Middle Age? No thank you, we’re just not ready!

January 20, 2010

This year was a milestone for me. I hit the big FOUR O. Which means that if I am lucky enough to make it all the way through to my expected arrival date at the Pearly Gates, I have now officially entered into ‘Middle Age’. Ouch! That hurt! I don’t feel middle aged, hopefully don’t think I look it and my fellow middle-agers and I certainly don’t act it. We’re not quite ready for elasticated skirts, twin-sets and slippers and are in fact rediscovering our lost youth after years of sleepless baby grind and tearing around after small people. I can’t help thinking that we are making a point of growing older very slowly and – unless of course you were fortunate enough to have had a distinctly uber trendy upbringing – as a generation we are probably much more in sync with our children than the previous one.

Being otherwise known as the Catwalk Queen I shall begin with clothing. Taking the essential yummy mummy boot-leg jeans as a given, a lot of my fellow 40-somethings would also think nothing of popping down the High Street to grab the very latest ‘must-have’ fashion item, whether that be sequin leggings or 4 inch heeled leopard print boots. I don’t think any of them would consider for a moment that they might just be too old. If they want to look like Kate Moss in her latest Top Shop ad then they blinking well will, whereas I am pretty sure our 40 year old mothers would not even have walked into the likes of Top Shop let alone contemplated buying sequin leggings. No, no, no. Most of them played safe and went to M&S for the sort of 40-something attire they felt was expected of them. A lot of this re-education in middle years dressing is not just down to clever marketing and the influences of the likes of Trinny & Susannah but, it is – to quote our dear friend Gok – that we now just so want to be ‘on trend’.

The other big thing to keep us in tune with our kids is Music. As a teenager I came up against a lot of parental resistance to ‘pop’.  It was deemed ‘a terrible noise’. I was certainly never allowed to listen to it on car journeys until, thank heavens, that wonderful invention the Walkman arrived. My parents despaired at the fact that I would listen to Frankie Goes to Hollywood at high decibels when apparently studying – although I have found that particular multi-tasking skill has stood me in good stead with a house full of rowdy boys. I am still very much grooving on down to the latest sounds. We middle-agers are the ones frantically buying concert tickets to see the latest music sensations at the O2 and it is we who are up on the dance floor as quick as you can say Black Eyed Peas to the likes of The Shapeshifters and The Freemasons without producing hysterical laughter from our offspring. It just doesn’t seem that odd to them, whereas when we were young parental disco humiliation was avoided at all costs. Have you also noticed how it’s the Mummies and Daddies tuning into X factor every week whilst the 5 year olds are begging them to switch over so they can watch ‘Strictly’.

Talking television brings me to the subject of technology. Let’s face it, we are the generation of emailers, texters, facebookers and twitterers. We are so desperate to have the latest technology for fear of missing out on something – a missed coffee morning perhaps (dread the thought) – that we have retrained ourselves into techno boffins. We also can’t be allowed to be left behind by our kids. If only for their safety and security, we need to know exactly what they are up to on their journeys on the world wide web. Which means we

need to stay one step ahead of them. For me this has resulted in a crash course in Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin and setting up a You Tube site with my eldest performing his moonwalk impression. I’ll be controlling the Space Station next!

As we move into the Christmas present buying season, it’s fascinating to watch the Daddies influencing their little dears into what they should be asking Santa for. That’s because Daddy wants to be a Guitar Hero too! As the Wii has taken hold in households across the nation, it’s not just the youngies that are leaping around the living room console in hand, but a whole new generation of techno parents. With a historical parentage that was literally flummoxed by TV remote controls I think we could now call ourselves a pretty ‘with it’ lot! So there you have it. A profile of a 40-something parent. It is often said that children keep you young. Of course they don’t hold back the ravages of time – the grey hairs and the crows fee t will appear whatever – but if we stick with the youth posse we can hopefully hold out until the desire for hush puppies overwhelms the need for thigh high boots.

By Mary Lou Burge

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