. You talk of being 40 odd in the sort of tone I'd expect for 80..

When I was in my forties I was in my prime. I never looked or felt better. I was more confident about things too.

Lol! In my 40s I had a baby!

@Serenschintte how can you be a SAHM when your kids are school age?

Hi. I'm 40, had one DD at 36 and she is now 4. I feel that I'm getting my life back and now she is a full wee person in her own right it feels like the baby days are well behind me. Although the baby and toddler days were full on (DD breastfed until she was 3), I do feel quite nostalgic for those days. So in (limited) experience, I'd say that once your kids turn 4 life becomes a lot more manageable and you can enter a new phase.

I had a baby at 43, so my 40's look very different to how yours probably will. We are now 48 and 5 years old. I'm now thinking how my life will be at 60. Haha

I've been in lockdown/COVID drama for the entirety of my 40's (end March) Things can only get better!

[quote theworldhasfallenoutmybottom]@Serenschintte how can you be a SAHM when your kids are school age? [/quote]
Don’t be annoying @theworldhasfallenoutmybottom

Clearly Seren means she doesn’t work outside of the home. School age children still require a lot of work, just in different ways to pre-schoolers. And as she also said, supporting a husband in a job that allows her to not work is also a job in itself at times.

I spent my 30’s having my children.
It was a hard slog.

Now in early 40s and life is good, children are capable to feed dress themselves and help with house work

Dc are good fun to be around and meals out are lovely.

I hope yours will be wonderful! Like a lot of other posters, I had my children fairly late (late 30s), so have come into my 40s with small children, to deal with a parental death, my own various (perimenopausal?) health crap, and a lot of responsibility at work (because until I was 36 I was a flat-out career woman).

The advantage of having children younger is that you won't have small children in your 40s, and might not feel so knackered! The disadvantage is that you're unlikely to be as senior at work as you would have been with another five years of uninterrupted work. So I imagine that for you (unless you go on to have a very large family) that the 40s will be all about enjoying your teenagers and working hard, saving into your pension, maybe moving to a bigger house etc.

But really who can say. This is a tough period of time for everyone. I hope your 40s will be easier.

@Anordinarymum

When I was in my forties I was in my prime. I never looked or felt better. I was more confident about things too.

this is what I like to hear!

Thanks @hopsalong

I have been reading more about menopause lately and it's made me realise (even more!) how crap things are for women and how early it can be. Hope it all goes well for you too!

Truthfully? My 40s were awful. I was a single mum, juggling with a small school age child and work. Life was hard. You are also aware of age creeping up on you with failing eyesight and aches and pains.

Fast forward to the very end of my 40s (I'm 52 now) and life turned out brilliantly.

Things are much better with an adult child, more independence, more me time than I could ever have wished for and a knee op.

I also had my DS at 30 (just the one though). I'm now 47, so he is an older teen. I have loved my 40s so far. I've built a great career, fallen in love with a wonderful man, and now I'm looking forward to 50 and a new direction in life.

I juggled single parenthood, shift work, a new career, an undergraduate degree, professional qualifications and an MSc during my 30s, all of which was really important to me, but I ignored my health and wellbeing. I was permanently exhausted. Now I am happier, fitter, more focused and more confident in my 40s than I ever was in my 30s. I look great too

I agree you sound as if you're viewing 40-something as akin to old age. I feel as if the best bit of my life is just beginning - it's not all hot flushes and elasticated waists you know!

At 42, I love hearing positive stories about women in their forties ( and fifties and beyond). While my thirties was about raising little ones, building a business and getting through to the end of the day, my forties has so far been about: enjoying the fruits of building my business and planning where to take it next, developing new professional skills, travel to exciting places, close friends getting closer ( others drifting away), family ( festivals, days out, museums, changing relationships), still being in love with my husband, children developing independence ( for better or worse), understanding my son's special needs, having a laugh with the children and sharing interests, cooking, feeling fitter but looking wobblier, reading much more, buying and enjoying lovely clothes, becoming politically active, puppies, walking holidays, a lovely new house (and one inherited in France), learning good French, sadly parental illness and death.

So far, it's been busy and complicated but fulfilling and fun!

I'm 42 and had my first child at 31. Second at 34. Life has its challenges now, but we have a pretty good life really. Social life is good, kids are more independent, we get plenty of sleep! Both work, although I'm PT, we have a reasonable amount of money. So all in all not bad! Have had issues, close family bereavements and some health issues but we take each day as it comes and also enjoy our time together and with friends too.

@BoxAndKnife

I also had my DS at 30 (just the one though). I'm now 47, so he is an older teen. I have loved my 40s so far. I've built a great career, fallen in love with a wonderful man, and now I'm looking forward to 50 and a new direction in life.

I juggled single parenthood, shift work, a new career, an undergraduate degree, professional qualifications and an MSc during my 30s, all of which was really important to me, but I ignored my health and wellbeing. I was permanently exhausted. Now I am happier, fitter, more focused and more confident in my 40s than I ever was in my 30s. I look great too

I agree you sound as if you're viewing 40-something as akin to old age. I feel as if the best bit of my life is just beginning - it's not all hot flushes and elasticated waists you know!

This is great 👍

I'll be 51 this week so have definitely said goodbye to my forties. That was my best decade so far though ... I've been a sole parent from the outset (28) so have always worked full time, but it was much easier when DD was at secondary school and didn't need before and after school care. In my forties my career (financial controller) largely stayed the same, couple of job changes, started dating again after 12 single years and had three proposals (I'm still single as I like my independence). Friends are very important, my sobriety (sober 13 years) incredibly so. No menopause yet, my mother was 90 last week and is in perfect health, no issues there so I'm hoping that's genetic and that everything will continue in the same vein 😀.