Finding Our Worth Across Generations and Through the Transitions of Midlife, Menopause, and Divorce.

Have you ever found yourself wondering, “Am I enough?”

Perhaps it was during your marriage, when you were trying to balance the needs of your family with your own. Perhaps it was during your divorce, when everything you believed about yourself and your future seemed uncertain. Maybe during perimenopause, when you no longer recognized your body or brain? Or perhaps it was during one of those quieter moments in midlife when you looked in the mirror and wondered where the years had gone and who you had become and wondering, am I enough?

Three little words. One enormous question. I wonder how long women have been asking themselves that question.

But maybe the question isn’t simply whether we are enough. Maybe it is why so many of us women have spent so much of our lives believing we had to prove that we are.

THE CHANGING DEFINITION OF WOMANHOOD

I grew up during an interesting time for women in the United States. We were somewhere between the established roles of the past and the emerging possibilities of a more open future.

Many of us grew up watching June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963), Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966), and Shirley Partridge in The Partridge Family (1970–1974).

These women represented different versions of womanhood. June was the devoted homemaker. Laura was a wife and mother with a life that extended beyond her kitchen. Shirley was a widowed mother raising five children while managing the family’s musical career. I cannot imagine any of these three TV mothersasking, “Am I enough?”

The images were evolving, but marriage and motherhood remained central to how women were portrayed.

Somewhere along the way, the women’s movement began suggesting that perhaps there could be more for women.

The world was changing, and possibilities were expanding. The idea of a woman pursuing her own ambitions, particularly outside the occupations traditionally available to women, was becoming increasingly visible.

I’m not a feminist scholar, nor am I an authority on women’s history. But from my perspective, having grown up during a time of tremendous social change, it seems to me that many women of my generation found themselves within a great transitional wave, somewhere between the familiar world of June, Laura, and Shirley and the emerging possibilities of the future.

We were beginning to see doors open that had largely been closed to previous generations of women, while the very definition of what it meant to be a woman was evolving before our eyes.

There was more room for what we could become, but I wonder whether there was more room to feel that we were enough.

THE IDEAL WOMAN

Our grandmothers, our mothers, ourselves, and eventually our daughters would each inherit a different understanding of what a woman’s life could be.

As the definition of womanhood changed, did our understanding of our own worth change with it?

Society continued to offer us images of what a woman should be: the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the successful career woman, the beautiful woman who somehow managed to do it all.

We were encouraged to take care of everyone, maintain our relationships, pursue our ambitions, and somehow keep our households running smoothly.

But somewhere amid trying to become everything we were supposed to be, did we ever stop to discover who we really were?

I find myself thinking about the vicissitudes of womanhood, the changing and sometimes contradictory relationship between society’s definition of the ideal woman and a woman’s ability to recognize her own worth.

And nowhere is that contradiction more visible than in the images of women that we grew up on and that surround us now in the age of electronic instant media. Consider the changing standards of beauty.

MARILYN

There was Marilyn Monroe, with her curves and platinum-blonde hair. Then came Twiggy, whose extraordinarily slender figure helped define a very different ideal of beauty in the 1960s.

Decades later, we would see the rise of the Kardashian aesthetic, with its emphasis on curves, carefully cultivated appearances, and an entirely different vision of the desirable female body.

The ideal changed. Again and again. And women were left trying to keep up.

But these images were more than weight or fashion. They also reflected assumptions about youth, skin color, hair texture, physical ability, and what a woman’s body was supposed to look like. Women whose appearances did not conform to prevailing standards could find themselves excluded from the very definition of beauty.

And what about women living with disabilities? Women whose bodies looked or functioned differently? Women whose skin color, hair, height, weight, or age placed them outside whatever ideal happened to be celebrated? Where did they fit into society’s picture of the ideal woman?

Where did any of us fit? Perhaps the problem was never that we failed to measure up. Perhaps the problem was the measuring.

THE WISDOM OF CHILDREN

Recently, I purchased a children’s book called I Am Enough, written by Grace Byers and illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo.

Although written for children, its message speaks to something I believe women of every age need to hear.

The book celebrates individuality, difference, kindness, and the inherent worth of every person. What a wonderful message to offer a child. And what a wonderful reminder for an adult.

I wonder how differently we might experience our lives if we grew up knowing, truly knowing, that our value was not determined by our appearance, our accomplishments, our relationships, or our ability to meet someone else’s expectations.

WHAT IF?

What if we did not have to be the prettiest, the thinnest, the smartest, the most successful, or the most accomplished person in the room?

What if we could appreciate another woman’s beauty without diminishing our own?

What if we celebrated another woman’s success without questioning our achievements, recognized our differences without assigning them a hierarchy of worth, and supported each other in all our imperfections?

Perhaps we could begin to understand that being enough was never about being perfect. It was about being human.

MIDLIFE AND MENOPAUSE

And then, of course, there is menopause.

For women who have spent decades navigating society’s expectations about beauty, marriage, motherhood, and success, menopause can introduce an entirely new set of questions.

Our bodies can change. Things might dry up, things sag, and hair falls out or grows where we don’t want it.

Our appearance can change. We might have wrinkles and gray hair and jiggle.

Our reproductive years come to an end.

And in a society that has so often associated a woman’s value with youth, physical attractiveness, and her ability to bear children, these changes can challenge our understanding of ourselves:

If I am no longer young, am I still beautiful?

If I can no longer have children, am I somehow less of a woman?

If my children are grown and no longer need me in the same way, what is my purpose?

These questions reveal something troubling about the ways women have historically been valued and have wrestled with the age-old question of being enough.

We are so much more than our reproductive capabilities. Indeed, one of the fascinating questions surrounding menopause is why women can live for decades beyond their reproductive years. In evolutionary biology, researchers have explored the significance of post-reproductive females in human communities and certain whale populations. One explanation, often called the grandmother hypothesis, suggests that older females contribute to the survival and well-being of subsequent generations through their experience, knowledge, caregiving, and support. The research continues, and the evolutionary story is undoubtedly complex.

But I love the larger possibility it suggests: Perhaps our value does not diminish when our reproductive years end. Perhaps it takes on different forms.

THE CRONE GENERATION

In Jungian psychology and mythology, we encounter the archetype of the crone, the older woman associated with wisdom, experience, and knowledge acquired through a lifetime of living.

Not the frightening caricature of an old woman found in so many fairy tales, but the wise woman:

The woman who has lived.

Who has loved and lost.

Who has made mistakes and learned from them.

Who has endured hardship, witnessed change, and gathered the wisdom that only time and experience can provide.

I find something deeply reassuring in that image.

WHEN A MARRIAGE ENDS

Menopause isn’t the only big life transition that can rock us to our core. The end of a marriage can be equally profound, challenging not only the life we have built but also our understanding of who we are.

Growing up, divorce was not something I encountered in my everyday world. In fact, I don’t remember knowing anyone whose parents were divorced until I was about twenty years old. The young woman I met when I was 20 came from California, and her parents had divorced. I remember it precisely because it was so unfamiliar to me.

Divorce existed, of course. But in the world in which I grew up, it was not part of the ordinary picture of family life.

Even television reflected this.

We watched widows and widowers raising children. Shirley Partridge was a widow. The familiar television world offered numerous families shaped by the death of a spouse, but comparatively few whose stories began with divorce.

The death of a spouse was an accepted explanation for a family that did not include both parents. Divorce was something different. It carried a stigma.

STIGMA AND WORTH

And although divorce has become considerably more common and socially accepted during my lifetime, I think remnants of that stigma remain.

There can still be a raised eyebrow. A subtle—and not so subtle—judgment. An unspoken question about what went wrong, who was responsible, and whether someone failed.

For women whose culture and identities have been closely connected to marriage, divorce can strike at the very heart of their sense of worth.

We may have spent decades being wives, mothers, partners, homemakers, professionals, caregivers, and the people who kept everything running.

We may have tried our hardest to create happy homes and successful marriages.

And then, despite those efforts, the marriage ends. Suddenly, the familiar roles change.

The future we imagined may no longer exist. And the questions begin:

Was I a good enough wife?

Did I try hard enough?

Was I attractive enough?

Was I patient enough?

Was I loving enough?

Why wasn’t I enough to make the marriage work?

These questions can be particularly painful when divorce coincides with menopause, children leaving home, career changes, aging parents, or other significant life transitions.

So many of the familiar ways we have understood ourselves may be changing at once. And when the structure of our life changes, it can be tempting to believe that our value has changed with it.

But has it?

ENOUGH AND STILL BECOMING

I have come to believe that one of the most important distinctions we can make is between our circumstances and our worth:

A marriage can end without making either person’s life a failure.

Our bodies can change without diminishing our beauty or our humanity.

Our children can grow up and establish independent lives without making our years of motherhood any less meaningful.

Our careers can change.

Our relationships can change.

Our priorities can change.

And we can change.

None of these things determines our inherent worth.

FINDING OUR WORTH

I also believe that being enough does not mean we have finished growing.

It does not mean we have nothing left to learn, no mistakes to acknowledge, or no changes to make. It means we can recognize our worth while continuing to become.

This is one of the ideas I return to again and again in my own life and in The Fitzgerald Method: We can be enough and still be becoming.

We can acknowledge what has happened without allowing it to define everything that comes next.

We can recognize our mistakes without making them the measure of our lives.

And we can begin again without believing that everything we were before, was somehow inadequate.

Perhaps the great opportunity of midlife, especially when accompanied by divorce or another major transition, is that we are invited to reconsider the definitions we have inherited.

The definition of a good wife.

A good mother.

A successful woman.

A beautiful woman.

A woman of a certain age.

And perhaps, most importantly, the definition of enough. For so much of our lives, we may have looked outward for the answer.

To our families.

Our partners.

Our children.

Our careers.

Our communities.

To society itself.

But what if the answer was never theirs to give? What if being enough was never something we had to earn? And what if the question isn’t simply whether we are enough? Maybe it is why so many of us women have spent so much of our lives believing we had to prove that we are.

AM I ENOUGH?

And what if, even as we continue to grow, learn, change, and discover new possibilities for our lives, we could finally say:

Yes, I am enough, but not because my marriages succeeded or failed.

Yes, I am enough, but not because of how I look, how old I am, or what I have accomplished.

Yes, I am enough, but not because someone else has decided I am worthy.

But because my worth belongs to me.

It always has.

And it does not disappear when a marriage ends or when we transition to menopause.

You are enough. And you are still becoming.