Has anyone read this article by Lucy Cavendish?

[eavietea]

I read it and I can't quite make out what it is she is talking about. On one had she talks about feeling invisible and that she and other women aren't who they used to be and have grown past the roles they used to play in their own lives and society but then it seems to say it's more about how their internal feelings have changed, not caring so much about themselves or anyone, feeling more anxiety, negativity. I can understand all those things but to me what she is really getting at in the article is a bit muddled. I am a bit younger than my 50's but i am peri-menopausal. I just wondered if anyone else had read it and had any thoughts?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/22/a-call-to-action-to-love-ourselves-how-women-in-their-50s-can-leave-the-shadows

She’s always been a shamelessly untalented entitled grifter and obviously has zero self awareness - perhaps she should have reflected a tad more in her relationships and child rearing - but then she’d have not had any guff for her inane articles 😐☘️👍🏿

So she's invisible unless she's on a beach?

I agree with the consensus here.

Reminded me of Joan Didions quote "I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be"...

But I wasn't sure whether lucy cavendish was saying her past identity was gone and a new one was emerging, or whether she was morphing from one to the other, while suggesting that she grows to love the old one .. and the new one?... obvs I didn't get it. But an excuse to share that Joan Didion quote!

Sibary. Not a nice woman at all, that one.

I am almost her age, am an almost empty nester, and think this is the worst self-indulgent twaddle. I hate all this self-love crap. What does it even mean except to generate business for counsellors?

My tip for LC is do something proactive, some sort of new project that you feel excited about- new job, new relationship, whatever. That will help you forge a new identity, if that’s what you need, much more than navel-gazing and fretting.

On the one hand she’s banging on about self love, and appears to be quite self-obsessed, and on the other hand she seems to have no way of defining herself outside her relationship to other people. I don’t feel any more or less invisible than I did 10 or 20 years ago, but I also don’t spend my life obsessing about whether or not I fit in. I just get on with wha I want to do.

Self-indulgent bollocks. I'm in my 50s and I'm sick of women navel-gazing about being in their 50s. Plus she's trying to plug her therapy business (since when was she a therapist? She used to have a tedious 'me, me, me' column in the Telegraph). As someone said upthread, "hard avoid".

Do you know her personally?

I admit to missing my DS who has moved out for uni and is very busy with is own life. But far better than him sitting at home refusing to leave his room. I try not to be maudlin about these things. There's nothing more guaranteed to put your children -and everyone else- off. I intend to keep moving forward.

To be honest I’m much younger than her so maybe I don’t understand. But I’ve never seen a 50+ woman reading somewhere and thought she was a ‘remainer woman’. I usually look at the book cover and wonder if it’s good - they could be a Nobel prize winner with 12 kids and I wouldn’t know or care.

To me, what she is saying is that as a journalist she doesn’t know what to write about anymore. Generally it’s 20s (finding yourself, dating), 30s (weddings and babies or no weddings and babies and dating or other peoples wedding and babies and how it affects you), 40s (being a mum or being child free or infertility). In among all the other things like travel, beauty, hobbies, addiction, therapy that make us rounded individuals.

Shes based her USP on being a mum of 4. Now she doesn’t know who she is or what to write about. And she thinks that means everyone else must feel that way too.

im a journalist so maybe I’m biased. But then as a northerner they only ever seemed to use me as a token. For everything else I was ‘too young’ but they let the much posher southern girl 2 years younger than me write it instead).

But I’ve never seen a 50+ woman reading somewhere and thought she was a ‘remainer woman’. I usually look at the book cover and wonder if it’s good - they could be a Nobel prize winner with 12 kids and I wouldn’t know or care.

That's how most normal people think. Most people just want to know if the book is good!

I don't think I've ever read an article of LC's that wasn't waffley bullshit.

Don’t worry, it is plenty irritating and alienating to women who are mothers too. In fact irritating to anyone who isn’t her, I would imagine. Equal opportunities irritating.

What a load of banal cobblers. Mind you, she's always been worryingly self-obsessed. Therapist my arse.

The first paragraph pissed me off, where she thinks she is seen as "some sort of remaindered woman, husband-less, child-less". It shows what she really thinks of women without children, unlike important mothers of 4 like herself. She seems ashamed that anyone might mistake her for a single, childfree older woman.

Maybe she should do some reflection on her attitude before she attempts to counsel any further women.

I am so bored of all the menopausal awareness stuff. Why does awareness raising always end up as self indulgent OTT nonsense. The new thing is for former mummy influencers to now start banging on about being peri menopausal

Every second post on MN seems to be about peri menopause or adult women diagnosing themselves with ADHD. It's doing my head in!

I don't get the invisible thing. I feel like older women are far more visible, chatty, involved in society. If anyone is invisible it feels like younger people.
The older I get the more visible I feel! More people talk to me etc

I agree, despite being mid menopause myself. There's no need to wang on about it.
And, yes, like PP, I'm not feeling lost or invisible, I'm busy and occupied.

Jesus what a load of shite

Although thanks op, you've done me a favour. I'll know to avoid any more LC articles.

Fortunately no. I have read her columns and she seems like a bit of a mean girl. Of course that could just be the way she comes across.

This was another absolute banger from LC

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/20438404-cfb9-11ed-9a00-73fd2b90e22e?shareToken=96cc90773302af69d532b2970d8b22fe

The agony - in the middle of the cost of living crisis - of having to face downsizing after her divorce, which means giving up her 14-seat dining table but yeyyy the happy coincidence of having friends who lend her a vast house with a tennis court & pool, which is empty and available for her to have as long as she likes - but woe, woe, it means that she also has to give up her big old marital bed and the borrowed house is gosh, well, so huge in a mini stately home kind of way that all her children's friends just will keep coming and staying for aaaaages. Poor me.

Just another incoherent article where you have no idea what point she is trying to make, and it's cobbled together shite with zero self-awareness of how she is coming across. The thought of getting therapy from her is wtaf.

@friskybivalves Aye I know! Go and do some care work ya daft wummin then come crying to me ! So indulged 😂 Tennis court ffs!