She was 42?! I’m 44

[AmIoldbutdontrealiseit]

Shirley Valentine. Sat watching it on Channel 5, obviously seen it before but when very young so it didn’t have quite the same impact.
Cannot believe she was 42, I’ve just turned 44 and whilst I don’t feel young, I’m surely not frumpy and middle aged, pretty as she was, if you know what I mean?
The anorak wearing, egg and chip making and very mumsy, almost grandma feel?
I realise it was set in the 80’s but is it that we look/act younger now, or that we’re really middle aged and frumpy but don’t realise it 😬
In comparison, I have a 3 year old Dd, a career, live abroad, have longer hair, wear converse, parka and Gucci bag (just example today’s outfit) use Instagram, have many interests. My life is mainly centred around Dd so isn’t wild as in before, clubbing, festivals, travelling etc…but..is this what my age is really like inside?

Hope that made sense 🤣

@Echobelly

I've been wanting to watch it, I looked at the trailer the other day (I am also 44) but I immediately thought it was just fascinating that 42 was kind of 'deep in middle age and past it' at that time. Someone like Shirley would likely be married for 20 years by then, whereas these days it's more likely someone her age would be married for less than 10 year, possibly not even 5.

Remember, as to 'looking older', we all tend to stick with the styles of our youth, so she's wearing a style that looks 'old' to us now. It's like when you watch old Top of the Pops from the 80s and all the teenagers in the audience have bouffant hair that you'd expect in someone 40 years older, because that's how they kept wearing their hair through life!

This is interesting. I am in my late fifties and got married at 25. That was later than many of my friends. I still think 42 is middle-aged as it is halfway through most peoples lives. But yes, if you have been married for 20 years in a shit marriage bringing up kids, its not surprising women reassess their lives once the kids have left home.

@ZoeTheThornyDevil

Now that I think about it, my boss, who is in her late fifties, left her shit husband when their kids flew the nest. She's glamorous, has a lovely flat, a great career, and a new partner, the same age, who has a great career and grown kids of his own.

Yes, not every woman can be my boss, and she's where she is because she hung on to her own job and career.

@endofbluenight

I think the issue is about the impact of financial independence. Your boss had clearly maintained hers through her life. Its about the difficulty of trying to basically start out from scratch in middle age, if you don't have financial independence. If you are trying to start a career you are 50 plus competing against 20 something graduates.

This exactly! I can't believe some people actually aren't getting this. The life of over-privilege from a few is stinking out this thread.

@ZoeTheThornyDevil

Why does a woman need a snazzy new career, much less a new man, though, to leave? Obviously the devil is in the details, but if you're miserable with a man, as long as you can support yourself wouldn't you be better off in a small flat, and who needs a new man, much less a younger one? Most women will finish their lives alone in any case as they're usually younger than male partners and live longer; why would you rather be stuck with a man you hate than be single?

I never SAID they need all that at all! ^

THIS is the fantasy scenario peddled by some mumsnetters, when in reality, what I and some others like @Jessie75 said, will be the more likely scenario.

^Most women who find themselves getting divorced at 40+ proceed to spend the rest of their lives in poverty sadly. I was lucky in that I got out at 37 I think if it had been left any later I would’ve been serious financial trouble."

The scenario you described about your clearly privileged and well-off ex-BOSS in her late 50s, having a wonderful shiny new life with a new partner and a 'great new career,' at almost 60 is FAR more rare than women struggling, and living in poverty after leaving their DH.

For every woman who leaves her DH at 50+, and has a wonderful illustrious new life full of wealth and happiness, and a fab new career, and men half her age falling over themselves to date her, there will be 50 women, whose life is just full of working a shit minimum pay job, struggling to make ends meet, and living in a shitty private-let one bedroom dump.

We're not living in some fucking Jackie Collins novel. MOST people live in the real world.

[quote LittleRoundRobin]@ZoeTheThornyDevil

Now that I think about it, my boss, who is in her late fifties, left her shit husband when their kids flew the nest. She's glamorous, has a lovely flat, a great career, and a new partner, the same age, who has a great career and grown kids of his own.

Yes, not every woman can be my boss, and she's where she is because she hung on to her own job and career.

@endofbluenight

I think the issue is about the impact of financial independence. Your boss had clearly maintained hers through her life. Its about the difficulty of trying to basically start out from scratch in middle age, if you don't have financial independence. If you are trying to start a career you are 50 plus competing against 20 something graduates.

This exactly! I can't believe some people actually aren't getting this. The life of over-privilege from a few is stinking out this thread. [/quote]
Let's remember too that even if the Shirleys of the 70s and 80s worked they would very likely have been making 'small stamp' reduced NI contributions and therefore didn't even have a full state pension in their futures.

I didn't say she had a great new career. She has the same career, because she slogged it out to hold onto it despite getting zero support. I also said that few women are going to be in her exact circumstance. But you're deliberately painting a cartoonish portrait of the joys women are allegedly promised if they leave a shit DH which is as unrealistic as the idea that they have no choice but to shut up and take it. Things have changed a lot for women in that situation. And women can do a lot to maintain and build their own financial security so that they are in a position to leave a shit DH, if they want to, and have a good life. Not necessarily a glamorous, career driven life. But a good, independent life.

Let's remember too that even if the Shirleys of the 70s and 80s worked they would very likely have been making 'small stamp' reduced NI contributions and therefore didn't even have a full state pension in their futures.

I hadn't realised this, how depressing.

@ZoeTheThornyDevil Just stop it FFS. You're embarrassing yourself now.

@BarkminsterBlue

Let's remember too that even if the Shirleys of the 70s and 80s worked they would very likely have been making 'small stamp' reduced NI contributions and therefore didn't even have a full state pension in their futures.

This !!! ^ Depressing isn't it?

@Doingtheboxerbeat

Everyone seems to look super old in older films. I thought it was just me watching it through young eyes - but no, they still do. It's obviously the hair /makeup /eyebrows /fashion etc.

It was made in 1989 so I was 41 and I don't relate to her lifestyle although wish I'd had her skin! Williy Russell used to write about working class women in the same way, fairly down-trodden, remember Educating RIta, a similar period. they were not career women at all and lived pretty mundane lives, pandering to their husbands and children.

And women can do a lot to maintain and build their own financial security so that they are in a position to leave a shit DH, if they want to, and have a good life. Not necessarily a glamorous, career driven life. But a good, independent life
They can but many don't for many reasons. The burden of childcare still falls on women heavily, the cost of childcare is mentally usually calculated against the women's earnings alone so the decision of whether it is 'worth' the woman working does not look at family income as a whole. Women are far more likely than men to give up their own jobs and careers to follow their husband's career than vice versa, men are far less likely to reduce their work hours to balance domestic and childcare labour. Women still do more than their fair share of domestic and childcare labour making is physically and mentally harder for them to maintain the earning power of men. Its well documented that even working women's careers stagnate once they have children though men's do not.

Women are much more likely to be living in poverty after a relationship breakdown than men.

There are a lot of societal influences which massively disadvantage women in this area.

I wish there were some sort of pPubliic Health campaign in this so that young owomenn, and not so young ,could make more inforrmed decisionss.

@CSJobseeker

Let's remember too that even if the Shirleys of the 70s and 80s worked they would very likely have been making 'small stamp' reduced NI contributions and therefore didn't even have a full state pension in their futures.

I hadn't realised this, how depressing.

I worked in the 70s and 80s and so did all my female friends and relatives. Non of us paid the small stamp longterm (I did for 5 years when I needed the money but had enough years left to get a full pension) and have full pensions now. Honestly even as someone who left school at 15 and was a mum when still a teenager I knew about finances, some women chose to pay the small stamp because they needed the money.

@GrandmasCat

Everybody looked older in the 80s. But obviously, we didn’t realise about that until 20 years later.

The clothes and hairstyles were not exactly flattering.

I can almost here today's children saying exactly the same thing in 20 years time, we said it in the 60s about our parents' generation! We were looking at an old school photo and I was astonished at how old some of the staff looked who I know were only in their mid-late 20s!

There were still 200 women paying the small stamp in 2019.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

It was a different world. When I started primary school (70s), I had the oldest mother in the class. Mum was 26 🙀

Maybe it depends on areas? When my eldest started school in the 70s I was 23 and he was embarrassed as I was so much younger than the other mums. He went to a sport club when he was about 7, I used to chat to another mum, I was mid 20s she was 40ish. One day she said she was so upset as her little girl had said she wanted a young mum like me, I said shall we swap, my son says he wants a grown up mum like you.

Women can't win can they.

@BarkminsterBlue

There were still 200 women paying the small stamp in 2019.

How many were paying the full stamp. I used to run a payroll, can't remember a woman being on the small stamp in the 80s, a few in the 70s. Unions used to give lots of advice as did payroll depts.

I was running a payroll until 2019, plenty of young women refusing to be auto enrolled into pension schemes. You can explain all the advantages, how much the boss has to put in etc but some people will always choose the extra in their pocket. That isn't a thing peculiar to women in the 70s or 80s. You get exactly the same answers, I can't afford it, it won't be worth anything in 30/40 years time, I might be dead.

The Duchess of Cambridge dresses like a 50-year-old always has

Not really

In fairness, a private pension is only worth having if it takes you over benefit levels. And even less worth having for a low earner who is renting.
I remember when young lots of elderly people complaining because they were worse off than they would have been without a private pension.

And I agree the Duchess of Cambridge dresses old for her age.

Most women who dress frumpy though are poorer, just like Shirley Valentine.

I think the Duchess of Cambridge decided to dodge all the media insanity about Di's fashion choices by dressing in a pretty boring way. Don't blame her at all, and it seems to have worked well as a tactic.

Having said that, it was nice to see her looking so glam, for once, at the James Bond premiere. She looked bloody fabulous and she knew it 😀

@RoyalFamilyFan

In fairness, a private pension is only worth having if it takes you over benefit levels. And even less worth having for a low earner who is renting. I remember when young lots of elderly people complaining because they were worse off than they would have been without a private pension.

Women would have said the same about the small stamp, why bother paying more when you will just miss out on benefits.

The SRP has changed though flat rate is just under £180 a week if you join a pension scheme in your 20s you should do alot better than the current average of £30 a week. The breakeven figure will obviously be alot different for renters and home owners.

My mum was 38 when she had me in the early 80s so about 43 when I started school. She stood out then, probably wouldn’t these days.

@ancientgran the stamp was always worth paying.
It is hard to plan because things do change. I will get a state pension of £175 per week at 66 years of age with full NI contributions. That is less than young people will get when they retire, and less than my dad gets in his state pension.

Stifler's mom was 37. You're welcome.

@ancientgran the pensioners I knew were on paper better off than pensioners just on benefits. But by the time you took into account what people got free on benefits, they often were not.
For a low earner like me my pension will be small. I am not sure I should have bothered.