Menopause and not caring

[ohfook]

I just have a question for those of you in peri menopause and also dealing with young children.

I've read a few times about people saying menopause made them lose the 'caring gene' and I have to admit that's what concerns me the most. I've got young children and I've always been the more nurturing parent with dh being much stricter but feel we sort of balance each other out. I'm already losing patience with endless minecraft chat then feel guilty for shutting down conversations about my son's interests.

So basically lay it on me, did it change you as a parent? And did it make you less patient and tolerant with your kids? Or am I worrying over nothing? 🙂

Yes. I was on a hair trigger temper-wise. If they so much as breathed while I was reverse parking I was liable to explode.
Six months on HRT now and my eldest recently said she didn't realise I could be the fun one too, she thought it was just dad that brought the fun and I was the naggy, angry one.

@ohfook
Yes, it’s made me very short tempered about all the domestic chores unfortunately and finding it difficult to care for everyone. I just feel like I can’t be bothered with it all and want to be left in peace a lot of the time.

DD went through her Minecraft mania before peri struck and I barely held it together. You have my sympathies! I dealt with it by saying I would listen/talk/watch with her for 20/30 minutes and give her my undivided attention but after that we had to talk about something else or I would go potty. Set your limits.

Thank you for your replies. I'm just so worried about it. Being a decent parent is the one thing that seems to have came naturally to me and that I've truly enjoyed and I'm real scared that it's just because of my hormones! My own mum had an awful time of it during menopause and it took years to fix our relationship. I'm also very conscious that because mine are so young they're in that age where they still need a lot of patience and nurturing.

But you shouldn’t be carrying ‘all the domestic chores’ and carrying the caring burden for everyone. This is the issue.

It’s not that menopause makes you become ‘less caring’, it’s that that hormones that suffuse you through child-bearing years reduce. You then clearly see in stark relief the utter selfishness of maybe a lazy husband or teenage children that took you for a doormat all those years.

The key is to not be a domestic mug in the first place. And then the irritation and impatience has no source. But so many young mothers are desperate to be the teacher’s pet when it comes to child rearing and housekeeping. Meanwhile their husbands get on with their careers and hobbies (and sometimes other women). And kids eventually grow up. It all comes to a head and coincides with the menopause. No wonder women lose their ‘caring’ fluffy side!

Not my experience. If anything I am becoming more mellow with age. I'd say environmental factors e.g. as a pp said, how much of a shit your partner and/or teenagers are, plays a bigger part.

I'm not sure I'm really there yet in terms of hitting menopause (I'm 45) but I'm definitely getting better as I get older. I care less about what strangers think and how tidy my house is but I'm more emotionally present for my children. Possibly the rage will set in in the future!

I should add that I've never had that much truck with monologues about minecraft! Definitely set limits.

It didn’t make me short tempered (I went into early menopause aged 37, I also have one dc with severe autism so that adds another complex twist to it all), but I did find it felt very flat. Not depressed as such - I’ve had serious, severe depression before- but just like I was so bored of it all, the housework, the dc, everything I needed to do for anyone else, whereas before it felt like my reason for living! I just wanted to sit on my own, have a cup of tea and scroll nonsense on my phone or watch my own stuff on Tv. I felt like everyone was getting in my way. It’s a very strange thing. I’ve since started HRT and I don’t feel quite so disconnected but I think a lot of it is just carer burnout rather than low oestrogen perhaps.

@UWhatNow
I don’t disagree and a lot of women find this to be so at this stage. I definitely didn’t set out to be ‘teachers pet’ more a case of seemingly being the more responsible adult and falling into the role.

@Xrays
This is exactly how I’m feeling. So flat and bored of everything. I just can’t be bothered with engaging with life really and feel disconnected. I’m on HRT but this is like a new phase of the menopause. Did you find anything that helps with these feelings?

Yes, my caring gene has completely disappeared. I am 51. What's worse is that I deliberately had my DC young. My kids are adults and I had hoped to be done with parenting and putting my feet up. But DD has a chronic illness and it got worse with Covid , so I am still doing some emotional labour. But I fucking don't want to do it any more.

Bear in mind that the people replying to this are going to mostly people it affects- for MANY of us it's at worst a mild inconvenience.

yes, with me it could be just parental burnout as I have been doing this for a good long while! I think I just expected to be doing less in my 50s.

I am starting HRT this week, so interested to see if anything changes.

I'm perimenopausal and have been for a few years. It definitely hasn't changed my empathy levels at all. I still care as much as always.
Hearing detailed accounts of Minecraft is incredibly dull for all parents. Nothing to do with perimenopause!

Not caring is in the sense of not being emotionally invested in everything. It is not in the sense of not being loving or nurturing.

Yes very much so with the lack of patience and firey temper. I have recently started HRT and can feel the equilibrium settling back. I feel more myself. Not veering from sadness to rage.

My DD is the only thing I'm not impatient/bored/disinterested in tbh! I don't think the drop in hormones has affected me wanting to care for her because loving your DC is about more than hormones. Mine is older (14) but I actually think there might be some advantages to being peri with little ones, I'm certainly modelling better boundaries and self respect now than I would have been when DD was little and I think she would have benefited from having that earlier on.

Menopause was such a non-event for me that I couldn't tell you exactly when it occurred; probably around age 53(?). So while I must have been in peri-menopause while raising my family I can't say that it had any effect on me whatsoever. If anything I've grown more mellow/patient with age.

I’m 49 , and I’ve got three dc , ds and dd2 are both autistic and I’m now really struggling with perimenopause. I just feel I have no paitience.

2 sides to the same coin ? I am enjoying thinking clearly, not being drunk on mummy hormones. Not automatically putting myself for other people, - thinking like a man ?

Good thing for me. Having babies made me over-sensitive, crying at all sorts of slightly sad things. It's been flipping annoying.

Might just be getting older so time passage since I had babies & pregnancy hormones changing my brain, but I am definitely becoming less sensitive. Hallalulah (!!!) I listened to Wires by Athlete in office the other day and although I welled up with tears, I could get thru it; typically that song has sent me bawling previously.

Can't say I've had a single bad thing happen related to peri or any peri, really, mid 50s now.

I need to try the Wires experiment! Just the thought of it used to be enough to make me sob so results should be interesting, will report back

ha! This book had me in tears just now, the chapter when he meets his wife again... I used to be an insensitive hardass <wistful sigh>

So relatable 😍