Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press (2020), 288 pages
Description
"When Ada Calhoun found herself in the throes of a midlife crisis, she thought that she had no right to complain. She was married with children and a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too? Calhoun decided to find some answers. She looked into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked. Speaking with women across America about their experiences as the generation raised to "have it all," Calhoun found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, underemployed, and overwhelmed. Instead of their issues being heard, they were told instead to lean in, take "me-time," or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order. In Why We Can't Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X's predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss-and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member foggidawn
The women of Generation X face a unique set of stressors, and we're really feeling it. In this book, Calhoun examines the conditions leading up to all of this misery, and offers a bit of gentle commiseration.
I'm at the tail end of Gen X, sometimes categorized as part of the "micro-generation"
As Calhoun sees it, Gen X women feel an unusual amount of pressure to have it all: job, family, looks, money, house, etc. And, of course, nobody being perfect, we're all almost certainly failing on some measures. Boomer women who achieved career success were lauded for their accomplishments, but Gen X women grew up being told that we could do it all, so if we find that we can't (or don't want to), it feels like failure. And, of course, we're the first generation to hit midlife with social media as a means of constant comparison to the lives of others. Gen X is smaller than the generations on either side, so many of us are facing the pressure for caring for loved ones both older and younger, with fewer people to share the load.
Much of this book is spent defining the problem, looking at various aspects of life. There's a chapter on caregiving (both for children and for aging parents), one on divorce, one on being single and/or childless, one on job instability, one on perimenopause, and more.
The chapter on being single and childless particularly resonated with me. She talks about the concept of "ambiguous loss" -- a woman in midlife might still find a partner, or might still have or adopt children, but the possibility feels like it's decreasing. Calhoun relates the not particularly uplifting stat that, among the employed and college educated, there are 65 unmarried men to every 100 unmarried women. While some women enjoy a single life, for those who don't, this is the point at which it starts to feel painfully inevitable and permanent.
"The last thing we need at this stage of life is self-help. Everyone keeps telling us what to do, as if there is a quick fix for the human condition. What we need at this stage isn't more advice, but solace." Calhoun goes on to talk about shifts in thinking and behavior that might help, ending with the reminder that midlife isn't forever, and that unhappiness is a bell curve that peaks at midlife. If we wait long enough, we will find ourselves on the other side. I did find some solace in the confirmation that I am not alone in my weltschmerz.
I'm at the tail end of Gen X, sometimes categorized as part of the "micro-generation"
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called Xennials, but I've always thought of myself as more X than not. Calhoun defines it like this: "Whether to identify as Gen X is a decision every woman must make for herself, but I believe that if, like me, you were a kid in the Reagan years, had a Koosh ball, or know what sound a dial-up modem makes, you count." Since I meet all three of those criteria, I think I'm in. I'm certainly experiencing the angst she describes, though "midlife crisis" sounds overly dramatic to me. (Calhoun points out that "the stereotypical male midlife crisis involves busting stuff up -- mostly marriages but also careers, norms, reputations. . . . Women's crises tend to be quieter than men's. . . . There has yet to be a blockbuster movie centered on a woman staring out her car's windshield and sighing.")As Calhoun sees it, Gen X women feel an unusual amount of pressure to have it all: job, family, looks, money, house, etc. And, of course, nobody being perfect, we're all almost certainly failing on some measures. Boomer women who achieved career success were lauded for their accomplishments, but Gen X women grew up being told that we could do it all, so if we find that we can't (or don't want to), it feels like failure. And, of course, we're the first generation to hit midlife with social media as a means of constant comparison to the lives of others. Gen X is smaller than the generations on either side, so many of us are facing the pressure for caring for loved ones both older and younger, with fewer people to share the load.
Much of this book is spent defining the problem, looking at various aspects of life. There's a chapter on caregiving (both for children and for aging parents), one on divorce, one on being single and/or childless, one on job instability, one on perimenopause, and more.
The chapter on being single and childless particularly resonated with me. She talks about the concept of "ambiguous loss" -- a woman in midlife might still find a partner, or might still have or adopt children, but the possibility feels like it's decreasing. Calhoun relates the not particularly uplifting stat that, among the employed and college educated, there are 65 unmarried men to every 100 unmarried women. While some women enjoy a single life, for those who don't, this is the point at which it starts to feel painfully inevitable and permanent.
"The last thing we need at this stage of life is self-help. Everyone keeps telling us what to do, as if there is a quick fix for the human condition. What we need at this stage isn't more advice, but solace." Calhoun goes on to talk about shifts in thinking and behavior that might help, ending with the reminder that midlife isn't forever, and that unhappiness is a bell curve that peaks at midlife. If we wait long enough, we will find ourselves on the other side. I did find some solace in the confirmation that I am not alone in my weltschmerz.
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LibraryThing member libraryhead
Mostly a boring list of how crappy life is for GenX women who are expected (by themselves and others) to do too much. The short answer to the title? Stress and perimenopause. Now you have one less thing to do (read this book).
LibraryThing member DzejnCrvena
Miss me with that title; it went over my head.
I initially thought it's the science of insomnia or something about sleep. ha!
The longer I read it, the lower the rating it deserves.
Why? I can see that it's too American-centered, with primary focus on middle class cis white women.
Despite that, I'd
I initially thought it's the science of insomnia or something about sleep. ha!
The longer I read it, the lower the rating it deserves.
Why? I can see that it's too American-centered, with primary focus on middle class cis white women.
Despite that, I'd
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still recommend this as reference to some researchers who might find its contents useful. Show Less
LibraryThing member arosoff
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book (I think I'd rate it 3.5). On the one hand, as a Generation Xer (#ForgottenGeneration) it was nice to see a book specifically focused on us--that we do have a generational identity, and that we didn't have it as easy as the Boomers (a fact often
The problem is partly in the execution. She made a decision that while she would interview a diverse group of women, the vast majority of them are not identified, and the feeling that comes across is that differences are smoothed over into a homogeneous experience that reads as white even when it isn't. The fact is that not all of us were given precisely the same messages as kids, even if we encountered many of the same structural obstacles (student loans, recessions, expensive childcare) as adults.
She deliberately decided to focus on the middle class, deciding that class differences were too great. That's actually a valid decision for this type of book, but the sample felt more specific than that: not just middle class, but a certain kind of middle class, the urban middle-to-upper-middle. Women who had followed what she was taught was the accepted path of college-career-family. Other than a chapter on women without children, there felt like little deviation from that: there was discussion of the stigma for the childless, but not the flipside, the stigma for women who had focused on family.
There's a lot of territory covered in under 300 pages, and while it's interesting, that gives it a highlights reel feeling. That said, there is a lot of good in the book. She accurately describes the way GenX women often feel they were set up to fail: that we were told we could do anything, only to find that we weren't really supported in doing it. I think Calhoun has a bit of a tendency to understate just how big those social obstacles can be--that in effect we were told we could have it all, but that no one would change for us. For example, in the section on "Lean In" and negotiating, she doesn't mention that research has disproven the thesis that women don't get raises because they don't ask. They do; they're less successful at it.
A lot of this resonated with me, but not all. I am interested to see how younger women, who I often see scoff at those of us now in our 40s, experience things as they hit our age.
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ignored in Generation Wars). Calhoun is close to my age and she nails a lot of the experiences of my childhood--the kind of benign neglect (and why we don't do the same for our own kids), the being taught that everything was on an upward trajectory for women and we could do everything, only to discover that we were just going to have to do everything. The problem is partly in the execution. She made a decision that while she would interview a diverse group of women, the vast majority of them are not identified, and the feeling that comes across is that differences are smoothed over into a homogeneous experience that reads as white even when it isn't. The fact is that not all of us were given precisely the same messages as kids, even if we encountered many of the same structural obstacles (student loans, recessions, expensive childcare) as adults.
She deliberately decided to focus on the middle class, deciding that class differences were too great. That's actually a valid decision for this type of book, but the sample felt more specific than that: not just middle class, but a certain kind of middle class, the urban middle-to-upper-middle. Women who had followed what she was taught was the accepted path of college-career-family. Other than a chapter on women without children, there felt like little deviation from that: there was discussion of the stigma for the childless, but not the flipside, the stigma for women who had focused on family.
There's a lot of territory covered in under 300 pages, and while it's interesting, that gives it a highlights reel feeling. That said, there is a lot of good in the book. She accurately describes the way GenX women often feel they were set up to fail: that we were told we could do anything, only to find that we weren't really supported in doing it. I think Calhoun has a bit of a tendency to understate just how big those social obstacles can be--that in effect we were told we could have it all, but that no one would change for us. For example, in the section on "Lean In" and negotiating, she doesn't mention that research has disproven the thesis that women don't get raises because they don't ask. They do; they're less successful at it.
A lot of this resonated with me, but not all. I am interested to see how younger women, who I often see scoff at those of us now in our 40s, experience things as they hit our age.
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LibraryThing member spinsterrevival
I’m the same age as the author (probably give or take a few months), and I had a harder time reading this because I felt a lot didn’t apply to me. She’s married with kids, and I wish she’d done more than one chapter on those of us not (which I think is a higher number than her acquaintances
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since I know quite a few of us). I think a lot of the background for reasoning here was good, but the anecdotes weren’t that great from a variety and diversity standpoint. I’m glad I finally read it but something just felt off which I can’t clarify. Show Less
LibraryThing member AngelaLam
Best book I've read so far this year. Need recommendations for more midlife tales about feminist women in this century.
LibraryThing member bohannon
At the wnd of a harried year, I was spurred by an online article on middle age to go looking for a particular book about men in mid life, and instead found this at the local public library. I'm glad I did.
Great I sight into both the general stresses on folks of my generation as we are in mid life,
Well worth the read.
(2022 Book 10)
Great I sight into both the general stresses on folks of my generation as we are in mid life,
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and more particularly a great window into the life of my wife and other women in my life.Well worth the read.
(2022 Book 10)
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LibraryThing member ASKelmore
Best for:
Women at the start of their midlife.
In a nutshell:
Author Calhoun explores the unique challenges that Gen X women are facing as they enter and continue through midlife.
Worth quoting:
“But Gen Xers entered life with ‘having it all’ not as a bright new option but as a mandatory social
“The last think we need at this stage of life is self-help…What we need at this stage isn’t more advice, but solace.”
Why I chose it:
Well, by most accounts I am Gen X. I’m in my 40s. And things are getting fucking hard.
How it left me feeling:
Seen
Review:
Without getting into too much detail, my visit to see my parents over New Year was stressful in a new way. They are in their 70s, and with that comes some of the expected challenges. I live about 6,000 miles from them, and my sibling lives about 3,000 miles from them, so that’s something else added into the mix. During a quick outing one day, my partner and I popped into a bookstore and this book damn near jumped off the shelves into my hand.
Calhoun looks at so many different aspects of what life is like for middle-aged Gen Xers, and I appreciate that she’s clear that it isn’t all bad. There is a lot that we have going well for us, but there are a lot of issues that she argues are unique to our generation - that won’t impact Millenials the same way, for example. A lot of the focus is on how the expectations have not matched reality, and she argues that Millenials don’t have the same types of expectations, which on the one hand, bummer, but on the other hand, allows them to age with a more realistic outlook on what is reasonable to expect out of life.
The book could feel defeatist in the hands of a less talented author, but the way Calhoun shares the stories of those she has interviewed, and mixes it with her research into what middle-aged women are experiencing, makes it feel more hopeful (in a realistic way). She shares some of her own stories too, but the focus is on other women and how they’re navigating the discrepancy between what they thought their life would be (and what society has told them it SHOULD be), and what it actually is. She doesn’t provide a bunch of tips or solutions, save the big one, which is to adjust one’s expectations. That sounds like a total bummer reading it in just this tiny review, but in the context of the book? It felt pretty great to read.
The only area that rubbed me the wrong way was the choice she made to heavily quote from a male ‘expert’ when talking about divorce. That guy had some … interesting takes. I’m still baffled as to why it was included.
Calhoun interviewed over 200 women across demographics to inform this book, though she shares that it is primarily focused on middle-class women because, “Very poor women in this country bear additional burdens that are beyond the scope of a book this size. Very rich women have plenty of reality TV shows about them already.” So the reader knows that, like, obviously the women this book is aimed at will have different challenges than people who have very little money. I appreciate that the book doesn’t try to be all things to all women, and I also appreciate that within the economic boundaries she set, the author spoke to women of different races, sexualities, and career fields, along with women who are partnered, single, have children, and don’t.
Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep and recommend to friends by age.
Women at the start of their midlife.
In a nutshell:
Author Calhoun explores the unique challenges that Gen X women are facing as they enter and continue through midlife.
Worth quoting:
“But Gen Xers entered life with ‘having it all’ not as a bright new option but as a mandatory social
Show More
condition.”“The last think we need at this stage of life is self-help…What we need at this stage isn’t more advice, but solace.”
Why I chose it:
Well, by most accounts I am Gen X. I’m in my 40s. And things are getting fucking hard.
How it left me feeling:
Seen
Review:
Without getting into too much detail, my visit to see my parents over New Year was stressful in a new way. They are in their 70s, and with that comes some of the expected challenges. I live about 6,000 miles from them, and my sibling lives about 3,000 miles from them, so that’s something else added into the mix. During a quick outing one day, my partner and I popped into a bookstore and this book damn near jumped off the shelves into my hand.
Calhoun looks at so many different aspects of what life is like for middle-aged Gen Xers, and I appreciate that she’s clear that it isn’t all bad. There is a lot that we have going well for us, but there are a lot of issues that she argues are unique to our generation - that won’t impact Millenials the same way, for example. A lot of the focus is on how the expectations have not matched reality, and she argues that Millenials don’t have the same types of expectations, which on the one hand, bummer, but on the other hand, allows them to age with a more realistic outlook on what is reasonable to expect out of life.
The book could feel defeatist in the hands of a less talented author, but the way Calhoun shares the stories of those she has interviewed, and mixes it with her research into what middle-aged women are experiencing, makes it feel more hopeful (in a realistic way). She shares some of her own stories too, but the focus is on other women and how they’re navigating the discrepancy between what they thought their life would be (and what society has told them it SHOULD be), and what it actually is. She doesn’t provide a bunch of tips or solutions, save the big one, which is to adjust one’s expectations. That sounds like a total bummer reading it in just this tiny review, but in the context of the book? It felt pretty great to read.
The only area that rubbed me the wrong way was the choice she made to heavily quote from a male ‘expert’ when talking about divorce. That guy had some … interesting takes. I’m still baffled as to why it was included.
Calhoun interviewed over 200 women across demographics to inform this book, though she shares that it is primarily focused on middle-class women because, “Very poor women in this country bear additional burdens that are beyond the scope of a book this size. Very rich women have plenty of reality TV shows about them already.” So the reader knows that, like, obviously the women this book is aimed at will have different challenges than people who have very little money. I appreciate that the book doesn’t try to be all things to all women, and I also appreciate that within the economic boundaries she set, the author spoke to women of different races, sexualities, and career fields, along with women who are partnered, single, have children, and don’t.
Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep and recommend to friends by age.
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LibraryThing member Paperandkindness
Review of: Why We Can't Sleep by Ada Calhoun
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Here goes.
I picked up Why We Can't Sleep because I've struggled with insomnia for most of my adult life. Although the book is written for the women of Generation X, I felt that
The book is divided into eleven chapters with each chapter delving into a different aspect of why Gen X women can't sleep. Topics include biological factors that affect sleep such as Peri-menopause, as well as cultural and personal factors such as worry over crushing debt and struggling relationships. Although each chapter was well researched, there were many instances where the author included quotes and stories from her personal friends. While I feel that every woman's voice is valuable and it's important to look at the people behind the statistics, there were times when including her friends' experiences without providing credentials or some type of background information about her friends weakened the point the author was trying to make..It seemed like most of the author's friends were from the middle and upper classes and this resulted in women in poverty being underrepresented.
This book does a fantastic job of validating the average Gen X woman's experience. The author recognizes that in situations where there are no easy answers sometimes the best remedy is the support of others who have been there too. Overall, this book was well-written and well-researched, but it wasn't for me and that's okay.
Rating 3/5
I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Here goes.
I picked up Why We Can't Sleep because I've struggled with insomnia for most of my adult life. Although the book is written for the women of Generation X, I felt that
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as an older millennial (1985) who has trouble sleeping I was close enough to the target audience to justify reading and reviewing this book. While there were portions that were relevant to me, I really wouldn't recommend this book for Millennials, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it to Boomers. The book is dismissive of other generation's struggles and I found this off-putting to say the least. The book is divided into eleven chapters with each chapter delving into a different aspect of why Gen X women can't sleep. Topics include biological factors that affect sleep such as Peri-menopause, as well as cultural and personal factors such as worry over crushing debt and struggling relationships. Although each chapter was well researched, there were many instances where the author included quotes and stories from her personal friends. While I feel that every woman's voice is valuable and it's important to look at the people behind the statistics, there were times when including her friends' experiences without providing credentials or some type of background information about her friends weakened the point the author was trying to make..It seemed like most of the author's friends were from the middle and upper classes and this resulted in women in poverty being underrepresented.
This book does a fantastic job of validating the average Gen X woman's experience. The author recognizes that in situations where there are no easy answers sometimes the best remedy is the support of others who have been there too. Overall, this book was well-written and well-researched, but it wasn't for me and that's okay.
Rating 3/5
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Language
Original publication date
2020-01-07
Physical description
288 p.; 9.25 inches
ISBN
1611854679 / 9781611854671
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DDC/MDS
| 305.2440973 |