Customer Reviews

If Not Now when: Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife

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As a career coach who works with midlife career changers, I was hoping to get some insights from this book. I will put it on my website as a resource for midlife women. However, most of my female clients will not find themselves in this book.

Marston writes to women who are secure financially but not emotionally -- the ideal target market for a therapist. Yet many midlife women find themselves facing career dilemmas. They may be laid off or simply find their work unrewarding. They may be financially stressed, with college-bound children and divorce-bound husbands. Some are widowed, tragically, or faced with aging parents who demand time and money. Relatives crawl out of the woodwork, hoping for handouts.

Marston does describe one woman feels helpless when losing her job -- but a few pages later she's happily set up in a new business and already has her first large order! Stories like these can create unrealistic expectations. I talk to women who get laid off after twenty-plus years, blow through their severance, and start a business from necessity, not self-fulfillment. The corporate world is not kind to midlife women. And while a few do find orders flooding in, most struggle with marketing dilemmas. After living comfortably with a husband or corporate security blanket, many women are completely unprepared to take the big step to business ownership.

So, while I appreciated the insights of this book, I found myself thinking, "Who has time to do all this self-reflection?" And the section on beauty misses a key point. We can be as self-accepting as we please...

I also felt the book painted a rosy picture of friendships (not everyone has reached middle age with close "gal pals"). I find that many midlife women turn to family -- parents, siblings, grown children -- and have less time or interest in friendship. Others find they want to distance themselves from family but get calls for everything from money to signatures on cremation permission. I'd like to see more stories of conflict and resolution.

Don't get me wrong: I think the book has valuable insights for many women. It's well-written and the stories, despite their magical qualities, entertain. The chapters on sex and relationships seemed right on. But if you're not a comfortably-off aging yuppie, you might find many of these insights irrelevant.

Stephanie Marston is one of the most sought-after experts on women and midlife. She interviewed a large number of women for this book and combined it with her own experience for a book that sheds a lot of light on what it means to be a woman during that mystical and misunderstood phase of life, menopause.

In one part of the book, the author describes how she goes through her closet, tossing out designer high heels that pinch, clothes that are too tight in the waist, that itch, and replaces them with comfortable clothes that reflected her new feelings about herself. This is a wonderful metaphor for what many of the women in "If Not Now, When?" go through in their relationships. Marriages are suddenly confining, "going-along-to-get-along" no longer works. Passive acceptance of all kinds of things, from being the chief organizer of holiday dinners to shutting an eye to infidelity is no longer tolerable. Women who are at the age of menopause may feel a simultaneous burst of anger and liberations. It's not all bad. In fact, it can be pretty darn good!

This book talks about the psychology of maturity for women. It expands on what Christine Northrup calls "the lifting of the veil of hormones" and shows what positive changes lie ahead for women who may have suppressed their true identity for most of their lives. Women who once relied on beauty to manipulate the world look in the mirror and realize that despite the best that exercise, diet, cosmetics and surgery can give them, they are no longer youthful goddesses. Their entire way of dealing with and being dealt with changes

Marston describes how women are socialized from birth to bury part of their true selves, to be "good girls," to willingly lose games to boys, to place their light under a bushel. This is why girls who do well in elementary school suddenly drop behind the boys as they go to middle school and reach menarche. A quote in the book from Emily Hancock remarks that there is a "buried core of women's identity...a root identity that gets cut off in the process of growing up female." At the time of menopause, women begin to regain this identity, fueled by the lifting of the veil of hormones and the completion of the phase of life where motherhood and physical attractions are the main thing women are valued for.

There are 40 million women, baby boomers, facing menopause. Up until now, medicine has viewed menopause, like childbirth, as a medical condition to be "treated." Now women are redefining what it means to be a complete, mature woman and they are a powerful presence. If you are a woman of any age old or young, this book will be of incredible value to provide insights into what it means to be a woman and to be yourself.

I loved this book. It is one of the most insightful and encouraging books I've read on how to make midlife a rich and meaningful time. I tend to think that what I experience in my life is just about me. This book has shown me that it's as much about "us" as "me." It has allowed me to see that midlife for women has some common themes that we all share. This book validated my experience. It's a book that inspires the renewal of lost promises with ourselves. It gives a clear and exciting voice to all the feelings we women struggle to express. I feel a sigh of relief-somebody gets it!! Each chapter was worth the price of admission.

Negotiating midlife is a challenging process for either gender. But for women in particular, this passage is a largely uncharted sea. One can find books that talk about menopause and other physical aspects of midlife. Yet our complex emotional lives have been left curiously unmapped. And now, finally, finally, FINALLY along comes Marston's wonderful book. As I read each chapter, I felt myself to be in the company of a variety of likeable women who were engaged in the difficult but glorious struggle of becoming their best selves in the second half of their lives. The book was, at once, permission giving and inspiring; instructional but never pedantic; clear and elegantly simple, yet very, very smart. It's a compendium of teaching tales, a guidebook, a companion--with Marston's clear-eyed and humorous voice anchoring throughout.

I have a small pile of favorite books by my bedside. It's these books I turn to in the middle of the night when I am being kept awake by crazy, nameless anxieties. (You know the ones I mean, the nasty little beasts that creep out from under the bedroom rug at 3AM.) At those moments, I look to my collection of best loved books as friends that will calm me, bring me back to my center, remind me of what I already know deep down, but have momentarily forgotten. Just this morning, I took Stephanie Marston's book and put it on the very top of that pile of wise and comforting volumes.

I agree with Cathy Goodwin's observations about the shortcomings of this book. I simply couldn't relate to the women profiled and their comfortable lives. In fact, I found it all rather depressing. IMO, people who are financially well-off just don't seem to realize just how much having money gives them opportunities, choices and comforts that less well-off people will never have. Maybe Ms Goodwin should write a book for the rest of us!

Have you ever read a book that was really a lengthened magazine article? That's this book. I ordered it on the heels of reading Martha Beck's excellent "Finding Your Own North Star." By comparison, this book has very little insight despite the many personal anecdotes.

The book's main point is that women reaching mid-life in this generation face unique situations (probably true) and that we are unequipped to face them (also probably true). But what about giving us some strategies, tools, or means to achieve insight? Nothing between these covers that fits the bill.

Stephanie Marston has become one of my newest and closest "best friends". Reading this book was reminiscent of having a long talk with my best friend, having her listen to my every word as I shared my inner most thoughts, then having her answer all my questions and take away any doubts that what I've been experiencing is common among women my age and I am not losing my mind. I was hooked and yearning for more after reading just the first chapter and you will be too! This is definitely a "must-read" for any woman past the age of 45.

I was somewhat disappointed in IF NOT NOW, WHEN? I suppose some folks may find this type of story-telling helpful. But, for me, it was too much story and not enough how-to. I was hoping, and expecting, some type of guide on how to get to what's next in this the second half of my life. It did not give any concrete instruction. If you are looking for a book that gets your heart racing and thinking about what you have to look forward to, and what you can do to get there, read WHAT'S NEXT: WOMEN REDEFINING THEIR DREAMS IN THE PRIME OF LIFE.

I just finished reading If Not Now, When? and it is the best I have read about women and midlife and I've read a lot. As I read through the chapters, savoring them to make them last longer, I felt like I found myself in the stories of other women and that was truly comforting. I just turned 45 and I heard my inner voice saying "I'm doing something right." The presentation, the stories, the humor, the information were a perfect mix. This book spoke so deeply to me. I can't tell you how many women I have recommended it to.

I just finished reading If Not Now, When?. It rings clear and true! It is such a wonderful exploration of what I'm going through in my life. I'm 45 years old and this book speaks directly to my experience and is a clear articulation of my own process of rediscovering myself. It is so comforting to know that I have company as I go through this transition. In the course of reading this book I had new insights about myself and most of all it has filled me with renewed enthusiasm and courage to continue on my journey. If Not Now, When? lights the way for midlife women.