As she reaches middle age with two daughters in puberty, author Erin Kelly reflects on her perspective on ageing, and how much it has changed since she was a teen herself…
I here’s a goddess in my wardrobe. She looks like a Disney princess, albeit one with a mullet and a safety pin through one ear. She’s looking for an old Topshop Boutique blouse of mine that she wants to borrow and thinks I’ve hidden from her (because I have), in case she trashes it (because she will).
I am 47, with two daughters. Marnie is 15 and Sadie is 11. My house is like the hor mone hotel with me in perimenopause and them in puberty. They are at the mercy of their moods: I have brain fog and a body that changes shape and size several times a day.
When my elder daughter turns men’s heads, I honestly pity her. I never enjoyed that kind of attention from strangers. It doesn’t bother me that women my age get ignored in nightclubs because a) I’ve done my time raving the night away in a bra top and army trousers; it’s their turn next and b) I would rather eat my own hair than go to one now. What I am losing in youth, I’m gaining in a different kind of status. Much of my social life revolves around my job as a writer. After 15 years and 10 novels, I have presence and wisdom and conversation worth more than a million wolf whistles.
I spent my teenage years thinking all my problems would vanish if only I were more conventionally beautiful, which for my generation meant heroin-chic thin, and for me personally meant smooth hair (Frizz Ease was not invented until I was 14). Marnie is slender, willowy, with glossy hair and eyelashes for days. And none of it changes the internal reality of being 15. The shifting friendships, the exam pressure, the quest to understand the male of the species are as bewildering to her as the rest of us. Her looks are no guard against that. It’s a lesson it took me two lifetimes – mine and hers – to learn, and it’s incredibly liberating.
Of course, she won’t learn this for some time yet. My girls don’t appreciate their youth because nobody does. If they do think about their own age at all it’s in terms of what it means for their independence. They know exactly when they’ll be free to get a Saturday job, learn to drive, get tattoos. They have plenty of opinions on my ageing, though, seeing it as some kind of character flaw. Do I know, they ask me, that my hair is, like, literally grey? They covet my ‘retro’ Buffalo trainers but sneer at my beloved vintage Laura Ashley dresses and delight in my nascent bingo wings (even though I can beat both of them in an arm wrestle at the same time, thank you Pilates).
They make me laugh every day and I’m inspired by their adventures in fashion. I’m aware that after 40, if you’re not careful, your
