If you want to know how old you look, just walk into a French cafe. It’s like a public referendum on your face.
When I moved to Paris in my early 30s, waiters called me “mademoiselle.” It was “Bonjour, mademoiselle” when I walked into a cafe and “Voilà, mademoiselle” as they set down a coffee.
Around the time I turned 40, however, there was a collective switch, and waiters started calling me “madame.” These “madames” were tentative at first, but soon they were coming at me like a hailstorm. Now it’s “Bonjour, madame” when I walk in, “Merci, madame” when I pay my bill and “Au revoir, madame” as I leave. Sometimes several waiters shout this at once.
On one hand, I’m intrigued by this transition. Do these waiters gather after work for Sancerre and a slide show to decide which female customers to downgrade? (Irritatingly, men are “monsieur” forever.)
The worst part is that they’re trying to be polite. They believe I’m old enough that the title can’t possibly wound.
I realize that something has permanently shifted when I walk past a woman begging for money.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” she calls out to the young woman in a miniskirt a few steps ahead of me.
When I moved to Paris in my early 30s, waiters called me “mademoiselle.” It was “Bonjour, mademoiselle” when I walked into a cafe and “Voilà, mademoiselle” as they set down a coffee.
Around the time I turned 40, however, there was a collective switch, and waiters started calling me “madame.” These “madames” were tentative at first, but soon they were coming at me like a hailstorm. Now it’s “Bonjour, madame” when I walk in, “Merci, madame” when I pay my bill and “Au revoir, madame” as I leave. Sometimes several waiters shout this at once.
On one hand, I’m intrigued by this transition. Do these waiters gather after work for Sancerre and a slide show to decide which female customers to downgrade? (Irritatingly, men are “monsieur” forever.)The worst part is that they’re trying to be polite. They believe I’m old enough that the title can’t possibly wound.
I realize that something has permanently shifted when I walk past a woman begging for money.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” she calls out to the young woman in a miniskirt a few steps ahead of me.
“Bonjour, madame,” she says when I pass.
This has all happened too quickly for me to digest. I still have most of the clothes that I wore as a mademoiselle. There are mademoiselle-era cans of food in my pantry.
But the world keeps telling me that I’ve entered a new stage. While studying my face in a well-lit elevator, my daughter describes it bluntly: “Mommy, you’re not old, but you’re definitely not young.”
What exactly is this not-young age? I hear people in their 20s describe the 40s as a far-off decade of too-late, when they’ll regret things that they haven’t done. But for older people I meet, the 40s are the decade that they would most like to travel back to. “How could I possibly have thought of myself as old at 40?” asks Stanley Brandes, an anthropologist who wrote a book in 1985 about turning 40. “I sort of look back and think: God, how lucky I was. I see it as the beginning of life, not the beginning of the end.” (...)
And age 40 still feels pivotal. “The 40s are when you become who you are,” a British author in his 70s tells me, adding ominously, “And if you don’t know by your 40s, you never will.”
I’m starting to see that as a madame, even a newly minted one, I am subject to new rules. When I try to act adorably naïve now, people aren’t charmed — they’re baffled. Cluelessness no longer goes with my face. I’m expected to wait in the correct line at airports and show up on time for my appointments.
And yet brain research shows that in the 40s, some of these tasks are harder: On average we’re more easily distracted than younger people, we digest information more slowly and we’re worse at remembering specific facts. (The ability to remember names peaks in the early 20s.) You know you’re in your 40s when you’ve spent 48 hours trying to think of a word, and that word was “hemorrhoids.”
But there are upsides, too. What we lack in processing power we make up for in maturity, insight and experience. We’re better than younger people at grasping the essence of situations, controlling our emotions and resolving conflicts. We’re more skilled at managing money and explaining why things happen. We’re more considerate than younger people. And, crucially for our happiness, we’re less neurotic.
Indeed, modern neuroscience and psychology confirm what Aristotle said more than 2,000 years ago when he described men in their “primes” as having “neither that excess of confidence which amounts to rashness, nor too much timidity, but the right amount of each. They neither trust everybody nor distrust everybody, but judge people correctly.”
I agree. We’ve actually managed to learn and grow a bit. We see the hidden costs of things. Our parents have stopped trying to change us. We can tell when something is ridiculous. And other minds are finally less opaque. The seminal journey of the 40s is from “everyone hates me” to “they don’t really care.”
Even so, the decade is confusing. We can finally decode interpersonal dynamics, but we can’t remember a two-digit number. We’re at or approaching our lifetime peak in earnings, but Botox now seems like a reasonable idea. We’re reaching the height of our careers, but we can now see how they will probably end.
And this new age is strangely lacking in milestones. Childhood and adolescence are nothing but milestones: You grow taller, advance to new grades, and get your period, your driver’s license and your diploma. Then in your 20s and 30s you romance potential partners, find jobs and learn to support yourself. There may be promotions, babies and weddings. The pings of adrenaline from all these carry you forward and reassure you that you’re building an adult life.
In the 40s, we might still acquire degrees, jobs, homes and spouses, but these elicit less wonder now. The mentors and parents who used to rejoice in our achievements are preoccupied with their own declines. If we have kids, we’re supposed to marvel at their milestones. (...)
What have we aged into? We’re still capable of action, change and 10K races. But there’s a new immediacy to the 40s — and an awareness of death — that didn’t exist before. Our possibilities feel more finite. All choices now plainly exclude others. It’s pointless to keep pretending to be what we’re not. At 40, we’re no longer preparing for an imagined future life. Our real lives are, indisputably, happening right now. We’ve arrived at what Immanuel Kant called the “Ding an sich” — the thing itself.
This has all happened too quickly for me to digest. I still have most of the clothes that I wore as a mademoiselle. There are mademoiselle-era cans of food in my pantry.
But the world keeps telling me that I’ve entered a new stage. While studying my face in a well-lit elevator, my daughter describes it bluntly: “Mommy, you’re not old, but you’re definitely not young.”
What exactly is this not-young age? I hear people in their 20s describe the 40s as a far-off decade of too-late, when they’ll regret things that they haven’t done. But for older people I meet, the 40s are the decade that they would most like to travel back to. “How could I possibly have thought of myself as old at 40?” asks Stanley Brandes, an anthropologist who wrote a book in 1985 about turning 40. “I sort of look back and think: God, how lucky I was. I see it as the beginning of life, not the beginning of the end.” (...)
And age 40 still feels pivotal. “The 40s are when you become who you are,” a British author in his 70s tells me, adding ominously, “And if you don’t know by your 40s, you never will.”
I’m starting to see that as a madame, even a newly minted one, I am subject to new rules. When I try to act adorably naïve now, people aren’t charmed — they’re baffled. Cluelessness no longer goes with my face. I’m expected to wait in the correct line at airports and show up on time for my appointments.
And yet brain research shows that in the 40s, some of these tasks are harder: On average we’re more easily distracted than younger people, we digest information more slowly and we’re worse at remembering specific facts. (The ability to remember names peaks in the early 20s.) You know you’re in your 40s when you’ve spent 48 hours trying to think of a word, and that word was “hemorrhoids.”
But there are upsides, too. What we lack in processing power we make up for in maturity, insight and experience. We’re better than younger people at grasping the essence of situations, controlling our emotions and resolving conflicts. We’re more skilled at managing money and explaining why things happen. We’re more considerate than younger people. And, crucially for our happiness, we’re less neurotic.
Indeed, modern neuroscience and psychology confirm what Aristotle said more than 2,000 years ago when he described men in their “primes” as having “neither that excess of confidence which amounts to rashness, nor too much timidity, but the right amount of each. They neither trust everybody nor distrust everybody, but judge people correctly.”
I agree. We’ve actually managed to learn and grow a bit. We see the hidden costs of things. Our parents have stopped trying to change us. We can tell when something is ridiculous. And other minds are finally less opaque. The seminal journey of the 40s is from “everyone hates me” to “they don’t really care.”
Even so, the decade is confusing. We can finally decode interpersonal dynamics, but we can’t remember a two-digit number. We’re at or approaching our lifetime peak in earnings, but Botox now seems like a reasonable idea. We’re reaching the height of our careers, but we can now see how they will probably end.
And this new age is strangely lacking in milestones. Childhood and adolescence are nothing but milestones: You grow taller, advance to new grades, and get your period, your driver’s license and your diploma. Then in your 20s and 30s you romance potential partners, find jobs and learn to support yourself. There may be promotions, babies and weddings. The pings of adrenaline from all these carry you forward and reassure you that you’re building an adult life.
In the 40s, we might still acquire degrees, jobs, homes and spouses, but these elicit less wonder now. The mentors and parents who used to rejoice in our achievements are preoccupied with their own declines. If we have kids, we’re supposed to marvel at their milestones. (...)
What have we aged into? We’re still capable of action, change and 10K races. But there’s a new immediacy to the 40s — and an awareness of death — that didn’t exist before. Our possibilities feel more finite. All choices now plainly exclude others. It’s pointless to keep pretending to be what we’re not. At 40, we’re no longer preparing for an imagined future life. Our real lives are, indisputably, happening right now. We’ve arrived at what Immanuel Kant called the “Ding an sich” — the thing itself.
by Pamela Druckerman, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Rosalie Stroesser
